Editor's Note: Today's blog features Raghav Arora, Chief Technology Officer at Statiq. Raghav shares how Statiq used Places UI Kit to integrate Google Maps directly into the Statiq app interface—improving the user experience, leading directly to revenue growth.
At Statiq, we sell electrons. Quintillions of them per millisecond.
Clean energy is a national priority in India, but fuel stations are ubiquitous and outnumber charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs). And the single biggest anxiety for electric vehicle owners is “range anxiety.” As an EV owner, I’ve experienced it myself: Will I be able to find a charging station nearby when I need one? It’s the crucial psychological hurdle that impacts the decision to purchase an EV.
I co-founded Statiq in 2019 with a straightforward mission: support the rapid adoption of EVs in India by making charging stations as easy to find as petrol pumps. And in just six years, we’ve become India’s largest charging network. Our app lists 80% of the charging stations in the country, including 2000+ owned and operated by Statiq—20% of all such stations in India. And Statiq has become the go-to app for 80% of the country’s EV drivers, with over one million downloads to date.
From the very start, Google Maps Platform has ensured our customers can locate those stations quickly and navigate to them easily. Choosing Google was an easy choice for our map-reliant startup: It has the world’s largest and best-in-class dataset for seamless geolocation. That dataset was key as we quickly scaled to more than 800 cities. And with Google Maps, we knew all real-time location and navigation data would be more accurate. Moreover, it provided our app instant credibility, as end users were already familiar with the interface.
As early adoption of EVs has transitioned to widespread acceptance of the technology, EV drivers across India wanted more than an easily discoverable infrastructure to support them. They demanded a frictionless experience with the apps they use to locate charging stations and charge their cars.
The more charging stations there are, the more drivers will make the switch from petrol to electric. And the easier a charging station is to find, the more repeat business it will log. But charging a vehicle takes time—sometimes as long as an hour. So drivers, whether they’re a family on their way to see a relative or a taxi driver in a 300-car fleet, want to know more than just the location of a charging station. They want to know if they can have a good meal or get some groceries while their car charges.
That requires maps that are more than navigation tools. So when the Google Maps Platform Places UI Kit was released, we were among its earliest adopters.
From infrastructure to intelligence
The Places UI Kit allowed us to integrate Google Maps directly into the Statiq app interface. Previously, our customers would use the Statiq app to find a charging station, then open Google Maps to navigate to it.
The Statiq app now offers an end-to-end user experience for EV charging. Customers can use the app to locate charging stations and view nearby amenities such as restrooms, parking, and cafés, along with user-supplied reviews and photos that are already provided in Google Places data. They can then navigate to the station of their choice, charge their car, and pay for the charge—all from within the Statiq user interface.
The integration itself was straightforward: three weeks from project start to product launch. The Google Maps Platform team understood our use case intuitively and were there to support us from start to finish. Because the Places UI Kit provides ready-made components, the implementation required minimal net-new development. Our designers—aided by the Places UI Kit’s clear, easy-to-understand documentation—were able to customize the UI with our branding easily.
We chose the horizontal scroll view in a card format to display Places data, including the name of each establishment, any available user-contributed images, and its distance from the charging station, which is calculated through the Directions API.
The implementation of the Places UI Kit transformed the Statiq app from a functional utility to a user-friendly, location intelligence platform that truly differentiates us from our competitors. And it enabled a strategic shift for Statiq: from infrastructure-led growth to experience-led growth; from simply listing charger availability to enabling intelligent charger discovery; and ultimately, from transactional sessions to retention-driven, UX-based engagement.
That engagement and growth are already a huge competitive advantage producing measurable results.
Amenities info increases usage and engagement
After relaunching with Places UI in January 2026, we experienced product-led growth immediately.
In just three months, we measured a 13% increase in navigation starts—the number of times a driver opened our app and began searching for a charging station. And we saw a 15% reduction in time from when a driver opens the Statiq app to the conclusion of a successful charging session. These key statistics are driven by improvements in the app’s user experience and contextual place data, and the resulting confidence drivers have in finding and selecting a charging station.
We also saw a 7% increase in “charger discovery interactions”: users who saw an icon for a nearby amenity and clicked on it during a charging session.
These improvements led directly to revenue growth: We logged a 9% increase in repeat charging sessions—the number of times a one-time customer became a steady customer—and an 8% increase in charging session frequency, which measures the number of times an existing customer charges their vehicle. And we saw an 8% reduction in abandoned searches—the number of times drivers looked for a station but didn’t charge their cars—as well as a 3% uptick in conversions from app download to initial charging session.
Most importantly, we’ve seen a 10% improvement in overall user satisfaction, measured through in-app ratings and post-session feedback. In short, the improvements we made to our app with the Places UI kit have given Statiq customers a better overall user experience that translates into increased usage and revenue.
Future enhancements may include Google Street View integration, enabling drivers to virtually preview charging stations and their surrounding area before arrival. By providing a street-level view of the location, users can better understand charger placement, parking layouts, access routes, and nearby landmarks, helping them locate and approach charging stations with greater confidence.
Statiq is more than an electron distributor—we’re evangelists for electric vehicles and sustainable energy. Our ongoing work with Google Maps Platform and the Places UI Kit will further Statiq’s commitment to providing the best possible experience, not just for the EV charging, but for the entire discovery process, because the only way to reach our goal is to ensure the quality of the journey.
