Episode 152: Liz Allan and Suki Sangha - Beyond the Plug: How Virta is Reimagining EV Charging

Episode 152: Liz Allan and Suki Sangha - Beyond the Plug: How Virta is Reimagining EV Charging.

We’re really grateful and excited to have Virta as the sponsor for this episode of Electric Evolution. Virta is helping to shape the future of EV charging through smart, connected, and flexible solutions across Europe. 

For the 152nd episode of Electric Evolution, Liz Allan is joined by Suki Sangha, Sales Lead (UK & Ireland) at Virta, one of Europe’s leading smart charging platforms. Together, they explore how EV charging is evolving from a simple plug-in solution to a vital part of the wider energy and digital ecosystem. 

Suki shares powerful insights into why it’s time to move beyond siloed infrastructure thinking and start seeing EV charging as a dynamic, intelligent service. Liz and Suki also discuss the importance of collaboration across the energy landscape, why the UK has a key role to play in global EV progress, and how platforms like Virta are enabling new business models and grid resilience through smarter technology. 

Suki Sangha Bio:
Suki Sangha is the Sales Lead for the UK and Ireland at Virta, bringing a unique perspective shaped by his early career in the hospitality industry. With a natural focus on service, people, and customer experience, Suki has carried those values into the world of EV charging, helping organisations embrace smarter, more connected infrastructure. His commercial insight and passion for innovation now support businesses, developers, and energy providers across the UK as they navigate the shift to electrified transport and integrated energy systems. 

Quote of the Episode:
"Customer experience should never be an afterthought; it needs to be part of the design from day one.” — Suki Sangha, Virta

Transcript

Liz Allan  [00:00:02]:

So on today’s episode, I have with me a lovely guy I have been speaking to for absolutely months, I have to say. It’s Suki Sangha from Virta Global. Suki, thank you ever so much for joining me. I can’t believe how long we’ve been talking and trying to get you on here. So my apologies for the length of time, but thank you.

Suki Sangha [00:00:22]:

It’s a pleasure to be here, Liz, and thanks for inviting me on. And yes, we’ve been trying to set this up, I think for three or four months now. I think we’ve probably discussed charging infrastructure to such an extent. We could have done five, six, or seven of these podcasts by now. Just from the conversations we’ve had. But thanks for having me.

Liz Allan  [00:00:44]:

Hey, no, no worries. And actually, just to warn you all, Suki and I can talk for England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales because we just like you say, we could probably do various iterations of this. So let’s just go. So you are the sales lead for UK and Ireland for Virta Global. I always talk to people about this. To start off with, talk to me a little bit about your background because it’s not always been in this kind of sector, has it? Quite a while ago it was something else, which I personally feel from talking to you for so long has built the way you think about consumers and customers.

Suki Sangha [00:01:26]:

Yeah, I think that’s a good question, Liz. And I think probably you’ve understood a little bit more of who I am and why I sometimes talk the way I talk and value the things that I do. I’ll start way right back at the beginning. I grew up in an entrepreneurial family, so mum and dad had numerous businesses, nightclubs, restaurants. So grew up in the hospitality sector from a very young age. So I was surrounded by, as you do in those sort of families, business chat around what the customer needs, what the customer wants, what we should be doing next to make sure we stay relevant and have the right sort of offerings for our customers. So from a young age, you’re exposed to an environment where there is constant chat around the customer.

Suki Sangha [00:02:18]:

Grew up, started helping my dad in the businesses from 13, 14, going in with him to help him set some tables up before he opened and make sure the place was as it should be through to by 15, 16, 17. Working my weekends in the trade, going from back of house to front of house and so by the time I left school and finished my education and went out into corporate life, I didn’t actually want to work every weekend as many young men at 18, 19, 20 do. So I thought I want a corporate job, I want something different. But I think you take a lot of that learning and values with you. So that took me through into my corporate career. Started in mobile telecoms right back at the stage and we call it all disruptive now. But right back at the stage the network switched from analog to digital with all the options that opened up in terms of growth and service delivery and just the type of services that could be delivered from there. I went into fleet telematics, I spent time in disruptive business travel solutions, changing the business travel industry from one where you had business brokers providing your travel services, business travel agents, to a fully digitalised service.

