Episode 138: Liz Allan and Denis Watling – Powering Apartments with ChargeGuru’s EV Charging Solution

 Episode 138: Liz Allan and Denis Watling – Powering Apartments with ChargeGuru’s EV Charging Solution.

Liz Allan speaks to Denis Watling, Managing Director of ChargeGuru UK & Ireland, to uncover how ChargeGuru is revolutionising EV charging for apartment living. Together, they explore the fully funded solution, making home charging accessible for residents in apartment blocks; a critical move in the mission towards net zero and sustainable transport. Denis shares how his automotive journey, from Hyundai’s early hydrogen vehicle programme to Pod Point, shaped his passion for alternative fuels and led him to spearhead ChargeGuru’s expansion across Europe. Liz and Denis explore the realities of EV adoption in urban environments, the challenges freeholders and residents face, and why retrofitting apartment blocks is more complex than it appears. 

Denis Watling Bio:
Denis Watling is the managing director of ChargeGuru UK & Ireland. With over a decade of automotive experience, Denis has held roles spanning fleet operations, public sector partnerships, and used vehicle management at Hyundai, where he first developed a passion for alternative fuels. He then sharpened his focus on the UK EV market with Pod Point, before launching ChargeGuru in the UK and Ireland. Denis brings a rare blend of hands-on industry knowledge and strategic leadership and is helping ChargeGuru remove barriers to electrification, making apartment charging simple, scalable, and affordable. 

Quote of the Episode:
"We genuinely want to enable a more sustainable energy network, and that takes serious investment to do at scale." Denis Watling, ChargeGuru.

Denis Watling Links:
ChargeGuru Website: https://chargeguru.com/uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denis-watling-815b663b

Transcript

Liz Allan  [00:00:01]:
So on today's episode, I have with me Denis Watling from Charge Guru. Denis, it's brilliant to have you on. Thank you ever so much.

Denis Watling [00:00:10]:
Thank you, Liz, for having me. It's a yeah. It's a pleasure to be on.

Liz Allan  [00:00:14]:
So, I just wanted to start off with something I feel a little bit shy and a little bit unnecessary about, but you sponsor, so not you specifically. ChargeGuru sponsored the driving equity and accessibility category at the Top Women in EV awards, and I was a finalist.

Denis Watling. [00:00:33]:
You were. So congratulations again, Liz. I know we've already said congratulations. But, yeah, it was a it was a lovely to see that we were sponsoring, yeah, the same category that you're a finalist in. So congratulations again and very, very spooky timing because we're recording this.

Liz Allan  [00:00:50]:
I know. Absolutely. And, yeah, I was just I didn't expect it, and it was just lovely to kind of, yeah, be recognised. But I like I said to you, well, before we start recording, I feel a little bit unnecessary and feel a bit like, oh gosh. But it was just lovely. And there were some fantastic women who were in the final you know, they were the finalists as well. So I'm just so proud that I was in the same event as them, anywhere near where they were. You know?

Denis Watling. [00:01:22]:
You're far too modest, Liz. And, yeah, it's very well deserved. And, yeah, I would say Charge Guru. It was a pleasure to support and sponsor Top Women in EV, and specifically that category. So congratulations again. I know you're modest and don't like to speak about it too much, but, yeah, it's very well deserved. Congratulations.

Liz Allan  [00:01:38]:
Thank you. Thank you. So, let's start talking about you. And before we get into ChargeGuru, I want to talk about it. I always talk about it because I think it's worth building that context for people and the rapport around it. Tell me about you and what you've done in the sector. Before you were in Charge Guru, what was the run-up to where you are now as Managing Director?

Denis Watling. [00:02:05]:
Cool. I will do it, Liz. And I'll go back to front if that's okay. So just to introduce myself, so, yeah, I'm the Managing Director of ChargeGuru UK and Ireland. So we'll talk a little bit more about ChargeGuru in a moment. But, yeah, I run the UK and Irish business. I launched the brand in the UK and have led the business here for about two and a half years. So before that, I've been in the EV charging industry for just over five years in total.

Denis Watling. [00:02:30]:
So, prior to ChargeGuru, I actually worked for Podpoint, which I'm sure many people know.

Liz Allan  [00:02:36]:
I think

Denis Watling. [00:02:36]:
I've got just shy of three years of a couple of different roles there, which were very interesting. But I got into EV charging, having spent about ten years in the automotive industry. So it's still going back to front. Over the last few years, the automotive sector has been very much focused on electric vehicles. So, not specifically EVS, but I was a planning and operations manager for Hyundai for the last couple of years. So, this is, yeah, seven six or seven years ago now. Just when Hyundai still was, but was very well positioned with Ioniq and Kona EV at the time for those who remember. And so

Liz Allan  [00:03:16]:
We have one. Ah, they've got an Ioniq. Yeah. Still. Yeah.

Denis Watling. [00:03:20]:
Yeah. Great, great cars. And and and they were really Hyundai were really, the first to offer, you know, a hybrid, a plug-in hybrid, and a fully electric version of that vehicle, the Ioniq. So, my role the last couple of years was, yeah, planning operations for the whole of the fleet division of the business, so kind of half of the sales. So although I wasn't, I suppose, directly involved in electric vehicles, my entire role was around ensuring we obviously achieved the numbers we needed to, within the fleet environment. And clearly the introduction of electric vehicles, both plug-in hybrid at the time and fully electric, was a key part of that. So, yeah, really changing that mix from what had been diesel in terms of the new selling to Greece, to to hybrid, to plug in hybrid and then to electric was was, yeah, the last few years of my automated career. And prior to that, it was, a variety of kind of commercial sales, analyst.

Denis Watling. [00:04:16]:
I was in used cars for a little bit. So a couple of years, I I, I ran the Hyundai's used car department. So selling used cars to our dealer network.

Liz Allan  [00:04:25]:
Right.

Denis Watling. [00:04:25]:
So very interesting. Lots of moving parts with appreciation and depreciation and a hard pool of, yeah, of assets which are worth quite a lot of money and which change value fairly quickly. So that was all good fun. But I really I suppose I really, became interested in alternative fueled vehicles in the first couple of years of my career at Hyundai when, out of university. So I finished my degree at university and joined Hyundai, having already done a placement year with Hyundai as part of my degree, which is how I got into the automotive industry, really. But I was one of my roles as a public sector manager dealing mainly with blue light, so ambulance, police, etc., etc. I was tasked with looking after, shall we say, probably a bit of a hot potato that I've chucked my way, the first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. Oh.

