WayCar
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The sat-nav that tells you what changes at the border

WayCar routes on live traffic, prices the gap between your options in minutes and euros, and tells you before the border which vignette, which low-emission scheme and which speed limits apply in the next country. Five languages, CarPlay, no account.

  • Routes Fastest, shortest, cheapest or calmest — and what each one costs
  • Vignettes What you must have bought before you join the motorway
  • Charging A plan priced at the road’s real pace, not the label’s
  • CarPlay The same map and the same warnings on the car screen

Why this one

A European drive turns on the things nobody tells you: that you needed a sticker before joining the Austrian motorway, that Stuttgart requires a windscreen badge, that in Germany your sat-nav is no longer allowed to warn you about a speed check, and that a motorway empties an electric car’s battery a third faster than a town does.

WayCar is written for those moments. It is also why it refuses to display certain things: a speed limit it cannot verify, the number of free bays in a car park, the opening hours of a charger. Apple does not publish any of that, and inventing it is paid for at the barrier, at the car park or in front of a charger that turns out to be shut.

What is on board

  • Four costed routesFastest, shortest, cheapest, calmest. The gap between them is shown in minutes and in euros, before you set off.
  • Tolls and vignettes per countryThe cost is worked out country by country over the legs the route really crosses: a barrier in France, a sticker in Austria, nothing at all in Germany.
  • Low-emission zonesCrit’Air, Umweltplakette, ZTL. The city is named and the scheme is named in its own language.
  • Speed checks, under each country’s lawAn aggregated danger zone in France, nothing whatsoever in Germany and Switzerland, the reported position elsewhere. The app says so as you cross.
  • Winter equipmentLoi Montagne II, Winterreifenpflicht, zimska oprema. Each country’s published rule with its dates, stated as a rule and not as a verdict about your particular road.
  • Electric chargingA plan that never drops below 10 % of the battery, never goes more than 2.5 km off the road, and charges to 80 % rather than 100.
  • A break after two hoursThe advice every European road-safety agency gives, said while you are driving, with the services still ahead of you.
  • Where you parkedThe level, the bay, your own note, and the walk back to it.
  • Ferries spottedA crossing inside the route is flagged on the route card: it has to be booked, and it costs.
  • Reports over two pathsDevice to device over a few tens of metres — the car behind you in a tunnel — and over the network for the jam forty kilometres ahead.
  • Six voices, three tonesSober, friendly or cheeky. The tone changes the words, never the information: the exit, the street and the delay are always spoken.
  • CarPlayReport, search, pick up your saved destinations. The phone and the car drive the same trip.

On screen

WayCar route card for Paris to Stuttgart: four route choices, a low-emission zone line naming Crit’Air and Umweltplakette, the predicted arrival window, and the cost in euros, CO₂ and litres.
The route card before departure. The four choices, the gap between them, the low-emission schemes of the cities on the way, and what the trip will cost in euros, CO₂ and litres. Screens are shown in French; the app ships in five languages.
WayCar guidance in France: an exit instruction, a speed panel, and a banner reading “Zone de danger” with no exact position.
In France a reported check becomes a “zone de danger” — never a position. In Germany and Switzerland nothing is drawn at all.
WayCar charging plan for a 777 km trip to Marseille: three charging stops with the state of charge on arrival and on leaving.
A charging plan over 777 km: three stops, the state of charge arriving at and leaving each one, and a note that opening hours cannot be verified.

Real captures of the application on iPhone.

What it will not do

Read this before relying on it

WayCar needs a network to compute a route, search for an address and know the traffic. Once the route is computed, guidance carries on without one: the line and the manoeuvres are already in memory. It is not an offline app and it does not pretend to be.

It does not show the speed limit of the road you are on — Apple does not publish it. It shows the statutory maxima of the country, and only warns you when you are certainly above the highest of them.

It does not know whether a charger is open, whether a car park has a space, or what either costs. It gives you the phone number and the web page so you can check.

Toll rates, vignette prices and winter rules are published figures: they change. The signage at the roadside is what counts, always.

Your data

No account, no sign-up, no advertising, no analytics SDK. Your trips, your saved places and your recent destinations stay on the iPhone. What goes out to other drivers is your reports: something that happened to a road, never your live position. The app can export everything it keeps as a readable file, and delete all of it. See the privacy policy.

Availability

iPhone, with CarPlay. French, English, German, Spanish and Italian — interface, spoken guidance and recorded voices. Version 1.1; what changed is in the changelog.