As more and more EVs hit the road, there’s never been a better time to get started in EV charging. With sales of EVs taking off worldwide, demand for charging will only continue to increase. Whether you’re an established charge point operator or considering getting started as a charging service provider, there’s one segment of the EV market you can’t afford to ignore: home charging.
Drivers are taking note of the unparalleled convenience home charging has to offer. In fact, 80% of all EV charging is done at home! For charging service providers, one question arises: how do I set up a successful home charging model to capture this untapped demand?
Let’s take a closer look at potential models for your business and the tools you need to create a loyal network of home charging customers.
Free EV Home Charging e-book
For a full guide to the home charging market, establishing your home charging business model, and key tools for success, click here to download our e-book.
Home Charging Basics: Customer Use Cases
For EV charging service providers, adopting a successful home charging business strategy isn’t just an option to attract new customers. It will be critical to future business growth. The first step in building a successful home charging strategy is to understand your customers. Let’s take a closer look at two of the most common customer use cases.
Case 1: Homeowner with a dedicated garage
This is your typical EV driver. They come home from work, plug in their vehicle, and drive off the next morning with it fully charged. Charging is done at home through their home charger, which may or may not be connected to an operator’s platform.
Case 2: Apartment Buildings and Residential Complexes
Let’s take a look at a more complex charging scenario, apartment complexes. In this case, multiple tenants plug into the building’s dedicated charging stations. For building managers, numerous obstacles arise from protecting the grid to scheduling charging and managing tenants’ billing.
For more information on customer use cases and how you can directly target segments of the home charging market, download our free ebook.
Home Charging Business Models
E-Mobility Service Providers (eMSPs):
An E-Mobility Service Provider, or eMSP for short, offers charging services to EV drivers. When using the eMSP’s app, drivers can view charging stations in their area, start and stop charging, and pay by any method accepted by the charge point operator. Typically, eMSPs partner with Charge Point Operators (CPOs) to provide charging access to stations owned by the company.
Imagine you’re an EV driver. You have your home charging station within your eMSP’s app. At the touch of a finger, you can enable smart charging to coordinate with your electricity provider’s time of use tariffs, obtain charging credits, and view your eMSPs entire network of charging stations.
As an eMSP, your app automatically becomes the driver’s default option for all their charging needs. Since both public and home charging is rolled into the same app, it’s not only going to stay on their phone, but it will become one of their most-used apps. Talk about customer loyalty!
For that reason alone, home charging is an area of the market eMSPs can’t afford to overlook.
Charge Point Operators (CPOs):
As its name suggests, charge point operators build, install, and operate EV charging stations. CPOs work with eMSPs to promote access to their network of charging stations.
By targeting home charging, CPOs stand to gain a significant share of the growing market. Even better, you now have a vast user base of customers with your app on their phones to manage their home charging station.
Combine this strategy with roaming, either through direct connections via OCPI or through roaming platforms like Gireve or Hubject, and you automatically have massive network coverage to offer your customers on top of your public charging network.
Building A Competitive Advantage
As we have seen, home charging presents significant opportunities to charging service providers to expand their market share. One word that can help you stand out and gain the attention of potential customers: differentiation.
At AMPECO, we are here to help your business grow. From small eMSPs to established CPOs to those just looking to break into the EV charging business, we have helped countless companies build successful home charging strategies.
Download our ebook today for complete information on setting up a successful home charging strategy and to read success stories from our past clients who have broken into the home charging market.