Denis Watling. [00:05:20]:
Yeah. At the time, it was the I35 fuel cell vehicle. And, yeah, like I said, we had a bit of a production model, but, you know, we had one in the country and it was worth hundreds of thousands of pounds at the time, I think.

Liz Allan  [00:05:33]:
Oh, my god.

Denis Watling. [00:05:34]:
But was was kind of chucked that and said, oh, we gotta do something with this, public sector, seems like a good fit. So, so, you know, can you look after this for us and kind of, yeah, talk to people about it? And I had no prior experience of any kind of power trains at all. You know? I wasn't. So petrol or diesel, let alone a hydrogen fuel cell. And it really got me hooked, to be honest. So I spent a sort of couple years driving that up and down the country, which

Liz Allan  [00:05:58]:
Did you?

Denis Watling. [00:05:59]:
Yeah. Which is which is why I I can safely say I do not get range anxiety because, in a fully electric, because driving a hydrogen vehicle of which there was, at the time, I think five hydrogen fueling stations in the country. So, so, so, yeah, now that there are 75,000 plus public EV charging locations in the UK, yeah, I certainly don't get range anxiety. Oh my god. That was really my introduction to alternative fuel vehicles. And then, like I say, fast forward, ten, twelve years, and fully immersed in the electric vehicle charging world.

Liz Allan  [00:06:33]:
I've got to ask you this question before we move on. What was it like? I don't, I can't, I don't know why I can't imagine it. What was it like driving a hydrogen cell?

Liz Allan  [00:06:45]:
It in terms of what it felt like to drive?

Denis Watling. [00:06:45]:
What it felt like to drive, exactly the same as electric vehicle.

Liz Allan  [00:06:49]:
Okay.

Denis Watling. [00:06:49]:
Ultimately, because the hydrogen is converted on board to electricity. Feels the same as driving an electric vehicle. Interestingly, I hadn't actually driven an electric vehicle at that point. So now looking back, I can I can say it was, it was very similar? But, yeah, I spent a lot of time at Heathrow not to fly to exotic places, but because there was a hydrogen refuelling station that stood in. One at Heathrow. So, yeah, all good fun, but it didn't deter me actually from the alternative fuels.

Liz Allan  [00:07:20]:
That's good. It led led you in there. So when when did you, when did you start with ChargeGuru then? Kind of you came you came in as as MD, didn't you?

Denis Watling. [00:07:30]:
Correct. Yeah. So, I launched the so we'll talk a little bit about ChargeGuru, actually. So, yeah, I've been at ChargeGuru in direct answer to your question, Liz, about two and a half years now. And I launched the brand in The UK a little bit after that, so just over two years ago. Mhmm. In fact, it was. It was March '2 years ago.

Denis Watling. [00:07:48]:
So, yeah, two years ago when we launched the brand in the UK. But we're, we've been around for, over ten years as a brand in Europe. So we're a French business at heart, so the cofounders, Nicolas and Gilles, still run the business. But, yeah, we launched or founded the business over ten years ago in Paris, but we now operate as well as in France, we also operate in Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, Italy, the UK, and also Ireland. So, yeah, we've, we've been, running the Charge Group round for for two years now, and launch, which I think we'll talk about a bit more detail today, launched our our fully funded solution, in The UK, a little bit more recently. So kind of nine months ago.

Liz Allan  [00:08:31]:
So let's have a little bit of background besides, you know, what you've just said about the founders. What did ChargeGuru start as in France? And what have you launched in the UK? Because it's a little bit different. It is different, I'm saying. It's based on one of the models, am I right, over in France?

Denis Watling. [00:08:56]:
Yeah. I think, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll try to keep it concise, but I probably won't do it full justice because I was not the founder. But I'll give you a quick one-minute whistle-stop tour of why the business was founded. So, the cofounders, had had different different kind of backgrounds, but, but one one of the cofounders was was the CEO of most recently before starting, the Charge Guru brand, so still ten or twelve years ago, but was the CEO of a company called g seven, which is a taxi firm in Paris. So it's the largest taxi firm in Paris, around, I think, 8,000 drivers, on that platform. And, actually, it's very much like an Uber platform. So, the ride-hailing platform that we know, and I'm sure most of us have friends.

Denis Watling. [00:09:40]:
So, very much a tech-driven kind of platform. And, actually, at the same time, there was, so around here twelve, thirteen years ago, as the CEO of this of of this the largest taxi firm in in in France, It was also there was there was also the same time that there was incentives for taxi drivers to switch to electric vehicles. So, of course, CEO Niccola, our co-founder, was trying to encourage this to get taxi drivers. But, again, bearing in mind that they are partner drivers just like Uber, so not employed, but partner drivers, trying to get them to switch to electric vehicles. And very quickly, he found that Central Paris, much like Central London or any other major city in Europe, where the majority of his drivers lived and worked, the majority of drivers, over 70%, lived in apartment blocks. So, actually, the fully funded solution that we'll talk about a bit later, was under the or is still under the brand called Z Plug in France. So there's two sister brands, ChargeGuru and Z Plug. And Z Plug actually came first before the ChargeGuru brand.

Denis Watling. [00:10:43]:
So, he very quickly realised that people in apartment blocks who wanted to make the switch to EVS couldn't, or is history, Mhmm. Want to. So, anyway, partnered up with the other cofounder who worked with me in the past and said there's an idea here. Right? We need to there's a problem to solve. So so, yeah. Fast forward ten years and 20,000 buildings and over a million parking spots are now available to be electrified in Paris. So sorry. In France, and across other markets in Europe.

Denis Watling. [00:11:12]:
So that's how the Z PLAC model started. Within, so a necessity, basically. You know, it's a clear gap in the market for electrification. People who live in apartment blocks, there's not really a solution at the moment, a viable, cost effective solution for people to charge their vehicles. So that was how the brand was started. Fast forward another couple of years after that, and they had had some traction. Nikola had left g seven, you know, to to to run this business, had some traction there.

