Explore How EV Apps Borrow Ideas From Online Gaming Design

Open the companion app for a modern electric car and you may notice design ideas that look like they came from a game. Progress rings fill as the battery charges. Efficiency scores reward smooth driving. Badges appear for your first thousand electric kilometres. Charging maps show live availability like a multiplayer lobby list. This is not an accident. EV app designers have borrowed heavily from online gaming design, and for good reasons.

I test in-car and companion software for a living, and the influence of games on EV apps is one of the most interesting trends I have seen. Here is where it shows up and when it helps.

Progress you can see

Games are built around visible progress: experience bars, level indicators and completion percentages. EV apps use the same idea for charging. Instead of a plain number, many apps show an animated ring or bar filling up, with estimated time to the target level and the range gained so far.

This makes waiting more bearable and easier to understand at a glance. A driver checking their phone during lunch can see immediately whether the car is nearly ready.

Feedback on driving style

Many EVs score driving efficiency, showing how smoothly the driver accelerated, how much energy regenerative braking recovered and how consumption compares with average. Some cars display leaves, stars or scores, a direct borrowing from game feedback systems.

These scores can genuinely change behaviour. Drivers who see real-time feedback often learn to anticipate traffic, lift off earlier and use regenerative braking more, which improves range. The underlying energy use is explained in how much it really costs to charge an electric car at home.

Achievements and milestones

Some apps award badges for milestones: first fast charge, first long trip, a year of ownership, a certain amount of carbon dioxide avoided. These achievement systems are taken straight from online games, where they encourage players to explore features and stay engaged.

For EV owners, achievements can be a gentle introduction to features they might not have tried, such as scheduled charging or preconditioning.

Live maps and lobbies

Charging maps resemble game lobby lists: live status for each charger, filters for speed and connector, and real-time updates when a spot becomes free. Some apps let drivers reserve a charger or join a queue, a concept familiar to anyone who has waited in matchmaking. Interface patterns also travel the other way. When I looked at how several online gaming portals presented their game lists and status indicators, including a simple hub layout such as the ankertoto link page, the clear, tappable rows were very close to how the best charging apps list nearby stations.

Onboarding like a tutorial

Games teach players through tutorials that introduce one mechanic at a time. Well-designed EV apps do the same during setup: connect the car, set a charging schedule, try preconditioning, enable notifications. Each step is short and rewarded with a clear confirmation. This is much friendlier than a long manual.

Is gamification just a trick?

Critics sometimes argue that gamification is manipulative, designed to keep users hooked rather than to help them. In some apps, especially those built around advertising or in-app purchases, that criticism is fair.

In EV apps, I think the picture is more positive. The behaviours being encouraged, smoother driving, smarter charging and trying useful features, mostly benefit the owner through lower costs and longer range. The line is crossed when apps push unnecessary notifications or pressure drivers into paid subscriptions. Good design uses game ideas to make useful information easier to understand, not to manufacture engagement.

Where it goes wrong

Game-inspired design can backfire. Efficiency scores that punish necessary hard braking might encourage unsafe behaviour. Animations that look nice on a phone can slow down an app when you just need to unlock the car. Too many badges feel childish. The best EV apps keep the playful elements optional and the essential functions fast.

Social features are the next frontier. Some EV apps now let drivers compare efficiency with friends, join community challenges or share road trip summaries with charging stops and distance covered. These ideas come straight from online games and fitness apps. They can be motivating, but they also share data about where and when people drive. Good apps make such features opt-in and give clear controls over what is shared and with whom.

Accessibility is another lesson from games that EV apps are slowly adopting. Larger text options, colour-blind friendly charts and screen reader support make apps usable for more owners, and they cost little to implement when planned from the start.

Learning from games, carefully

Online games are some of the most refined examples of interface design in the world. They teach complex systems, keep people oriented and make progress satisfying. EV apps have learned a lot from them, and drivers benefit when it is done thoughtfully.

For the dashboard side of this influence, read how online game engines power modern car dashboards, and for phone integration, see CarPlay and Android Auto features most drivers never use. More in our Infotainment section.