Suki Sangha [00:03:41]:

And I’ve basically worked in and around, as I say, whatever we deem as disruptive tech now in some way, shape or form, but changing old habits, old processes within businesses, digitalizing them, bringing them up to date to make sure that they can deliver their services in a better fashion or reduce overhead and, or reduce resource or open up new revenue streams. So that took me to about three and a half years ago where Virta reached out to me. I was in the fleet space working with a fleet hire company, a large fleet hire corporate, on the digitalization of a rental solution. And Virta reached out to me and said, look, we actually think you’ve done just about every aspect of what’s included in charge point service delivery from a software standpoint. So we’d like to have a conversation with you. So joined Virta three and a half years ago, have been here ever since having these sorts of conversations, helping our partners and our clients solve their charging challenges and making sure that they’ve optimized their networks and built networks and optimized them to meet the requirements of the modern day EV driver.

Liz Allan  [00:04:56]:

With a very customer focused lens as well, haven’t you? And that’s the one thing I didn’t do when I first introduced you was to say that Graham Rowlands from Devitech who I’ve previously interviewed introduced us and he also is very customer focused, you know, and that’s what through our conversations I think probably other people picking up today will get from you. That’s how we started chatting away, didn’t we about stuff. But Graham, again, he’s that kind of guy, you know, you too. I totally get why you enjoy working with him. He’s one of your customers anyway, isn’t he? But actually, I totally get why he introduced you, because you are two peas in a pod.

Suki Sangha [00:05:51]:

He’s a customer, he’s a great friend. And likewise, as you and I have done, Liz, Graham and I can talk for hours just on what’s right, what’s wrong, what we need to do next, how we improve the services that we offer because we want to. Graham also comes from a background where he’s used to delivering work to a standard. I think same applies for us. But also, you’ve got to remember, and I think you and I spoke about this a few times, we have a job to do for our companies. We drive our businesses. We make sure that we’re continuously raising standards and evolving our solutions and our offerings and services. But we wear another hat. We’re EV drivers as well. And this going back to what I just said a little while ago about my background, you know, you can’t. It’s very difficult to cook great food and serve it if you’re not willing to taste it and if you’re not going to eat it right the way through everything I’ve ever done. You’ve got to be a consumer, first of all, yourself to understand the challenges and get into the mindset of the consumer, the end user of the service that you’re providing. And that’s where we always start our conversation, by understanding the end driver, whether that be you or I on our weekend travels with family, whether it be the fleet driver, whether it be whoever that person in that vehicle is, what are their challenges and what are their organization’s challenges. Then once we’ve got a handle on that, we figure out how we build the right tools and services and products to let our charge point operating partners supply and service those challenges. So it’s, you know, I quite often say what we do is a B2B2C play with the consumer at the very end of it. But the start point is the C. It’s the consumer. Then we work back from that and say, right, how do we make sure they have a great experience with us and through our partners?

Liz Allan  [00:07:54]:

And everybody who’s been listening to this podcast for a while will know that I totally sing from that hymn sheet. You know, being an advocate and working in the sector as well. It’s so important. So really what you’re saying is, as Virta Global, you get into the nuts and bolts of everything. But I think you’ve described Virta to me previously as similar to Intel Inside, in that people don’t realize the full extent of what you do. So can you, just to give people context, can you explain that analogy and give me a little bit of background to. I know you’ve just given us a flavour, but what exactly does Virta do? Because you are. We need to start off by saying how many charge points you’ve got, because that just blew my mind.

Suki Sangha [00:08:48]:

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Liz. Good question. Yeah, Intel Inside, I think that’s how I see it. We all have our own ways of making that statement. Virta started life 11 years ago, global head offices in Helsinki. So we came out of Helsinki. We are a CPMS (Charge Point Management System) first company. So we build the software solutions needed to deliver EV charging both in terms of charge point management system and the wider ecosystem. So plugging in everything from the payments and transactions processing modules through to the communications modules through to the apps and UIs that drivers need to access services at the front end and right the way through to the support services that our partners need to deliver to their drivers, such as the 24/7, 365 driver call centre. We’re now trading in 36 countries. So we have charge point operations in 36 countries. Yeah, we’re just like Intel. It’s that name. It’s on the laptop, but you don’t quite know. You never really speak to them directly, but you know it’s important, you know it’s there. So we are delivering a charging session, give or take about every second and a half across our network. So that’s an awful lot of data that lets us understand what works, what doesn’t work. Where is charging simple? Where is it easy? What is working today and what are the challenges and what do we need to build next to make sure we deliver great charging experiences.

Liz Allan  [00:10:42]:

And tell them how many charges you’ve actually got globally.

