EV Charger Finder

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NOTE: This was directly inspired by Sarina Dupont's blog about the new Embarcadero product, Kai, where she vibe-coded this app. I simply wanted to see how well Claude Code could build a Firemonkey version of the same thing (her's was a VCL app). My effort took about three hours, including only minor tweaks of the code, some editing of the documentation, and creating this repository.

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A Delphi FireMonkey (FMX) desktop application that finds EV charging stations near a ZIP code. Enter a ZIP, press Search, and you get a scrollable list of nearby stations showing the distance, charger type (DC Fast / Level 2 / Level 1), and the number of charging ports — styled after EVChargerMockup.png.

Data sources (free APIs)

A search makes two calls:

1. ZIP → coordinates via Zippopotam.us — no key required:

   https://api.zippopotam.us/us/<ZIP>
   

2. Nearby stations via Open Charge Map — a global, community-run EV charging database:

   https://api.openchargemap.io/v3/poi?output=json&countrycode=US
       &latitude=<LAT>&longitude=<LON>&distance=30&distanceunit=Miles&maxresults=20
   

   Open Charge Map returns each station's distance, address, connection types (CCS, CHAdeMO, Type 2, …) and power, from which the app derives the charger type (DC Fast ≥ 50 kW, Level 2 ≥ 7 kW, otherwise Level 1) and a port count.

Open Charge Map API key (recommended)

OCM works without a key for light use, but a free key removes throttling. The key is kept out of source control via a git-ignored include file:

1. Copy ApiKeys.inc.template to ApiKeys.inc (same folder, drop the .template). ApiKeys.inc is listed in .gitignore, so your key is never committed.

2. Sign in at https://openchargemap.org/site/loginprovider/beginlogin and, under My Profile ▸ My Apps, create an application to get a key.

3. Paste the key into ApiKeys.inc:

   OCM_KEY = 'your-key-here';   // or leave '' to run keyless

MainForm.pas pulls it in with {$I ApiKeys.inc}, so the build needs ApiKeys.inc to exist — copying the template (even unedited) is enough.

Note: OCM exposes the number of charge points but not live real-time availability, so each card shows the total port count rather than an "x / y available" figure.

Building & running

1. Open EVChargerFinder.dproj in the RAD Studio / Delphi IDE (should work from Delphi 11 Alexandria or up; I tested it with Delphi 13 Florence)
2. Set your API Key in the include file (see comments above for ApiKeys.inc)
3. Press Run (F9)

The IDE generates EVChargerFinder.res automatically on the first build.

Project layout

File	Purpose
EVChargerFinder.dpr	Program entry point.
EVChargerFinder.dproj	MSBuild project (Win32/Win64 targets).
MainForm.fmx	Main window UI, laid out as design-time components.
MainForm.pas	Event handlers + NREL API call & JSON parsing.
StationCard.fmx	Design-time layout for one station row (a TFrame).
StationCard.pas	TStation record + SetData to fill a card.

The two panels, the ZIP input, the search button and the station-row frame are all real components you can open and tweak in the FireMonkey form designer. The only things built in code are the decorative vector icons (TPath geometry doesn't round-trip cleanly as form text) and the variable-length list of result rows (one TStationCard frame instantiated per station).

Notes & next iterations

• The UI was originally constructed entirely in code so the look matches the mockup precisely without shipping a custom FMX style file; but I like to see things at design-time so instructed Claude to change it (besides, it took much longer to draw it from code than to stream it from the .dfm).
• The network request runs on a background thread (TTask); results are marshalled back to the UI thread via TThread.Queue.
• Planned follow-ups: a map view, real-time availability where networks expose it, filtering by charger type/connector, and Android/iOS targets (FireMonkey makes this mostly a recompile).

Screenshot

When running on my Windows machine, this is what it looks like: