What data is actually moving
Hubject is supplying Localiser with two layers of information: POI data on charging stations and real-world usage patterns from its international roaming network. Localiser already runs 35,000 site evaluations per month, combining population density, traffic flows, points of interest and competitor locations to forecast energy demand and utilisation.
The addition of Hubject's network data lets those forecasts be checked against how comparable charge points actually perform. "Charging infrastructure only serves drivers if it's built where it's actually needed," says Hubject CEO Christian Hahn. For a planning tool, that is a meaningful shift: projections get a reality benchmark.
The announcement was first reported by electrive.
Why utilisation now matters more than sheer coverage
The partnership also covers existing sites. Localiser plans to use the data for dashboards and reports that let operators track market developments and compare their own charge point utilisation with aggregated network figures. That matters because public charging is moving from a coverage race to an economics problem. A charge point built in the wrong place may meet a policy target but produce poor returns, and underused hardware is expensive to maintain.
We have written before about how infrastructure data gaps limit new charging services. In our report on BMW and E.ON's bidirectional charging promise, Germany's smart meter penetration was just 5.5%, which makes real-time data sharing far harder than it looks on paper. Similar data-quality questions apply to utilisation benchmarking: the value of Hubject's feed depends on how fresh and granular the figures are, not just how many charge points sit in the network.
Our data: 483 locations and a missing price layer
At evmagazine we keep our own, much smaller supercharger database: 483 locations across Europe with charging prices. It is a fraction of Hubject's 1.1 million charge points, but it covers something the Localiser announcement does not mention: the price per kWh.
Utilisation is only half the story. A busy charger at €0.85/kWh and an empty one at €0.35/kWh look very different to drivers and produce very different operator economics. If planning tools only model traffic and usage, they risk recommending sites where drivers charge reluctantly because the price is high. Our cheapest superchargers page shows how wide those price spreads can be, and our charging station map lets drivers see what is actually around them.
What we do not know yet
Hubject and Localiser describe the agreement as the first step in a broader collaboration, with the stated goal of improving the economic viability of charging networks. But neither company has published details on data latency, whether pricing is included, or how individual charge point data is aggregated to protect operator confidentiality. Those details will determine whether the benchmarking is genuinely useful for site planning or simply another dashboard metric.
For charge point operators and investors, the direction is sensible: professionalise planning with real-world usage data instead of relying on modelled demand. For drivers, nothing changes immediately, but better sited chargers should eventually mean fewer detours and shorter queues at the locations that are actually needed.
Source: https://www.electrive.com/2026/08/22/hubject-now-supplies-charging-data-to-localiser/
