Patent ID: 8798900

Claim:
A charge point notification system comprising: a center device including: a communication unit communicating with an electric vehicle, a memory unit storing road map information representing a road by using a link and a node, the road map information including, as node information of the node having a nearby charge point, a required energy of the electric vehicle for reaching the nearby charge point from the node when the node has at least one nearby charge point, an energy determination unit determining the required energy, a determination unit determining whether the nearby charge point is reachable by the electric vehicle, and a notification determination unit determining whether to generate a notification regarding a determination result of the determination unit for the electric vehicle; and an in-vehicle device disposed in the electric vehicle and providing information of a charge point to a user of the electric vehicle, the in-vehicle device including: a communication unit communicating with the communication unit of the center device, an in-vehicle obtainment determination unit obtaining vehicle information regarding the electric vehicle, an information transmission unit transmitting the vehicle information to the center device via the communication unit, and a determination result notification unit providing the notification of the determination result when the notification is received from the center device, wherein the energy determination unit determines the required energy based on the node information of the road map information and the vehicle information of the electric vehicle when the electric vehicle is positioned in proximity to the node that has the node information, the determination unit determines whether the nearby charge point is reachable by the electric vehicle based on a comparison between (i) the required energy determined by the energy determination unit and (ii) a remaining energy of the electric vehicle, which is an amount of energy that is available for driving the electric vehicle, and the notification determination unit determines not to generate the notification of the determination result when the remaining energy is greater than the required energy by an energy difference that is equal to or greater than a first threshold, and determines to generate the notification of the determination results when the remaining energy is greater than the required energy by the energy difference that is less than the first threshold and is equal to or greater than a second threshold and when a reachable nearby charge point exists within a first distance range from the electric vehicle, the second threshold is less than the first threshold.