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I’m a happy EV driver but I can see why switching to an electric car might be intimidating to some people.

Today’s startup wants to make that switch easier, while helping individuals and businesses earn passive revenue.

But before we tell you about GoPlugable:

• EHE Ventures has officially launched its SEIS/EIS £15m growth fund focused on “AI-first” companies. You can find out more on the EHE website.

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GoPlugable wants to build an economy around making it easier to live with an electric car

As the UK moves towards banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2035 (just over 10 years from now!) the pressure on electric vehicle infrastructure is going to rise. 

Unlike a petrol pump that might be used for a couple of minutes at a time, EV fast chargers can be occupied for half an hour or more at a time, and the slower chargers (cheaper, and healthier for your car’s battery) can take hours to charge a significant amount.

Home and business charging points are the solution, but not everyone has off-street parking. And even if they do, if they’re renting, their landlord might refuse their request to have a charging point installed.

With electric vehicle infrastructure unlikely to keep up with demand, GoPlugable is a startup that thinks it has a solution.

Its peer-to-peer charger network allows individuals and businesses to rent out their chargers to other drivers. It’s an “airbnb for EV chargers”, as co-founder and CEO Maebh Reynolds puts it.

How it works

The tech behind all of this is based around OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol), meaning GoPlugable works with any compatible charger. 

Individuals and businesses can choose the times their charger will be available to the public, and its pricing, too. And if you’re worried about who might rock up onto your driveway in the middle of the night, you have control over that too.

Someone will only get your exact address once you have approved them to use your charger, and all users have to verify their identity when they sign up. Reynolds says some hosts prefer for only friends and family to use their charger, while others are open to anyone. 

“We totally get that it can be a bit of a strange concept. And I'm sure in the early days of Airbnb it seemed bizarre that someone could rent out a spare bedroom in your property… and that is a far more intimate interaction than just renting out your driveway for a passive income source, but it's really up to our hosts to decide.”

“We find a lot of people are motivated by the aspect that you can make money from your driveway and infrastructure that you already own, by essentially doing nothing,” Reynolds adds.

GoPlugable takes a 15% cut of revenue from homeowners renting out their charger.

On the business side, the privacy aspect is likely to be less of an issue. Reynolds says putting a set of slow chargers in your car park and letting local people book a slot when your business is closed or quieter than usual to charge their cars will help meet demand for charging while providing a new source of revenue and new customers.

GoPlugable can also let businesses offer discounted charging to their own employees. 

Businesses pay a subscription fee for use of GoPlugable’s charger management software, which gives information about who is using the chargers and when they’re using it, and lets them adjust pricing and availability as they see fit.

GoPlugable takes a cut of between 6% and 15% of charging revenue, depending on the plan a business is on. That means businesses get to keep a sizable chunk for themselves.

Businesses also get priority and the ability to advertise in the GoPlugable app that drivers use to find a charge point.

“It's not just a way to leverage EV charging, but also to advertise your business in terms of walk-ins,” says Reynolds.

“From our recent survey of around 1,200 EV drivers, we found that 65% of them prefer to charge at a business, and we're more likely to spend at a business with an EV charger. And EV owners tend to be higher disposable income demographics. So this is a very attractive customer pool that hospitality businesses, or cafes, or gyms would like to advertise to, and we allow that to happen.”

The story so far

Reynolds comes from a mechanical engineering background. She says she has long had an interest in EVs, and was inspired by EV infrastructure she saw while living in Denmark.

Back home in Belfast, she signed up for a co-founder matching programme run by Catalyst.

Expecting to find a hardware-related startup she could join, she instead met Andrine Mendez, an experienced marketing professional and entrepreneur, who would become her fellow co-founder at GoPlugable.

Mendez had personal experience of the trouble of driving an EV without a home charge point, after his landlord denied his request to install one for his Nissan Leaf.

“Andrine was offering his neighbour cash just to borrow their home charger, and he really wanted to commercialise that idea because of how much easier that made his EV driving experience. And I thought it was a really, really great idea, and one that was very much needed,” says Reynolds.

GoPlugable was born in May 2023. After exploring gaps in the EV charging market, they built their tech and launched it in Belfast and Dublin in January this year. Reynolds says around 150 people are currently renting out their home chargers via the platform.

They’ve now launched their business software and started to roll out their platform into the North West of England. That’s fitting as they’re currently part of the Liverpool-based Baltic Ventures accelerator.

GoPlugable plans to grow via partnerships. It already has some in place with charger manufacturers and is working on another with a utility company. 

Reynolds says EV dealerships, car finance companies, charger installers, and employee benefits schemes are all potential routes to growth.