Denis Watling. [00:11:40]:
But very quickly, they found that as they were starting to install these charge points in apartment blocks, they found that the quality and the customer service and maybe the journey that they went through with different electrical contractors, I. E. Installers. This was ten or twelve years ago, but the journey that they went through varied a lot in costs and everything involved in that journey. So, bear in mind the background around the G70, Uber stuff. Actually, they realised there was another business model here, which was like an Uber-type model but for the installation of EV charging points. So off the back of the founding of Ziploc, they actually founded another business, which was ChargeGuru. So it was actually that way around.

Denis Watling. [00:12:24]:
So even in the UK, we launched ChargeGuru first and then the fully funded solution. So what ChargeGuru do is is essentially enable, EV charging for across most routes to market, but certainly for at home. So whether you live in an apartment block or, you know, on a terrace or something in touch with a driveway, we try and make that as simple as possible. But the model itself is very Uber-esque, shall we say. So we have partner installers, and we handle everything in the middle, and we are the point of contact for the customer throughout the whole journey, and also post installation. But, ultimately, those services are delivered by our partner installers. So it's a very efficient, scalable model, which is how we've been able to scale that across Europe, across eight countries, and, yeah, and have done so in the last ten years. So that is maybe more detailed than needed, but that hopefully gives you an idea of how we've got to where we are as ChargeGuru.

Denis Watling. [00:13:25]:
And in terms of how we differ currently in terms of, like, the French market or other markets in Europe, specifically France, Spain, Portugal, where we're we're most mature, and we've been in the office, versus The UK is is very much our kind of, public and destination charging offer. So what I mean by that is we are a kind of traditional public CPO in those markets, especially in France, Spain, and Portugal. Whereas in the UK, we're not a public CPO. We're not really looking to be one, to be perfectly honest. Alright. And so that's probably the main differentiator between the services we offer in those first few markets that we entered versus what we offer in the UK.

Liz Allan  [00:14:09]:
So if we look at what you call your fully funded solution, because I was going to actually point out specifically relating to this when you're talking about apartments, like you kind of alluded to, with regard, you know, in Paris and big cities like that. It's very difficult, or it has been very difficult, because there hasn't been very much ability for people to be able to, you know, charge their phones if they live in an apartment block. I was talking to, funnily enough, I was actually talking to an Uber driver a few weeks ago, and he was talking about just that. You know? He was told that it would be cheap to charge, but they obviously didn't, or if they did know that he lived in an apartment block, they didn't provide that information. He basically said, Look, you know, it's costing me more than I thought. And, actually, you know, something like what this is the solution that you're talking about provides, the ability to home charge, doesn't it, to certain types of apartments with a number of spaces. Do you wanna just explain a little bit how it's not certain types of apartments?

Liz Allan  [00:15:28]:
It's more the number of spaces, isn't it, that you kinda require?

Denis Watling. [00:15:32]:
Indeed. Yes. So yeah. Thanks, Palliz. And it's interesting because, yeah, it's a common theme across lots of Uber and taxi drivers and actually just, yeah, as we say, people who live in, you know, major cities or towns, really. So, yeah, this is the fully funded solution, I think, to your point, it's important to almost open with the buildings that are available to you. And it is, like you say, very much the building itself, so not the individual or the vehicle, anything like that. It's very much the building that is eligible for our solution.

Denis Watling. [00:16:07]:
And the reason there's an eligibility criteria is, essentially, we're investing in that building. So just like any business, any individual, when you're investing in something, then you're kind of doing your own due diligence and checks. So the criteria itself is essentially if the car park is underground, covered, or sometimes called an undercroft. So, not a fully exterior car park, essentially. So it has to be underground covered or undercroft, and it has to have at least 30 spaces, essentially, parking spaces. We can come on to that in a moment, why that is, maybe, but that's kind of the details around the buildings that are eligible for our fully funded solution. And just to talk about what that is, so when we say fully funded, it is really important to note that that is fully funded for the freeholder, so the person that owns the building, and or the property management company. So, they don't have to invest in anything.

Denis Watling. [00:17:03]:
Important to know that the residents themselves, when they wanna charge, it does cost them something. Unfortunately, it's not just completely free for everyone because, obviously

Liz Allan  [00:17:10]:
Can't do it. You won't make any money. No.

Denis Watling. [00:17:13]:
We wouldn't. We just spend lots of money. But, yeah, the purpose of the fully funded solution is to, essentially, have a private investment, so from us, to enable the residents within that building to have at-home charging. And the reason we say enable, I mean, people who maybe don't live in apartments or aren't familiar with the complications around installing chargers in apartment blocks might say, oh, well, we don't need why do we need ChargeGuru to invest in the building? I can just you know, if I'm a resident, I'll just pay for my own charger to be installed. Theoretically, you absolutely can. But there's a few things few considerations there. And I think the first, probably before you get onto cost, the most important thing there is you will require freeholder. So the company or person, but normally the company that owns that whole building, you might not even know who they are because there's no reason really you will know, essentially the freeholder is.

Denis Watling. [00:18:06]:
So you will need freeholder and or property management company approval to install that charge point because your Mhmm. Your cabling, etc., will be in a communal area. So, you need that approval regardless of the first point. So even if you wanted to and even if you were willing to pay lots and lots of money, it doesn't mean you can do it. It's is number one. And the second, probably most important, is cost. So, although you can do it, actually, it is not the same as installing a charge point, on a driveway, for example, where you might have to run five or 10 meters of cable from from your fuse board, maybe drill through one wall, and then store your charge point on on on the front of your house. If you can picture that you live in an apartment and you're listening, if you can picture your apartment block, your car park, your space, maybe first of all, you may not know where the incoming electricity supply is.

Denis Watling. [00:18:52]:
You probably don't. You can't. It's very well you can't. It's very, very unlikely you'll be able to use the electricity supply or the meter from your apartment itself. Because, again, if you can imagine where the cable would have to run through all the communal areas, yeah. Cost of people. So, yeah, the cost of installing that at a charge point in your parking space can vary. You could be very lucky, and it could cost a thousand pounds, but the likelihood is it's gonna be anywhere between kind of, 3 and, yeah, almost unlimited, but maybe 3 and 8,000 or £10,000 to to get that installed, depending on where your space is in that car park.

Denis Watling. [00:19:30]:
But I

Liz Allan  [00:19:30]:
was gonna I was gonna ask, actually. So, in an apartment building, I'm assuming there's a generator somewhere at the bottom, you know, they've got to manage all the so you've got a consumer unit, won't you? I'm assuming that in everybody's case, my in-laws used to have a flat. So, you know, you don't you have your commute consumer unit in the in the kind of the apartment block, but is there is there sort of like I suppose what I'm asking is, I'm assume assuming you need to upgrade the, you know, kind of the electricity so supply or, you know, so that it can take more more electric going out to those charges as and when people sign up.

