DETROIT – There are currently around 39,000 public electric vehicle charge points available in the UK and over 400,000 home chargers. By sharing even a fraction of them via Community Charging, electric vehicle uptake can be transformed. Co Charger – rapid expansion and making electric vehicle charger sharing a reality
Community Charging is the utilization of community resources including chargers, space and infrastructure to allow members of that community to run electric vehicles. Co Charger is currently the only purpose-built Community Charging platform.
The Co Charger app connects ‘Hosts’ – motorists with an electric vehicle charger they are happy to share with ‘Chargees’ – motorists who can’t charge at home and who would welcome the chance to access convenient, affordable charging on a neighbour’s driveway. The Co Charger app handles all the ‘matchmaking’, bookings and payments – how it works is described in this video Co Charger – Together We’re Electrifying.
Co Charger was launched in November 2020 and during 2021 has seen 34% growth month-on-month – including 1,000 new users during May 2021.
User numbers are currently 4048, with 2369 Chargees and 1679 Hosts. These Host numbers means Co Charger already has more charge points available than many other charge point companies. For example, it outnumbers Tesla’s Destination Chargers (1181) according to Zap-Map statistics August 2021.
Becoming a Co Charger Host is an simple way for motorists to help their neighborhood become greener and combat climate change
Downloading the Co Charger app is free and easy and the host sets the price they want to charge for the electricity and which bookings to accept. They are in control at all times. With a few taps on their phone, a charger owner can help create a cleaner, greener neighborhood – as well as making some additional income through regular bookings.
The process and payment structure is deliberately very simple. At the end of each charging session the Chargee pays via a card pre-registered in the app and the Host receives that payment minus Co Charger’s 12% fee. There is no other cost or commitment.
Doubling the available public charge points
So all that’s needed to double the available public chargers without a single hole being dug or a cable laid is for just 10% of the 400,000 home charger owners to decide to share their charger – making 40,000 chargers available straight away.
Joel Teague, CEO of Co Charger says, ‘Sometimes the option isn’t more hardware. It’s making better use of what we have and through communities helping themselves. At Co Charger we have shown how people are very willing to share their chargers, having come from zero to nearly 1700 charge points on our network in 10 months and and average growth of over 30% per month this year – all without so much as fitting a new fuse.’
Becoming a Co Charger Chargee can help motorists without their own driveway charger to transition from an ICE vehicle to an electric one.
According to the English Housing Survey. around 40% 0% (14.5 million) motorists live in a flat or terraced house and can’t have a charger at home. Research by EV infrastructure company Connected Kerb From early adopters to mainstream buyers reveals that two thirds of existing electric vehicle owners would not have made the switch if they had to rely on public chargers. And nearly 9 in 10 of non-EV owners would be encouraged to make their next car purchase an EV if they had a space to charge it overnight.
And with Co Charger, that space can be their neighbour’s driveway – a far more dependable and affordable option than a public charger, which might be some distance away, booked up or even broken.
‘Charging at a nearby neighbour’s offers what motorists actually need to make the switch to an…
