UK’s first Pay As You Go electric vehicle charging scheme
POD Point Network provides nationwide access to charge points, with no joining fee and no monthly fee.
Electric Vehicle (EV) charging company, POD Point, has announced the nation’s first PAYG EV charging scheme. The POD Point Network is free to join, allows EV users nationwide access to participating charge points, and provides account options to suit all member types from occasional to daily users.
EV infrastructure is rapidly appearing on streets of the UK, but until now there has been no nationwide, open access scheme for EV drivers, and many drivers have felt ‘locked in to’ schemes that charge high monthly fees.
Erik Fairbairn, CEO of POD Point, commented: “It is ridiculous that EV drivers need to join several charge schemes, each with their own joining fee or monthly fee, just to get access to charging points as they travel round the country. Public EV charge points are a basic requirement for EV drivers, and POD Point is making sure everyone can use them. We’re busting down the walled garden approach that has existed in the EV charging industry until today.”
The POD Point Network provides the Pay As You Go solution – which revolutionised mobile phone usage in the UK – for EV drivers, and comes at a critical time as all major motor manufacturers are introducing electric vehicles to their range in 2012.
Dr. Keith Bevis of EValu8 Transport Innovations Limited, University of Hertfordshire, said: “Politicians may argue about growth. It is manufacturers who will deliver it through innovation. Right now, it is the electric vehicle sector of industry where we can see it happening. The POD Point Network is a good example of innovation in this dynamic and challenging market.”
POD Point Network will allow charge point owners to set local pricing for electricity and requires nothing more than the customer having a mobile phone to initiate their charge cycle. The POD Point Network will also support local parking requirements, which will encourage the uptake of charge points by ensuring hosts don’t loose out on parking revenue by supplying charge points.
The POD Point Network is an extension of POD Point’s charge point management system. This back-of-house software will ensure that members receive an SMS detailing the energy supplied, and the cost of that energy, when they access posts.
Fairbairn added: “The POD Point Network is ‘hardware agnostic’ – any charge point can be added to the network, provided it supports some basic communications features. We already have a number of key partners products working with the POD Point Network, and will be announcing this shortly.
We believe that a national, free-to-access to public charging infrastructure will best serve the interests of UK motorists. As the UK’s largest supplier of charge points and the associated software systems, we are the only people who can effectively move the market on from its current position into a fully open network of charge points accessible to all EV drivers. Today is a very good day for EV drivers across the UK.”
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