Denis Watling. [00:20:09]:
Exactly that. And that's a really important point that you made at at the end. That as and when people sign up. So, again, with our fully funded solution, the great thing for particularly, yeah, the freeholders and property managers is we deal with, we manage, and also we pay for that upgrade when needed, to supply. But what's really important is, yeah, only when required. So it is often a misunderstanding and even in the industry from, you know, electrical contractors, not that they're doing anything wrong at all, but to say to go in and say, ah, you have a hundred spaces in your car park. In order to install a a seven kilowatt charger, which is, you know, what you would normally get installed on a driveway, in order to install a hundred seven kilowatt chargers, you need x amount of power. You only have y, so therefore, you need to upgrade your power supply now to enable that.

Denis Watling. [00:20:57]:
Now the reality is that's not required at all right now, because unless yeah. Well, you're not gonna have a %, or a hundred people within that car park moving electric tomorrow. We know that it's around 5% of vehicles on the road. Mhmm. So you might if you're in a, in a city where where EV adoption's high, you might have 12 or 15 people maybe out of the hundred that already have EVs. Great. So that's the first point. But secondly, what's really important as well is the charging habits of people, and when they charge and how much they drive.

Denis Watling. [00:21:31]:
So you don't see from the ten years we've been doing this in France and across Europe, where, like I mentioned earlier, you know, just to really explain what I meant earlier. So 20,000 buildings, we have this signed up percentage. 20,000 buildings are signed up to our fully funded solution across Europe, and that equates to a million parking spots within those 20,000 buildings that don't have charges in right now, but are able to have charges in. So, residents are able to contact ChargeGuru and say, I would like a charge point in that space. So what that experience has allowed us to have over the last ten years is that every single is to understand that every single building is different. And what I mean by that is electricity usage. Because every single person is different. Every single charging, kind of profile is different.

Denis Watling. [00:22:22]:
So what we're able to do via CPO, charge point operation software and tech is track the usage within that building. And one building of a hundred spaces, we might need to upgrade even if they have the same available power. If Building A and Building B has the same available power, we might have to upgrade Building A in three years. We might have to upgrade Building B not for seven years because of the distance people are travelling, so therefore the amount of charge they need overnight, or the times they charge, they might be shift workers, and actually, you know, you don't need the full capacity at the same time. Mhmm. And, ultimately, just to finish on this point about upgrades, our job, if you like, as ChargeGuru, providing that infrastructure is to ensure that every resident who's paying for that service has a fully charged vehicle when they need it.

Liz Allan  [00:23:16]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Denis Watling. [00:23:17]:
When they need it and how much they need will vary by person. But as long as they can charge their car when they need to, then they don't care about all the load balancing stuff and all the clever stuff we're dealing with, you know, and monitoring the building usage so that at night, when everyone's asleep, we can draw more energy from the incoming supplier. They don't need to worry about all that. They just need to know that when they wake up or when they go to use their vehicle, it's % charge or 80% charge, whatever they've said it's a charge to.

Liz Allan  [00:23:42]:
So, there are two things here, I suppose. What is that? Because if you're providing a fully funded solution for the freeholder, you've got to sign them up for a specific period of time or else it's not going to actually have a return on investment, is it, for you? So this side. So, how do I ask you two questions? So, how does that side of the contract work? And then, can you explain about those individuals who want to install a charger? What is the process that they go through, and how do they know what they are paying for? How did you know? How much are they paying? Kind of because I think you might have told me before that there's a subscription involved. So, so that's kind of two things, how because one's got to work in conjunction with the other, haven't it?

Denis Watling. [00:24:39]:
Exactly. And we'll we'll go in exactly the order you said, Liz, because the building, needs to sign up first, basically. We, of course, can talk to them. We do talk to residents before the building signs up, but the building needs to sign up first. And what they're signing up to, as we said, they're not paying anything, but they're signing up or essentially signing a contract that says, we are happy and we are willing to allow ChargeGuru to install electrical charging infrastructure within that building. So that's essentially what that contract says. So, just before we move on to the kind of payment setup for residents, if you imagine a fibre and Internet provider, it's exactly the same principle. Right? So you would normally get letters through your letterbox when Virgin, BT, or any other company do the same thing with that building.

Denis Watling. [00:25:27]:
So if you live in an apartment block, you'll suddenly go, ah, I've got I've got I've had over the last three months, I've had some flyers from Virgin, for example. That would be because Virgin will have recently signed an agreement just like we will do with the building that says, ah, we're gonna allow you, Virgin or BT, whoever it is, to install your fibre connectivity into our building. Yes. So it's the same principle where we sign a contract with the building that says, that building is allowing us to provide a service to its residents. That's what that contract is. So we do that first of all. And like I say, for us, that's actually more on us ensuring the building's eligible for our parameters and yeah. Touch on that really quickly.

Denis Watling. [00:26:08]:
There are commercial reasons, to be perfectly honest with you. So if we're investing in that building, we have to have a a valid kind of commercial model which says we will eventually make money out of this. I'll be honest. It's a very long payback period.

Liz Allan  [00:26:21]:
Yeah. It can be matching.

Denis Watling. [00:26:23]:
As you'll understand, you don't need to be a mathematician when I tell you the cost for the resident, which is pretty reasonable. You know, you can stick it in an Excel spreadsheet. And if you know anything about industry, the EV charging industry, you'll work out that it's quite a long payback period. But, but, yeah, the eligibility from our side is, yep. This building works. We're happy to invest in this. We signed the contract. And then on the second part that that you mentioned is for the resident.

Denis Watling. [00:26:48]:
So there's there's three cost elements for the resident. Again, kind of very, very similar, really, to the fiber, but, so it's a very good comparison. So there's a one off cost to have the charge point installed in your in your individual charging space, in your individual parking space. So that is in line with a a driveway installation.

Denis Watling. [00:27:09]:
So Yeah, a pretty good value. So around £900 for that installation. You also own that charge point. So you don't own any of the cabling up until the charge point because we're

Liz Allan  [00:27:19]:
But that's yours. That seven-kilowatt charger is yours. So if you move, the cabling will stay. It'll be capped off or whatever you have to do, but you can move with that.

