Customer-centric method and system for pricing options and pricing/charging co-optimization at multiple plug-in electric vehicle charging stations

A system for optimizing the operation and costs of a fleet of charging stations, comprising:

• a fleet of charging stations, each charging station of the fleet including a plurality of charging terminals;
• a user interface configured to receive user inputs and to display a set of pricing options, wherein the user interface is associated with a website address or a downloadable native application;
• and
• cloud computing infrastructure configured to:
• receive the user inputs from the user interface, the user inputs including a planned departure time and a desired energy requirement for a respective charging terminal of said each charging station,
• generate the set of pricing options including a price for charging and a price for overstaying the planned departure time, wherein the set of pricing options includes a charging-ASAP pricing option and a charging-FLEX pricing option,
• transmit the set of pricing options to the user interface,
• receive a selection of a particular pricing option from the user interface,
• generate a charging schedule, and
• transmit the generated charging schedule and a set of power transfer specifications to the respective charging terminal,
• wherein the respective charging terminal is configured to charge a battery of a vehicle docked at the respective charging terminal according to the generated charging schedule and the set of power transfer specifications.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored therein that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform a method of optimizing operation of a charging station, comprising:

• receiving, from each user of a plurality of users of the charging station, user inputs including a planned departure time and a desired energy requirement, wherein said each user is docked at a respective charging terminal of the charging station;
• generating a set of pricing options including a price for charging and a price for overstaying the planned departure time, wherein the set of pricing options includes a charging-ASAP pricing option and a charging-FLEX pricing option;
• transmitting the set of pricing options to said each user;
• receiving, from said each user, a selection of a pricing option from among the set of pricing options;
• generating a charging schedule;
• transmitting the generated charging schedule and a set of power transfer specifications to the respective charging terminal;
• and
• charging a battery of a vehicle docked at the respective charging terminal according to the generated charging schedule and the set of power transfer specifications.