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.

Plug Inn has changed the way people perceive electric driving by making re-charging available anywhere, at any time. By connecting electric car drivers with home charger owners, we made the charging network grow in record time, putting an end to a problem that has existed since the beginning of electric cars: range anxiety. The app has created a simple and reliable way for people to share their home chargers and generate money out of them, while making re-charging available in remote places where it seemed impossible. It has expended the possibilities of electric driving by making it possible to travel long distances, which was one of the main concerns when deciding to switch from ICE to electric.

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 16.000 users, and had reached 107 million impressions and over 500.000€ 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 the price of fuel spiking, France has been facilitating the switch to electric cars by giving people from financial help and tax cuts to ICE car trade-ins. But the charging network couldn’t keep up, and by 2022 there were only 80.000 charging spots available for 1 million electric cars. Away from the big cities, that number went way down, and in remote places there were zero charging spots available. While waiting for a solution that would take years started raising concerns about the constraints of switching to electric in a place where there’s not enough infrastructure to support it.