Suki Sangha [00:10:45]:

125,000. Just over 125,000 with access to another just shy of 600,000 through roaming partnerships. But 125,000 plus directly supported chargers on our platform. So we know what good looks like.

Liz Allan  [00:11:06]:

And that’s a good thing because there’s a lot of people that don’t. And I did have a whole episode on Best Practice, what good looks like with Gary Comerford from EV Musings, you know, but we’ve talked about things in a bit of a different way previously and I’d like to bring some of that into this because there are so many things that you and I have talked about over the months we’ve been chatting. It’s just been. Yeah, we just totally think the same way. I want to start first by saying, you know, what you’ve just said about the 125,000 charges and knowing what good looks like. There’s so many different aspects of what you’re doing. How can you pull this all together? How can you do this to make sure that the seam that like you said, that person at the end, the person plugging that EV in has a seamless experience? What is your USP?

Suki Sangha [00:12:19]:

I think when we strip everything back, Liz, it’s the number of services and the types of services that we offer. But if I say what is it that really makes this work? What makes us unique and what lets us build out the way we have done? And I should have added in that last question. We are. The Financial Times 1000 list have had us down as the fastest growing EV charging platform in Europe for the last five years running. I think there’s only 15% of the companies in their list make that list for five years on the trot. So we’re doing something right. But what is it that we’re doing right? I can answer that in a number of different ways. But if I’m being perfectly honest, when you strip it back, Liz, we are a software first business - software and integrated energy services. So we hold this unique position, a bit like a broker does. The broker supplies the service out to the customer at the front end, but also understands what the retailers or providers of the service at the other end need as well. We’re wired up a little bit differently. We actually provide the service to our CPOs (Charge Point Operators) and charge point operators. We’ve got a thousand of them that work with us globally. But the fact that we’re delivering the EMP (E-Mobility Provider) side of the play, we’re delivering the apps and the functionality and handling the payments and the transactions and delivering the EV driver support lines, on one side we have the driver, on another side we have the operator and we’re delivering a service and the tools to both to get what they need from a charging service. So I think the insights, it puts us in a unique position, we have these insights from both sides that there is advice from a trusted advisor position with our charge point operators to really help them understand what they need to be doing. Where the quick wins are, what’s the low hanging fruit but also mid to long term where should your focus be? What should you think on developing? How do you deliver great charging infrastructure, how to make sure that you’re addressing the driver challenges, things like receipting, which was a personal favorite of mine, the number of apps and service providers out there that just couldn’t deliver an in app receipt. So it meant for me that when I used other charging networks I spent an hour and a half to two hours on a Friday morning every single week phoning up providers for chargers that I’ve been to that week to say hello, my name is X, I’ve been at your charger on this day in this state, here’s the last four digits of my credit card number, can you please send me a receipt? But going through helplines and wait times and doing that for the number of chargers I’ve been to in a week was time consuming but we’ve delivered that service in app since prior to me joining the business. So any Virta driver, whether it’s through a co-branded charge point operator’s app or whether it’s through our own app, will get app receipting there. So it’s understanding the challenges that the driver has. Not just accessing the charge point but how does charging work for them, what else do they need to see? When you find a charger should you really be moving to a different mapping service to try and type in or find out the location it’s at, get the postcode, type that into your Google or whatever car maps are in dash for you to try and figure out how to get there or do you very simply locate a charger on a network and then say to your phone, map me to it and send that information to the car which we can do. So it’s taking those challenges Liz and I think being able to communicate what those challenges are and then as I say provide the services and the tooling that our charge point operators require to make sure that they can react to those challenges and deliver a robust and reliable charging service.

Liz Allan  [00:16:25]:

So to me, summarizing what you’ve just said, you have a holistic and consultative approach but you also provide it in an innovative way as well. Would you agree?

Suki Sangha [00:16:43]:

Yes, I would. I think there’s one piece that we don’t do, Liz, and we’ve got a lot of UK partners for that we don’t deliver. We can do everything else but we don’t do the infrastructure delivery so we don’t do the site enablement, we don’t do the installations. But we’ve got a great network and so do our charge point operators, installers. We’ve got a great network of partners that can do that piece but we provide ourselves or we pride ourselves in saying we provide the technology stack. And by the way, that’s also the hardware as well. It’s not just the software, the CPMS and the digital service provision or the insights or the user apps, it’s also the hardware and you know yourself the number of issues out there and integrations between backends and hardware providers. We say look, we take that pain away for you. We provide fully integrated hardware essentially. Another way to put it is it’s plug and play hardware when it arrives on site so it arrives pre connected to our network, pre connected on your back end full visibility of the charger as soon as you energize that charger and it’s live and your service can start from there on in. So it’s understanding the breakpoints and delivering infrastructure like this and saying well we will create the services and the solutions to bridge those breakpoints and relieve those pressure points that are often failure points for our clients as well.

