Who are InstaVolt and what makes them different to competitors in this space?
InstaVolt is the UK’s largest independent rapid charging network. We provide public rapid charging, which means very high-powered chargers that people would use to fill their battery in 30-45mins, rather than 8-10 hours at home. We partner with leading national players, like McDonald’s and Costa Coffee, to add chargers to their car parks. Wherever you would normally stop for half an hour (coffee, food services, gyms etc) or go on a longer journey, we will be there to charge your car conveniently.
Our difference is our quality, great locations, and our simple pricing. For quality, we are known across EV drivers for our availability and uptime. We invest fully in our equipment and its maintenance, which means everyone expects an InstaVolt charger to be working – there’s been plenty of press about that not being the case across some of our competitors, but that’s not the InstaVolt experience at all.
Our locations are built on exclusive arrangements with leading brands where you’d like to stop, rather than directing people off-route to inconvenient places.
Finally, our pricing is simple; 40p / kWh. Our competitors confused things with membership fees, discount rates and lots of ‘ifs and buts’. We treat it like a petrol station by advertising a price and letting you pay with either a contactless card or app and not forcing people to sign-up for accounts when they just want to get on the road. The market has followed us with that approach and aligned to our leadership.
How many stations are there in operation and how many do you envisage being in situ by the end next year and beyond?
At the end of October 2021, we had over 635+ chargers operational, across the length and breadth of the UK. Our clear ambition with our partners is to achieve 10,000 chargers over approximately the next ten years. When you consider our exclusive partnerships across many national brands with thousands of locations, I wouldn’t bet against us getting there. We’re proud to play a huge role in supporting the EV transition by giving the public the national network they need.
It is widely publicised that battery length and charging times are key considerations for many – can you shed any light on average range and charge times for the modern electric car?
Sure. The highest selling EVs over the last six months were the Tesla Model 3, Kia e-Niro and Nissan Leaf. These models average 150-250 miles of range, which is a good 2-3 hours on the motorway without stopping. Our average charge time using an InstaVolt charger is between 30-45 minutes, which means people are back on the road after a break from driving, rather than building charging time into their day.
I’d like to encourage consumers to measure how far they actually drive in a day and then think about the EV ranges already available. 150 miles per day would be over 50,000 miles per year and I bet that’s more than enough for much of the population. However, when you do that longer journey or stay away from home for a couple of days, InstaVolt will be there for you.
What would you say are going to be the major challenges for InstaVolt over the coming years and how do you plan to overcome them?
Firstly, I think InstaVolt is in a great position due to its reputation, branding and partnerships. For us, the main challenge is to continue our excellent execution and stay at the top of the market. Outside of this, there are two market risks that we need to navigate. The first is a risk that the ability to bring power to all these sites becomes uneconomical. Even though there is consumer demand, a willing location and a great network provider, the sheer cost of upgrading the grid connection at a specific site could stop the project. There are proposals for government support for funding some of these more difficult positions, to ensure access to all households equally, but the structure of this seems to be narrow and focused on motorway service areas rather than sites which would benefit the general driver.
Secondly, all networks generally require a host or landlord partnership. We have some progressive partners, but there are still large amounts of land ownership which is focused on traditional models. Landowners could see EV charging as a footfall driver to their sites and take a longer-term view. My view is that charging at a public facility will be as commonly demanded by consumers as good wi-fi and owners should be working with networks to get a charging solution in place as quickly as possible.
To overcome both, we need to ensure we sufficiently communicate the emerging consumer trends and charging requirements to central government, local government, and private landowners.
I’d like to thank Chris for taking the time to speak to me. If you’re interested in finding out more about the employers we work with in the ESG space, please reach out to me for a chat, or browse our current ESG space.