Denis Watling. [00:27:29]:
Exactly.

Liz Allan  [00:27:29]:
Or you sell it on, I'm assuming, to the next person. Yeah.

Denis Watling. [00:27:33]:
Exactly that. So the good thing is that residents are able to do exactly what you said first, Ed, Liz. It's their charger. If they wanna take it, they can. And it gives them a kind of peace of mind. The reality is, again, across the last ten years, what we've seen is that it's happened in less than 1% of scenarios. And, actually, what a resident does is just as part of when they're selling or selling their their property or maybe just, you know, moving, no longer renting, they go, yeah, we'll just leave it there because it adds value to the property, and and when we'll just get a new one installed when we move. So, yeah, that's the first payment.

Denis Watling. [00:28:04]:
So, then paying one off fee for the charge point installation, and then owning the charge point. There's then a subscription fee, a monthly subscription fee, of around £20 a month. That is, I'll come to the third point actually, probably even easier, so subscription fee. The third cost is the electricity they use, so pay as you go, essentially. So, the subscription fee does not include electricity usage. So even if you didn't charge for whatever reason for that month, you really important thing here, and and to your your Uber driver that you had a conversation with about cost of charging, charging, is those that cost per kilowatt hour, is in line with the domestic price cap. So, unfortunately, it's not at the 7p  and 8p for night tariffs that you can get at on a driveway yet. We will be happy to talk about it in a moment.

Denis Watling. [00:29:00]:
We will get there, I'm sure, in the distant future. But at the moment, it's not there; it's at the domestic private. So, it's around twenty-five p at the moment. Mhmm. Now, for anyone who charged on the public network, twenty-five pence sounds pretty.

Liz Allan  [00:29:11]:
That's cheap.

Denis Watling. [00:29:12]:
Yeah. You'll be paying three to five times sometimes, but certainly three times that minimum, really, on the public network. So coming back to your Uber driver, whether he or she was sold or mis-sold is a different matter, the electric vehicle. But ultimately, we know from pretty much all reports, but even the fantastic cost of driving electric report recently, which came out from Electric Vehicles UK, which is a great report, but still undermines the story. Underlines the fact that if you can't charge at home or if you're doing the vast majority, if not a % of your charging on the public network, then actually the cost of running an EV is is pretty much in parity with petrol diesel or possibly more if you're really only using rapid charging. So so the importance to charge at home is not just convenience, but it's the ability to access those, those, you know, pounds per kilowatt hour rates that are a third or or or only, you know, a fifth of the public rates.

Liz Allan  [00:30:16]:
No. So, I mean, you're really giving people that ability, though, who are in, you know, those apartment buildings. And I know you like you're saying, you've got to make it into a viable business model or else there's no point. So, those kinds of spaces that have a larger number of spaces, at least you are catering. Yes. You're not catering for everybody in smaller apartment blocks yet. Don't know whether that's what you're aiming for, but it is, you know, to me, this is like going through, and you're one of the pieces of the puzzle, aren't you? And we said before we were recording, you know, one of the pieces of the puzzle is cross-pavement solutions. You are another piece of the puzzle.

Liz Allan  [00:31:11]:
There will probably be more that come in. Obviously, we've got co-chargers and places, you know, organisations like that. It's not one size fits all, this way, you know, and actually, I think that the fact that you are, yes. You've had to kind of say, right, this is what it looks like to make it viable, but it's a good, you are filling a gap. That's that's the biggest thing, isn't it? You are filling a need, but people need this.

Denis Watling. [00:31:43]:
Indeed. And that's absolutely, yeah, the principle behind it. We we don't and and, again, as as as we said, before we start recording, we certainly aren't ones to say Chargeguro A will provide solutions in absolutely every single scenario because because, yeah, that that's not that's not what we're here to do. We're we're here to hopefully plug a gap or, as you say, you know, put a piece of the jigsaw in that that at the moment in The UK isn't isn't being isn't being solved. And what's really interesting is this is, you know, we we we know and and work quite closely with the likes of Joel and Cocharger and and the the Turbocharge, team as well. And they're they're fantastic solutions, for, yeah, for Cocharger kind of crosses a little bit with what we're doing as well, actually, because people could either get charger installed in their apartment or Cocharger and turbocharger, of course, is for off street, and there's some other great solutions out there. Sorry. On street, and there's some other great solutions out there.

Denis Watling. [00:32:39]:
So, yeah, we're absolutely genuinely, I'll explain how the business was born, if you like, in Paris, Twelve Years ago. We we genuinely do want to enable a more sustainable energy network, you know, and and we're doing this out a little bit. But the interesting thing about what we're doing is it does require investment, and quite a bit of investment if you wanna do this at a serious scale, which we're doing in Europe. So, so, yeah, it's why we're really focusing, should we say, our kind of efforts and resources on this element, because we know that it's not as easy to solve as some other areas. And we know that, you know, for example, in the UK, over 20%, it's about just around 22% of households that live in apartments in the UK. So it's a big chunk of people. And, actually, if you look across Europe, we're the lowest across the rest of Europe in terms of that percentage. So it's up to close to 50% and higher in other EU markets.

Liz Allan  [00:33:40]:
So is it?

Denis Watling. [00:33:41]:
Yes. You can see it's a huge kind of a a piece to fill. And interesting, in The UK, we know that the infrastructure grant has been available for a number of years now, and it's, like, through OZEV, the OZEV infrastructure grant for landlords, specifically in residential car parks. So trying to solve this problem, really. But there still hasn't been huge it's great that they've extended it, Ozem. Thank you, OZEV, for extending that. But, there hasn't been huge uptake of that grant. 

Denis Watling. [00:34:11]:
So it is really that we believe it really comes to the stage where there has to be a commercial, commercially led solution. There's only so much government funding can do. Yeah. And the reason we say that is even in the government funding scenario, it still requires, first of all, a willing proactive freeholder or property manager to engage. Because as I said earlier, without their permission or without their buying, you can't do anything anyway because it's not your place, you don't have the right to. So you need that, first of all. So you need them engaged, which, unless people like us are gonna do, then the likelihood is they're probably not gonna engage. But secondly, and probably more importantly, is is is the money element.

Denis Watling. [00:34:47]:
So even with that grant from the government, it does not cover the entire cost of everything.