Liz Allan  [00:18:09]:

I was going to say you are taking the pain away from people, aren’t you by doing the majority of the donkey work really and having it all there specifically for that organization, that CPO. So that makes a massive difference. You’ve talked about the number of charges that you’ve got and the number of countries that you’ve got and I know I’ve seen some CPOs that are European based actually doing a bit of a lift and shift chucking it from wherever they were in Europe into the UK. And we are a little bit quirky over here, aren’t we? You know, we’ve got a few quirks. But I was gonna ask you when we’re talking about things coming over to the UK from Europe and looking at scaling up operations and things, how have you been able to overcome those hurdles that maybe some of the other companies bringing it over and going, oh, that didn’t work, did it? How have you done that?

Suki Sangha [00:19:19]:

I think we’ve probably been fortunate in it. We’re coming out of Scandinavia and the Nordics. We are a very large network in Finland, we’re a very large operator. So our experiences in that market and what’s happening in Finland and what’s happening in Sweden, our experiences in the German market, the Nordics especially is one of the most advanced charging markets in the world. So lifting, shifting experiences from markets that have already done it has really been great and it’s really helped. That said, we’re now getting to a stage where I think the requirements are much more nuanced. You know, we’ve been very generic in what you and I have talked about so far in terms of our driver challenges, but we’re now getting to those where there’s another layer that’s being added into the mix and into the complexity and that’s the operator of the fleet quite often. What is it the fleet itself or the fleet operator needs and wants? And therefore that complexity means that we’re having to be much more nuanced in certain segments and sectors. What is it we do with sites where there’s not enough power and upgrade in power is expensive? What do we do there? Do we just walk away after saying, you’ve reached your max limit, sorry, you can’t have any more charge points? What do we do when it comes to airport infrastructure? And you’ll see a lot on our website around what we’ve done to solve those challenges around airports where procuring extra power is expensive, there are sites located quite far away from grid infrastructure. So how do we handle that? What clever energy management tool can we use to make sure that we can continuously evolve and adapt our charge point operator services to cope in constrained environments? And that can mean things like airport infrastructure where we understand how long the drivers are parked there for and we make sure that we use very clever algorithms and systems that create virtual queues. The drivers won’t often see that, but, you know, we’ll create virtual queuing and scheduling to make sure that the vehicle is still fully charged or at the state of charge that you need when you leave that airport. But behind the scenes, we’re doing everything to maximize and utilize all of the available power in the right way to make sure everyone comes out getting what they’ve asked for, but not realizing just how clever we’ve had to be in the background to make sure that’s delivered in a constrained environment.

Liz Allan  [00:22:07]:

But that’s really good because that really, you know, as a driver, that’s what you want, isn’t it? And we’ve talked about different things, which I think we’ll go into in a few minutes, but you literally just want to have a seamless service because, you know, if you don’t have that, then you. If I go to a charger and I have a real plethora of problems, I’m less likely to actually go back. You know, I might try one more time on the same network. And if I have a similar thing, I’m gonna say, nah, I’ll cross that off my list and then go, you know, this is my good list. This is my bad list. So those are the things. And, you know, you and I’ve talked about this before, that there’s been a lot of examples in the last two years that I’ve been driving an EV, where the charging infrastructure isn’t very well maintained, you know, so where you’ve got charges bagged off or you try and charge, you know, you’re trying to initiate a charge and it’s just failing all the time. You know, how do you think we can actually prevent this? I mean, you’re talking about the way that you’re working is quite intelligent. But, you know, there’s a lot of CPOs out there that are actually having these struggles, aren’t they? So, you know, what are your thoughts?

