Today, Paua, a newcomer to the e-mobility space announced in 2020, published a milestone. The roaming business says it has now signed up companies amounting to access to 10,000 charge points across the UK. Their clients include leading providers such as Osprey, Fastned, Ionity, Connected Kerb, Char.gy, and Mer.
Paua, in today’s news, suggests there will be more to come. Note, however, that integration seems incomplete to date. The website counts over 5,000 charge points live and states another 5,000 are to come on soon. Note also that the company explicitly counts connectors, not charging stations that can easily have two.
Maths aside, the recent signing spree follows an oversubscribed pre-seed round in January 2022, so Paua. The round was led by Seedcamp and also saw participation from Speedinvest, Octopus Ventures, and angel investors, including former directors from RWE, Ovo, and SSE.
While the offer is the same as other roaming providers, i.e. access to charge points throughout the UK via a single app and EV charge card on a single platform, Paua focuses on fleets.
The company quotes an in-house survey that found that 40% of fleets avoid public charging, forming a pool of “historically under-served business customers,” says Niall Riddell, CEO and co-founder of Paua. And he adds, “The reason for our success comes down to the fact that we provide a great value-add for our customers, as we make EV fleet admin simple.”
Charging tariffs
The standard subscription starts at three pounds per driver with access to the dashboard and up to five “fuel” cards. The Occasional tariff is free but incurs a 20% service charge on transactions. At present, the offers also include three months free of charge, and there are options to customise for larger businesses with more than twenty drivers. At the end of the month, payments will be summed up in one invoice, doing away with charging receipts piling up.
The offer does not include standard charging tariffs, however, since the prices remain at the discretion of the CPOs. For example, DC charging at Shell will cost drivers £0.60/kWh or £0.69/kWh at an Ionity column and £0.49/kWh with Osprey.
The Paua solution is only available to registered UK businesses at the moment.
Keyword: New UK fleet roaming network announced and led by Paua