Denis Watling. [00:34:53]:
So a freehold of the cost manager is still gonna have to invest in that infrastructure when there's lots of other things that are going on that maybe aren't their priority, and they don't really wanna spend money on it at the moment. So, so, yeah, it's a, although it's only a small piece of the puzzle, should we say, that that we're trying to solve. I say small, like I say.

Denis Watling. [00:35:12]:
It's significant. 20% of the UK and kind of if you look across all of Europe, it's average about 45% of the population in major European countries live in apartments. So, yeah, not a small one. But in terms of, in terms of the piece of the puzzle, we're not the entire solution, but but we're certainly trying to solve it.

Liz Allan  [00:35:28]:
But do you think do you think that that grant is the reason why people aren't taking it up, or is it I mean, I I always talk about, you know, kind of that misinformation and because there's there's two sides of this in in my mind. Part of it is, you know, I don't know if it's misinformation that is having a knock-on effect with the grant uptake, or is it just that we do find this, don't we, that the government doesn't always shout about the money they're giving out. You know, they've not got a public information campaign with, you know, a loud halo going, excuse me. There's lots of money going here. Is it either of those or both?

Denis Watling. [00:36:14]:
I think it may well be both. It might be a little bit of the latter, but I really do think it's the former. And again, it's no one's fault. It's not that the government isn't putting enough money on it. It's certainly available. Like you're saying, maybe they're spending more than we think they are, as Chargebee thinks they are. But our experience is that we work with freeholders property managers directly because of this fully funded solution.

Denis Watling. [00:36:40]:
And we work with, again, across Europe, but now specifically in the UK with a lot of the largest ones, and they haven't got solutions in place. So that tells you inherently that they are not accessing this fund this funding. Mhmm. And they're either telling us directly it's because well, yeah. But then I'd still you know, the reasons such as I still have to pay for it, even though there's funding available, I have to pay for the balance. Probably even more importantly, or yeah, equally as importantly is, well, who's gonna manage it once it is installed? Because I am still as a freeholder property manager, I still then have to manage it. What if something goes wrong? We just spoke about electricity earlier and how it has to come on the communal meter rather than the individual resident's meter. So in that car park environment, all the energy that's being used for those charge points would come from a communal supply.

Denis Watling. [00:37:35]:
So, essentially, the freeholder or property manager would be paying the bill and then would have to go after the residents and say, right. You owe me x amount of money because you charge this much. Of course, all that is absolutely viable and technically quite easy to do now because of all the software. But ultimately, the property managers don't wanna be doing that. They don't they don't wanna be saying, right. Okay. So I've got all the data from the software, and now I have to, you know, go after the residents. I have to ask Liz for £62.50 this month because she charged however well, they don't want to do that.

Denis Watling. [00:38:06]:
And, oh, when a charge point breaks down, well, what, so it's our responsibility to go and do that. Okay. And I installed shared charging using the infrastructure grant, and I had a hundred spaces in the car park. So I installed 10 because, you know, the EV adoption is only at 5%, and then I thought that would do us. And then now an eleventh person has bought a car, and I'm getting loads of grief because they can't charge it. So all of these things that that grant money is fantastic, and it's it was absolutely, you know, personal view now rather than charge me a personal view that it was the right place to put money behind because we know that driveway charging is, I almost wanna say, solved. Right? There are lots of great professionals, including us, but lots of great players in that space, so that if you want a charge point installed in the driveway, you can get it right in the UK. It's pretty hassle-free and a reasonable price.

Denis Watling. [00:38:52]:
So the government putting money behind apartment blocks and on street parking, I completely agree with, but it doesn't solve the issue on its own, which is the point. So just like on street without the likes of Turbocharge solutions, you know, just because there's money there doesn't mean you couldn't

Liz Allan  [00:39:09]:
No. I know.

Denis Watling. [00:39:10]:
Solution. So, so yeah.

Liz Allan  [00:39:12]:
I was going to ask you if there's, I suppose, if you're talking about private landlords or freeholders, then there's their land, isn't it? So, is there still a need to go to the local authority for planning permission for anything, or is it just all under that?

Denis Watling. [00:39:35]:
No. It's all under the agreement we signed with the freeholder. The only thing that is any kind of third-party involvement, if you like, is the DNO, the district network operator. Regardless of whether there's a power upgrade required, so we spoke about that earlier. So, regardless of whether we need more power or not, that Mhmm. Building, to that car park, either way, we still we still involve and have to involve the district network operator. But they are commercial entities that, yeah, are used to working. Not even necessarily our solution because we're quite unique in what we do, but they're used to working with people like us, saying we're gonna install EV transmittance points essentially.

Denis Watling. [00:40:15]:
So although it varies in terms of time scale of how long things take by different DNOs, broadly, you know, it's, it's it's not a super super complicated process. You know, they understand it, and it's not like a planning process with them, yeah,

Liz Allan  [00:40:35]:
With a public, fully funded solution, then, how was the reaction you were getting from the freeholders now? Are they are they kind of starting to sit up and listen a little bit more now?

Denis Watling. [00:40:47]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And the well, I suppose in a word, what's on their reaction, it's been fantastic, really, as expected and as hoped because of what we've done in Europe. But, yeah, really, really positive. And the good thing is it's not even necessarily that they're now listening. I mentioned earlier that, you know, that they certainly, the larger the free, the larger the freeholders and property management companies. They want they know what they want or they know they need a solution for, and they want to do it, but there has not really been a viable, cost-effective, scalable solution available up until now. So it's not that we're convincing them and telling them about EV adoption and how important it is.

Denis Watling. [00:41:31]:
It's more the solution, the technicals around the solution that they go, okay. Great. That's fantastic. Then again, comparing it to fibre, you know, Internet, they go, ah, got it. Understand it. Sounds great. Where do I sign? Please, you know, that's great because I've got loads of residents across all of my portfolio saying I need EV charging, and at the minute, we don't really know what to do, or we've done something that hasn't really worked, whatever that something is. Mhmm.

Denis Watling. [00:41:56]:
Just a final point on that as well. Another thing that maybe they are realising is, like, a safety element, having a solution like ours installed across that portfolio, with one business professional, qualified business owning and managing, and maintaining that infrastructure is considerably better than residents doing their own thing. Plugging in a three-pin socket and hanging out their window, yeah. Or or in between where they just go I said at the beginning that they require permission. Some of them just don't ask, and they go and install their own thing, and it's something that maybe has been bought off Amazon and doesn't really adhere to the smart regulations, etcetera, etcetera, and therefore is more of a hazard than I don't wanna scare people. That doesn't mean that EV chargers are a hazard. They're not. But, of course, by having something that is not through a professional party to test. 

