Company Plays EV-Charging Matchmaker

A U.K. company is hooking up electric-vehicle drivers in a chargepoint-sharing program.

The company, called Chargie, has launched what it calls the world’s first dedicated and bookable peer-to-peer EV charging service.

It allows EV drivers to access the wall-mounted chargepoints of other EV owners at homes across the U.K. who are signed up to the Chargie service.

The company says its service will make EVs viable for greater numbers of motorists, including those traveling longer distances and to destinations in areas with no public chargepoints.

Chargie is seeking chargepoint owners to register with the service ahead of its official launch to EV users May 6.

Chargie works like this: The EV owner wanting to charge his car finds a domestic, exterior-wall-mounted chargepoint on the Chargie website and sends a booking request to the homeowner.

The homeowner can review the profile of the person making the booking before accepting or declining it. Once the booking is accepted, the user pays via Chargie and the system contacts both parties to confirm details.

A charge typically costs £2 to £4 ($2.58 to $5.15), although the homeowner can specify their own per-charge cost when they register with the company.

The standard Chargie service fee is 20% plus taxes on top of the individual owner's charging fee, but this is reduced to 10% if users have their own chargepoint listed with the company.

Registration and search are free, and homeowners can specify when their own units are available.

Company founders Jan Stannard and husband Jeremy Coulter came up with the concept after realizing there was no public charging point anywhere near their U.K. holiday destination.

Stannard says they turned their disappointment into a world-first for the EV community.

“We want Chargie to help make electric cars the dominant form of transport in the U.K., not just for short local runs, which is how many electric cars are used,” she says in a statement.

“For that to happen you need to be able to go a distance and know for sure that you can charge at the other end. At the moment, that’s simply not possible. Other than major cities and motorway service stations, most areas of the U.K. still have no meaningful charging infrastructure.”

Stannard says the U.K. has nearly 100,000 people with plug-in cars.

“We believe that many owners who have a professionally fitted charging units on the exterior of their homes will be happy to let fellow EV drivers plug in when the unit isn’t being used, provided they can recoup the cost,” she says.

The couple funded the Chargie concept, brand and online infrastructure.

“Chargie will rely on the goodwill and kindness of fellow EV owners towards each other, and we think there is exactly that spirit out there,” Stannard says.

“While the Chargie network grows, our team will use social media to help would-be users to find a unit at their destination. The next step is to develop a Chargie app and to make Chargie international as soon as possible.”