Suki Sangha [00:23:36]:

I think there’s a lot coming down the line that is, Liz, in that respect, future iterations of, even current iterations of OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol) will give us additional insights and more at a granular level in terms of what’s happening at chargers, but not just the chargers within the componentry, within chargers as well. But I think there needs to be a more holistic approach. Operators again, need to understand that it is a driver first service. This isn’t, you know, it’s not a case of hey, I’ll get to it when it goes down. We have to be more proactive, they have to be more proactive to understand are the maintenance schedules up to speed? Are we checking these sites? Are we checking the chargers? Right down to sometimes, I mean, I’ve accessed sites where you kind of think when was the last time the site was cleaned up and tidied up, let alone someone’s inspecting the chargers. But from the maintenance aspect it’s really important. But also understanding the hardware you’re working with, spare parts availability and stock availability, the ability to run remote diagnostics and figure out what is happening when there is an issue. And even, you know, we’ve discussed it before, but looking at aspects, certain aspects of self healing and we launched this maybe about two, two and a half months ago, a part of something that will build up to be a portfolio of self healing options and tools. But we can set parameters on our back end today that says, look, if there is a fault error, there’s an error code and it is this or this. And within these parameters, we just want the charger to automatically reboot itself. Now I know we’re talking high tech now.

Liz Allan  [00:25:23]:

No, but that’s, oh my God. If it could happen. If, you know, like we also said problems with laptops, wouldn’t it be great if a laptop went. Although, I mean I did actually have a, you know, one of those fatal errors. I had a fatal error coming up on my screen last week and I was like, oh my God, I’ve not had that for a while. You know, I’m not saying fatal, I don’t like the word fatal anyway. But you know something where it is intelligent enough to go, oh, these things aren’t working, I think I better switch myself off and switch myself back on again.

Suki Sangha [00:25:56]:

We’re finding where we deploy those services, it’s increasing uptime by 30%. So that shows you that actually in 30% of the time it’s just a simple reboot that’s required. There’s a host of different things that could be sorted by a reboot, but we still see it. We might not know why, but the number of times a reboot solves your laptop or your mobile phone. It’s something I don’t turn on and off regularly enough. But every once in a while, phone just starts getting. Apps are getting a bit clunky, things are starting to freeze. The screen is not responsive. You switch it on and off and guess what, everything is fine after that. So to say that actually 30% of the issues that are experienced can be resolved with a simple reboot, to recognize that, and many do, but to then say, well, actually, why don’t we then build something that lets you actually do just that. Charging networks sadly are not at the stage yet where they’re manned 24/7. It’s not like the service stations where quite often there was someone in a kiosk or in the service station behind a counter or a window that you can go and speak to that would maybe start that pump for you if you had a problem at it. So you’ve got to automate as much of this as possible. So, yeah, looking at it that way and really, again, driver first solutions, but aimed at the charging operator to say, look, we understand what your driver’s issues are and your issues are, and we’re building the services in the background to automate as much of this as possible for you. Again, reducing downtime, increasing uptime, reducing the need for resource. These are all important factors in the space.

Liz Allan  [00:27:43]:

Do you know, it’s funny, I was just thinking you just tweaked my memory. When I was still living in Halifax, I worked for a parking technology company and I was that person sending out engineers on breakdowns and taking service calls and we did the whole lot. And I looked after the Southeast. And I remember then, and this is, I mean, my God, we’re talking like back in the late 1980s, she says, covering her mic up. And we were, you know, the late 1980s and I remember taking those calls from customers down south and literally saying, right, okay, from what you’re saying, you’re going to need a system reboot. This is something, you know, that back then I was advocating for them because I knew a lot of them would end up paying for a call out anyway, you know, so I was trying to help them sort it out themselves. And it’s a bit like the charging, you know, EV charging if it can do it itself. I mean, God, you know, we’re talking a long time ago, aren’t we really from when I was doing this originally. But the problems still exist. Different systems. The problems still exist and if you now have got that ability to be able to be able to. You know, like you said, I like the words healing. You know, it’s actually the system’s healing itself. That’s amazing.

Suki Sangha [00:29:18]:

Well, as I say, for 30% of those issues, the healing portion of it would have been a simple reboot. It solved that. So 30% of the pie sorted. We have that covered and then now we move on to addressing how the other 70% of the issues can be. Or how we can build tooling to help our charge point operators resolve those at the front end as well. But it’s thinking that way and it’s taking that view. Liz and I always love working with partners and clients that. Back to your part about Graham, that are that way driven as well. The customer experience is important to them. So you want to. You’re aligned at the very outset on who’s important. And usually it’s not them or us, it’s the customer, it’s the driver.

