What is JustCharge?
The UK is facing an EV Charging Crisis. Today, over 50% of UK drivers, including me, can’t charge an EV at home. They may live in a flat, or a house without a driveway, or in shorter term rental accommodation.
To make matters worse, the public on-street charging network is not great, with broken chargers and incorrect information making it unreliable and inefficient. So without a regular place to charge near home, owning an EV for this group is not feasible, especially for those outside of a major city.
The solution? JustCharge.
It’s really simple. Those with a home electric vehicle charging point can make it available for those without the ability to charge at home, to book (and pay) to use it, via the JustCharge network.
JustCharge can unlock the potential for millions more drivers to switch to an EV, by providing reliable, bookable and convenient charging for those who can’t do so at home.
Bookability of chargers is so key. You no longer have to fear driving around, looking for a charging point, risking an empty battery. Instead, you can find and book a charger in advance: it only takes a few minutes and removes all that hassle.
With a charger at home typically being unused for 90% of the time, it is also a great way for EV charger owners to make some extra cash whilst helping their neighbours!
What are the blockers for people to switch to an Electric Vehicle?
Having worked for EV manufacturers like Tesla and Renault over the last 8 years, the three main concerns have always been Cost, Choice & Charging.
In terms of ‘cost’, owning an EV, especially via a company car scheme, is very affordable. And although retail and used-car prices are still pricey, overall costs are falling.
There has been an influx of new EVs for buyers to choose from. Big players like VW Group, Hyundai and Vauxhall are launching new vehicles every month it seems - choice is now no longer an issue.
Charging however - we could say that there is a bit of a ‘Charging Crisis’ taking place. Sure, charging at home is super easy, however for those who can’t do so, the public network is nowhere near being fit for purpose.
- In 2021, EV registrations grew 5x faster than the growth of public charging locations. There are now fewer public chargers per driver today than there was in 2018.
- In hundreds of towns and villages, there is still not a single public charger.
- 60% of UK Councils have ZERO plans to install any new charging points.
- Officially, one in ten rapid-chargers just don’t work. In our own research, around 23% of public chargers are broken on a given day.
- Numerous charities are campaigning against on-street charging as they cause access concerns for those in wheelchairs and with sight issues.
- The majority of on-street charging points aren’t accessible for disabled drivers.
All of the above creates a huge amount of ‘Charging Anxiety’, and rightly so. Having lived with an EV without being able to charge at home, I have experienced every horror story possible, from sitting for 4 hours whilst slow-charging in a dodgy car park, to arriving at a charger with 5 miles left of range to find it is out of action.
Hence I am so passionate about JustCharge!
So how does the JustCharge network help?
Let’s take a real-life example with my closest town - Maidenhead in Berkshire.
It has a population of 70,000 people with a strong mix of property types - houses with drives, terraced housing with no drives and lots of flats).
There is one public charging unit, situated in a town centre supermarket car park. It’s a 7kW charging unit so it takes about 8 hours to charge the average EV.
One slow charger, for around 40,000 residents without the ability to charge at home. Even worse though… that charging unit has been broken for over 3 months.
Oh, and Maidenhead Council has no EV strategy or plans to install any public chargers.
So if you live in a terraced house in Maidenhead, then you practically can’t own an EV, and won’t be able to for many, many more years.
But there is a solution…
Maidenhead has approximately 500 EV drivers with a charging point installed at their homes. If just 10% of these joined JustCharge, this would 50x the number of public charging points immediately - something that may take 5 to 8 years otherwise.
JustCharge unlocks the ability for millions more drivers to switch to an EV now, rather than in 2030. For those living outside of a major city especially, reliable public charging just isn’t going to be installed for many, many years. Realistically, JustCharge is the only solution here.
How can someone become a JustCharge host?
It takes 5 minutes to get set up via the link below. You set the price and the availability of your charging point, we then list your space on our network of 8 million users.
https://www.justpark.com/how-it-works/rent-out-your-charger
Doing so will make a huge difference for the 50% of drivers who need a place to charge, will put some extra cash in your pocket, and will help make your local community cleaner and greener.
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