It’s a fact that there were not enough charging stations for electric cars, but it was also a fact that because of this, many people have their own charger at home, especially in remote locations where there are no public charging stations. If we could find a way to connect electric drivers to charger owners, like Airbnb does for travelers and homeowners, we would change the way people think of electric driving forever. Creating an app was a way to use technology to solve a problem in record time, that otherwise would have taken years.

By 2022, there were 1 million electric cars in France, but the infrastructure couldn’t keep up and there were only 80.000 charging stations available. That meant that driving long distances was still a problem for electric car owners, especially when driving through remote places where there were zero charging stations. This generated range anxiety and made the switch from thermic to electric more difficult. The challenge for Renault was to find a solution that would make the charging network grow fast, without having to deal with the constraints and bureaucracy of building public charging stations, while still making it available to everyone.

It’s a fact that there were not enough charging stations for electric cars, but it was also a fact that because of this, many people have their own charger at home, especially in remote locations where there are no public charging stations. If we could find a way to connect electric drivers to charger owners, like Airbnb does for travelers and homeowners, we would change the way people think of electric driving forever. Creating an app was a way to use technology to solve a problem in record time, that otherwise would have taken years.

It’s a fact that there were not enough charging stations for electric cars, but it was also a fact that because of this, many people have their own charger at home, especially in remote locations where there are no public charging stations. If we could find a way to connect electric drivers to charger owners, like Airbnb does for travelers and homeowners, we would change the way people think of electric driving forever. Creating an app was a way to use technology to solve a problem in record time, that otherwise would have taken years.

The carbon case is resting on the Net Zero Initiative Methods. 6 main levers of change were identified, facilitated by the Plug Inn service. As of now, only one has been fully explored for projections: Plug Inn as an accelerator of the switch from hybrid to all electric vehicles by reducing range anxiety. It is too early now to be able to get accurate measurements from the app but the first evaluations (still at the stage of hypotheses) showed that the service could help avoid 30,000t of CO2, vs a total carbon footprint of 50t of CO2 for the period 2023-2030

The Plug Inn business model is based on a revenue share between charging point owners and Renault. This new service has a revenue potential in the order of 30M€ in 2025 (OI Payback in Q3 2024) and attractive margins (21% gross operating margin in 2025).

In only 2 weeks after it was launched, the application had 26.000 users, and had reached 140 million impressions and over 700.000€ in earned media.

To reach this business potential, our ambition for 2025 is to attract 286 000 users, representing 10% of the addressable electrified vehicles market. On shorter term, we aim 35 000 registered users for the end of 2023. After less than three weeks, 4924 users have already registered with only press relations, Renault owned media and SEA support. With the imminent launch of a paid media campaign & an influencer marketing campaign, we are on track to achieve our 2023 goal.

With 1 million electric cars in the streets of France and only 80.000 charging spots available, battery range was a main concern for consumers to switch from thermic to electric vehicles. In 2020, Village Electrique thought us that people are more than willing to make the switch when they have a charging network that supports it, especially in remote locations where the charging stations amounted down to zero. By making home chargers available to everyone, we expanded the charging network to those places where it seemed impossible. People quickly engaged in being part of something that would bring a solution to electric car drivers, turning a business problem into a new business model.