Liz Allan  [00:30:09]:

And you were talking before about what good looks like. And you and I had this chat before we started recording, didn’t we? And we’ve got different ways. We both drive EVs, we both have different things that we do since we’ve been driving an EV, haven’t we? And I suppose if we look at loyalty and what people’s preferences are, that’s really important. Let’s just discuss what we were talking about earlier. You were saying that you drive a Tesla and but you use multiple charge points, you don’t stick to the Supercharger network. Yay. And everybody, if you drive a Tesla, please don’t just use a supercharger network, because that’s like the creme de la creme. You’ve got to see how everything else works. Anyway, we talked about the fact that I. You said that when you used to drive on motorways and you were using wet fuel, you wouldn’t go to a petrol station at a motorway services. And I agree, I wouldn’t. But we’d fill our car up, our Golf, we’d fill it up and we had like 500 miles anyway to a tank. So, you know, a bit different. But we’d fill our car up and it wouldn’t be at the motorway service because we knew it was more expensive, didn’t we? You know, you agree with me, but now do you want to explain about what you do and I’ll just explain what we’ve started doing as well, because it’s different, isn’t it? It’s interesting how we’re both doing different things.

Suki Sangha [00:32:00]:

This is understanding and knowing the customer.

Liz Allan  [00:32:02]:

Yeah.

Suki Sangha [00:32:03]:

You and I have a slightly different requirement when it comes to charging. When it was wet fuel, we had a similar requirement, exactly the same thing. I’ve been an EV driver for now nearly three and a half years. Prior to that, 30 years driving petrol or slightly more driving petrol and diesel cars. I hadn’t been to a service station to fill up with petrol or diesel in probably over 15 years.

Liz Allan  [00:32:29]:

Yeah, yeah.

Suki Sangha [00:32:31]:

Now that I’m an EV driver, I have a list of priorities in terms of charging that I consider when I decide where I want to stop. I’m usually out more often than not during my working hours. So it’s business travel predominantly when I’m away from home or when I need on route charging. Liz. So when I stop, I think of the amount of time I need to stop for the services and amenities that are available to me, the price that I’m paying, the accessibility of that site. So quite often I’ve become a creature of habit. I’ll use the same charging stops because I know that, okay, by the time I pull up, plug in, walk over to the services, I’m not getting any younger. So there’s normally a comfort break in there somewhere.

Liz Allan  [00:33:22]:

It’s your bladder range, love.

Suki Sangha [00:33:24]:

Exactly, exactly. And then of course, you double up or double down on that by saying, I’m gonna have a coffee now as well. So, you know, it’s a comfort break, it’s a coffee stop. By the time I get back to the car, 20, 25 minutes, I’ve got what I need. If there’s another five minutes left, it’s a quick scan of the phone check and maybe respond to a couple of emails, unplug, and you get moving again. But it’s, for me, it’s maximizing that stop. How do I do more than one thing? How do I tick multiple requirements within that time frame that I’ve allowed myself to top up and do whatever else I need to do? So services tend to work quite well, for me there. And I think if you describe what your priorities and amenities are and then let’s look at where we differ, Liz.

Liz Allan  [00:34:23]:

Yes. So your range on your Tesla is going to be a lot higher than we’ve got, you know, on our Hyundai Ionic. And I would say that we have. Because my background’s continuous improvement. That’s what I try and I’m trying to do, I suppose. But within the requirements of, you know, you listed your requirements. So my requirements and my husband’s requirements are slightly different with regards to what we want for charging. So, yeah, amenities is really important. Like I say, I’ve talked to Gary Comerford about this. Amenities is really important because it is funny when you were saying earlier, I was thinking, yeah, it’s never mind range anxiety, it’s bladder range anxiety really, isn’t it? There’s no EV range anxiety, it’s just your bladder range. But so it’s the comfort break, it’s the amenities. But I also want to make sure that there’s going to be a charger there when we get there and sometimes. And it’s not that we won’t use services. But I suppose lately we’ve been going down to Exeter and back quite a lot to pick our son up from uni and bring him back and stuff like that. And we’re not going down the M4, M5 because most of the time we’ve been going, there’s been a crash. So we’ve gone through the A303 down towards Stonehenge and that way. So on route there’s more pubs and garden centers and things like that. And I suppose we started getting a bit more used to that because of the fact that. Well, I suppose when we first started driving the EV because we had to charge more regularly, we’d hit a couple of snags at service stations because especially around Christmas time and if we go away, we’re more. Or when James was at school, it’s different now because we can do it whenever we want. But we would hit those holiday periods, so you’d go to a service station and actually it’d be chock-a-block, you know, or we. I remember I said, didn’t I? Before we started recording, I remember going up. We’d not had the car very long and me and James went up to Durham Uni and most of the charging stops were okay. There was a couple where it was a little bit. I got really used to going around to talking to other EV drivers, going, hello, how long do you think you might be? And just having that nice conversation and it’s a bit of an excuse for you to have a chat to somebody. And as we’ve just said, I’m good at talking or else I won’t be doing this. So our requirements are different to yours. If I’m working and I’m having to travel quite a lot, I can understand why you do what you do because, you know, you’re working around your journey and your mileage and what you actually want from things. And I said to you as well, didn’t I? Before we started recording, my husband’s requirements are. Yes, it’s amenities, but his price is higher up, whereas I would be. Yes, I want amenities, but to be honest, I just want reliability. I want reliability and I want ease of use as well as those amenities. Yeah, I don’t. I would rather pay a little bit more than have to have a crappy service. Do you know what I mean? So it’s about who that person is, isn’t it?