Denis Watling. [00:43:03]:
Exactly. And, essentially, that the freeholder isn't aware of, basically. They don't know that the charge has been installed because the resident's gone and done their own thing. And if you're a resident, if you're in a resident's shoes, you kinda go well, if they've asked the freeholder, the freeholder said, nope. Sorry. Nothing I can do. I can't provide you with a solution. Then they've gone, well, I'm gonna need something anyway.

Denis Watling. [00:43:21]:
Whereas, at least, if when that resident asks, they can go, oh, don't worry. We're working with ChargeGuru or similar, and here's the solution. Here's what you know, here's what you can do. Then it really gives the freeholder confidence that, yeah, that everything's gonna be done properly in their portfolio, which, of course, is very important because they have hundreds of millions or billions of pounds worth of property that needs to be done properly. They need these things installed properly.

Liz Allan  [00:43:46]:
So do you think at some point you will be looking because, like you say, you've got the covered? What did you call it? It's like undercroft. I've never heard of undercroft, but I get what you're saying.

Denis Watling. [00:44:01]:
Yeah.

Liz Allan  [00:44:01]:
So is is actually is an undercroft where you've got, like, the building is on top of the the car park, but the car park is kind of open at various sides?

Denis Watling. [00:44:11]:
Exactly that. So the easiest, so we say, kind of underground, undercroft, but, ultimately, if it's covered, if it's got a ceiling, wherever it is. So it could be the Fourth Floor. It could be underground. It could be the First Floor. It could just have a roof that kind of, yeah, It doesn't extend all the way around. But, you know, it doesn't have walls, but it's just as long as it's got a ceiling where your car is, if you look up and there's a ceiling, then then then you're good, basically. And the reason for that, I touched on it earlier, but again, that's only at the moment.

Denis Watling. [00:44:41]:
It doesn't mean in the future we won't be able to provide the solution for more car parks or more buildings. But at the moment, really, it's it's because the cost to install if it's an open air car park, where, you know, it's just just a normal kind of flat open air car park, the cost to install EV charging points as and when residents want them to have them, because that's really important about our solution. So we install the charge point as and when they want it. Mhmm. As soon as the first building signs up, which we explained earlier, as soon as that first resident raises their hand, then we're gonna install that one charge point. So even if it's one. And then when the second, fifth, tenth, fifteenth, we go and install those charge points as and when they want them. So if you can picture a normal kind of overground car park, that would mean basically I'm digging up the pavement or the car park every time.

Denis Watling. [00:45:28]:
Mhmm. Don't run into whoever resident number five and number 10 is. Right? So it's just not one, it's not very nice to have residents in car parks, but also, secondly, it's not cost-effective to go and do that. Whereas, if you've got a ceiling, you can of course run the cables along with

Liz Allan  [00:45:43]:
Get you.

Liz Allan  [00:45:45]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And and going back to that safety element as well, if you're kind of installing them in underground or or sort of, you know, covered covered car park, you need to make sure that the that it's you guys that are installing it and not just, you know, a resident's chucking it in there because from a safety element, you want to make sure that there isn't that it's installed correctly, don't you? You know? Indeed. Not just like bodge it and legging from down the road, who came in and chucked it in.

Denis Watling. [00:46:16]:
And also the maintenance bit as well, not just from a management point of view. So for the freeholders to so they're not getting phone calls from residents, that's kind of a pain. But, again, from a safety point of view and a regulatory point of view, it is their duty of care. All of our fully funded solutions come with an annual EICR check as part of that. So, again, there's that comfort for what one, the resident, that they've always got someone at the end of the phone and email to to contact if something goes wrong, but also secondly for the freeholder and the property managers that that, yeah, that that infrastructure is not only installed by a qualified body, but they're gonna continue like, we are gonna continue to maintain that, over the course of its life. And just a last point on that. So, we quite often get asked, well, well, how you know, what happens if in five, eight years' time, you just decide to increase your prices? What happens then is Chargecoo? That's not fair on the resident. And, actually, the great thing about the model is that it's kind of self policing on us, if you like, because the resident subscription is a rolling monthly subscription with us.

Denis Watling. [00:47:22]:
So if we were to ever decide to significantly increase the price of electricity or subscription, first of all, of course, there are protections in there for the resident anyway. But even if we were to do that for new residents, we say they haven't signed up yet, then then it wouldn't it would essentially it's self policing because we we would then lose out our investment in that building because residents would just say, oh, well, you've upped your subscription by x amount. That's too much for me. I'll I'll just go charge on a public network. Mhmm. Absolute subscription. And then we've already invested thousands of pounds in that building upfront. So it's a self-kind of policing model where, yeah, there's no benefit.

Denis Watling. [00:47:58]:
In fact, it's to our detriment if we increase prices over and above the market levels. Of course, market dynamics are always gonna take. But, yeah, if we go and start charging 80p a kilowatt hour, then residents will probably go, well, I might just go on a public network. So, so it's always that kind of yeah.

Liz Allan  [00:48:15]:
And that's the only time it would be viable for somebody to move to something like the public charging network model, wouldn't it? You know, because you're offering that, you know, like you said, the 24 per kilowatt hour. I can't, you know, that there's, you know, a lot of push to try and reduce public charging, so you would never want to go up to that kind of rate. It's not in your best interest, is it, really?

Denis Watling. [00:48:47]:
Exactly. And really important point for residents as well.

Liz Allan  [00:48:52]:
So, I was gonna ask you, you kind of alluded to something earlier on when you said about the twenty-four PM, you said yet. Are there are there any potential kind of you don't if you can't say then that's fair enough, but are there any potential partnerships that you are looking or working towards to kind of make make a difference with the prices or other kind of partnerships that that you're sort of, working on for future or other other things that that are happening with ChargeGuru?