Suki Sangha [00:38:16]:

That still applies to me as well. Not all my driving is motorway driving. There's an amount of. It is. And for motorway driving, I tend to use services. I tend not to veer off the motorways, but when I'm not on the motorways, it's very similar to yourself. But again, then I'm looking for charging stops that are usually not just charging Oasis. They are a bit more than that.

Suki Sangha [00:38:38]:

I'm looking for a charging stop that can provide, as I say, somewhere for me to sit and have a meeting, get online, access my emails, get something to eat or drink. Yeah, yeah, all of that while I'm charging. So. So hotels are a particular favorite of mine, for example, Liz. But I often think to myself, okay, well, what is it? When I am traveling on a motorway, what would it take Someone to get me to veer one or two, to veer off at a junction, come off at a junction and head off a mile.

Liz Allan  [00:39:05]:

What would it do? What would that be?

Suki Sangha [00:39:08]:

For me personally, it would be price, it would be understanding, it would be, you know, it's that dynamism, that sort of, that we want in pricing. And when you look at charging networks, they sometimes get a little bit much of a muchness, much of a likeness, if that makes sense. But actually we, we, you know, loyalty pricing is actually really important to a lot of our clients and we deliver some very clever tooling for them on that basis. But actually it's more than just saying, hey, we have either a single rate, no matter when you come day or night, or we have a peak and an off peak rate. It's the ability to say, well, I'll maybe give you four different rates during the day depending on utilization at my charge points at peak times and at peak utilization, yes, you'll pay, you probably pay our highest rate, but actually at off peak times of very low utilization, you will pay our lowest rate. And then sort of taking that one step further and saying, well, we will go beyond that and in situations where hotels, large retailers, coffee shops and such like, we can have the services and platform services to say, well, who are your loyalty customers? How do you recognize them and do you doff the cap to them a little bit more in terms of EV charging and say on top of these general public rates, you are a loyal customer. Liz, you are someone that has membership on my global or national hotel app or we recognize who you are, we value your business and actually if you want to use this service from us, we're going to do something a little bit more for you. We're going to give you a better rate than we offer the public.

Suki Sangha [00:40:53]:

So it's the ability to take that which I and understand loyalty and understand you and I and say, well, on top of that, we still want those other things. We want the amenities, you know, we want to make sure we get the WI fi, we want something nice to eat. We want. But it's understanding the driver in that holistic sense. What is it you want? There is, and it's not just we've moved away from the driver saying, I just need a charger. No, I need a charger access to a parking bay and I need to know the power is going to be there. That's foundational stuff. Now that's the bare minimum.

Suki Sangha [00:41:30]:

Drivers are much more complex than that. What is it you want on top of that. So it's understanding that and then having the mechanisms and levers to say, well, I can pull the right levers for the right drivers ultimately to make sure that I capture more of their business and I grow my network and make sure that I'm delivering the service that they want. So it's at that sort of baseline level, making sure that, again, our ChargePoint operating partners have that sort of tooling to say, we've got a lot of levers that we can pull here. So, yeah, site aid doing great, sort of five days a week. What can we do for that one over the weekend? Site B actually doing really well at the weekend, but seems to have a little bit quiet in the mornings and late evenings. Can we use prating pricing to entice those drivers that are miles that are passing us on the motorway a mile away every evening and don't want to come off? Well, what is that going to be? Is it 5 pence a kilowatt hour? What is it we need to do? But there is always a number, there is always something in terms of services. So raise the standard.

Suki Sangha [00:42:38]:

Yes, I think is sort of fundamental in this. Raise the standard and make sure you have all the levers that you need to be able to make yourself attractive to the driver and make sure you understand and listen.

Liz Allan  [00:42:52]:

Yeah, listen. Yeah, exactly, listen. Listen to the drivers. What do the drivers actually want? Like, you say what you want. Setting up 5, 30 or whatever in the morning on your chart, you know, on your journey, compared to me, kind of going down to Exeter on a Friday or whenever we go down, we're just different, you know, I'm. You'll. You'll stay with your service stations. I will go to a garden center or a pub or somewhere like that, dependent on what our needs are.

Liz Allan  [00:43:21]:

And also, me and James are both celiacs, so. And Rich is dairy intolerant, so we can't always just jump and get food. So we. A lot of the time we take stuff with us, so. But we still want to go for a comfort break and all that kind of stuff. So all of this is really important to be listening, isn't it? It's using those ears and, and kind of checking out what people actually want.

Suki Sangha [00:43:41]:

And, and, and, and, you know, as you said, though, Liz, I might use those service stations more often than not.

Suki Sangha [00:44:06]:

But yeah, yeah, it's getting that right. So I think, look, as we said at the beginning, Liz, we could probably still be here if we didn't have other things to do. We could still be here at 6:00 tonight, I think, I think having this conversation. But I think ultimately, yeah, it's really, I think there's a great future ahead of us and I think we all get caught up in the journey that we've been on the last sort of, you know, whether it's two, three, three and a half years in my situation or those that have been sort of on that, on that journey before me, sort of up to 11, 12, 13, 14 years even. But we're really only at the start of it. We've only scratched the surface in terms of, you know, if you look at the EV transition, where are we in that long term sort of goal? We're only just scratching the surfaces. So ultimately it's about, I think the best way to do it is understand the customer and make sure you have the tools and levers you need and the services you need to give that customer what they want.

Liz Allan  [00:45:05]:

I think that's perfect. That was probably going to be my last question, actually. Is there something. Do you know what? No. Let's just finish off with this then. In a perfect world, what would you, you as a driver, what would you like to happen over the next few years in order for these, you know, we've talked a lot about this stuff but in order for every journey that you have to be seamless, whether you use a, you know, one of your partner networks with Virta or whether you're on out with your family on a weekend and you need to charge. What would you like your experience to look like?

Suki Sangha [00:45:49]:

I would love to see a time where Charge Point owners and operators recognized the value of the customer and had the tooling required to be able to tell, to understand what I want, my list of amenities and priorities and make offers to me that essentially drive my traffic or deliver on what I want each and every time, whether that's cost, whether someone is saying, you know what, we've got a promotion on just now. Suki, we know you're coming down the motorway at us. Actually we're going to offer you this promotion because it's off peak time, we're quiet and we'd like to see you visit us or enhanced service provision, more loyalty features in the apps, better pricing, you know, offers. Costa realising when I'm. Or Starbucks, whoever Else realising , well, he does like a coffee and he passes here often. So actually he's here today. He's charging today. Let's send something to him and get.

Suki Sangha [00:46:54]:

So just that, better connectivity between not just the charging service providers, but all of the ancillary services that exist or should exist around great charging provision and all of it connected up to the end user, that driver, whether that's a fleet driver, whether it's a retail driver.

Liz Allan  [00:47:13]:

Whatever the case may be, it's brilliant. Honestly. It's been so lovely to finally get you on here, Suki. It's just the way that you're, the way that you think and vertisync and your, your kind of. The push for customer experience, really kind of, to me it makes, it makes a difference. So I'll be sharing all of your, your web links and all of that kind of stuff on in the show notes when this, when this goes live. So just to say really, thank you and it's finally been wonderful to get you on here, Liz.

Suki Sangha [00:47:52]:

It's been a pleasure. It really has been and it has been and we waited long enough for this. So we have, we've still got a lot to talk about. Maybe we can get to part two at some point in the future as.

Liz Allan  [00:48:02]:

Well, but we'll definitely do that.

Suki Sangha [00:48:04]:

Fantastic. Thank you for having me.

Liz Allan  [00:48:07]:

No, it's. It's my pleasure, honestly. So to everybody else, I'm just going to say, as I usually do, please like, subscribe, share all of the, you know, kind of this episode. There'll be some shorts going out on YouTube and they'll be going out on our social media platforms. We've got our Electric Evolution LinkedIn page now, so please follow us on there. And just to say thank you all for listening and watching, thank you to Suki and I want to say goodbye. See you next time. Bye.

Suki Sangha [00:48:37]:

See you all. Thank you. Bye bye.