Denis Watling. [00:49:28]:
Yeah. So, so first of all, in the UK, I'm not hiding anything in the sense that there's nothing around the corner, unfortunately, that will say, ah, we'll be able to get seven p in six months, you know. There's nothing that's around the corner that that, yeah, that that we've got conversations in the UK that say, yeah, don't worry. In six months, it's gonna be 7PM. However, what we are seeing in the continent and the rest of Europe is, of course, at the moment, in the UK, we are not buying lots of electricity compared to other kinds of purchases of electricity, shall we say, because we're just rolling this out. We're just starting to do it in our first, you know, hundreds of buildings rather than thousands or tens of thousands. Of course, in France, where we have over 20,000 buildings and, yeah, tens of thousands, I think, over a hundred thousand thousand vehicles charging, of course, energy providers go, ah, okay. Well, yeah, you're purchasing ChargeGuru on behalf of the residents, but you're purchasing a lot of electricity here.

Denis Watling. [00:50:34]:
First point. So first of all, they are willing to have those commercial discussions, so we say. Not that they're not at the moment, but they're just different commercial discussions, right, clearly because of the amount of energy we're purchasing. Secondly, secondly, we because we which I haven't touched on actually, but it's an important point. We install our own electricity meter in everything right in our car park.

Denis Watling. [00:50:58]:
so that means that I mentioned earlier that some other or pretty much every other solution would require the freeholder or property manager to pay the bill and then kind of get it off the resident. Because we would keep it off the off the residents. So for that reason, what it also means so first point, more energy we'll be buying. Second point, we can say to all the energy providers that we're working with, and actually we choose one per market. So we're only gonna be working with one in The UK. But we are able to say to that energy provider, the energy being used on these meters, these hundreds or thousands of meters, is all for electric vehicle charging because that's the only thing that's coming off those meters. So that opens a different conversation because as we know, it's EV charging specific and the third point, as to why I'm extremely confident that we will see those rates reduced versus market averages. I don't wanna say reduced because, again, we don't know what the market's gonna do, but reduced versus where we're at now.

Denis Watling. [00:52:02]:
So if we say the domestic price cap is what we can offer, and we just need to be able to offer below the domestic price cap, because the third point is that it benefits energy providers, as we know. There's a reason there's off peak tariffs. Right? There's a reason they're available because, as we know, energy supply versus demand in those off peak, time periods, you know, demand is is is the gap between kind of demand and supplies is significantly more than than when, when, when it's six or 07:00 when everyone gets home and puts the camera on and puts the TV on. So what I mean by that third point is it's in the energy provider's interests to work with us to reduce that rate. So when everything is pointing towards the fact that it works for everyone, it works for us, it works for the energy provider, it works for the resident to do something about it, then that normally means that something will happen. So we're already seeing in France the rate, you know, is is less than what we were paying originally. So we inspect that in UK as well.

Liz Allan  [00:52:59]:
Be good to see, wouldn't it start start seeing that that kind of, because, obviously, an energy provider, they they kind of forecast. They do lots of forecasting anyway in hedging. So it's in everybody's yours and their best interest isn't it to actually kind of look at look at how how this how this works that's that's really good I'm going to ask you one final question What do you see what would you like the future of ChargeGuru to look like?

Denis Watling. [00:53:35]:
Good question. I think having a tangible impact. So, if you fast forward ten years, being able to say we're having a tangible impact on the, you know, on air quality and and and, you know, more widely, global emissions. So air quality in a local perspective and global emissions. That's where I would like us to be. We make an impact. Of course, we do. But in the grand scheme of things, it's unfortunately relatively small.

Denis Watling. [00:54:05]:
But actually, I genuinely do believe with this fully funded solution, we mentioned the percentages earlier, 20% more than 10% of the UK, 45 % across Europe. If we can get to a stage where we've enabled a big chunk of those people to electrify, then you can start to say, okay. ChargeGuru has positively contributed to that kind of mass shift to a sustainable energy network, which is where I'd like us to be. And I think we can get there.

Liz Allan  [00:54:33]:
And actually, do you know what? And I talk about this a lot in the stuff that I write on LinkedIn and blogs and things. It's about incremental change

Liz Allan  [00:54:44]:
And all of the stuff that you're talking about. Like I said to you, you know, and I wasn't trying to belittle you at all you know the the the small piece of the puzzle we're all a small piece of the puzzle except you're bigger than you know you know it's kind of it's that that impact but it's those incremental changes that that make something that's really big and something tangible. And if we all sit on our backsides and do nothing, then we won't get anything. You know? What do you do if you always do what you've always done, you always get what you've always got? We're doing something different. You know? I'm trying to do something different on the podcast and in my business. You are, too. So it's about moving that needle forward, isn't it?

Denis Watling. [00:55:26]:
Indeed. Indeed. And hopefully, in ten years' time, Liz will sit down again and we'll say, look how much CO2 emissions we're saving and, and, yeah, and look at the air quality improvement in the areas. And the cities, we've got a really nice cool map as you can imagine only via Google Maps or whatever. Where you input all the buildings that we're that we're signed up, and you can see the heat map to be really cool in ten years' time or five years' time to say, and look at the air quality improved where where we've put all these buildings signed up. Because we know it is like you said, it's incremental and it is tangible if you change 30% of the cars in that city. We enable a change from petrol, diesel to electric, and then the air quality we know does improve. So yeah.

Liz Allan  [00:56:05]:
Exactly. So, so just, you know, like I say, we're all part of a big puzzle, a bigger puzzle, and we just need to keep moving forward, and that's, that's what my thinking is. But look, on that note, I just want to say thank you. It's been really, really interesting talking to you and finding out a bit more about Charge Guru and yourself, and you know, what you're trying to achieve. So I really, really appreciate appreciate your time.

Denis Watling. [00:56:29]:
No. And likewise, thank you very much again for having me on this. Hopefully, it's been useful for you and the listeners, and it's been a real pleasure to talk to you.

Liz Allan  [00:56:40]:
Yeah. And actually, I was yeah. No. I was gonna say on that note to everybody else, as I always say, trying to elevate this podcast. It's more the message really.

Liz Allan  [00:56:53]:
And we just need to get it kind of and get it out there as much as we can so you know again incrementally it's it's kind of just sort of starting to raise the ceiling a little bit and and provide a little bit more education and information to people so yeah we're on Linkedin we're on YouTube we're on you know on all the audio platforms so like subscribe do all those wonderful things and just thank you for listening and watching and thank you Denis It's been great.

Denis Watling. [00:57:23]:
Thank you.

Liz Allan  [00:57:24]:
So yeah to everybody else thank you. I'll see you next time. Bye.