Developing an EV charger peer to peer sharing platform - open for testing

choons · 31-03-2023 5:38pm #1

Hi all, we have just developed a platform to share EV chargers and we would love early adopters to give it a try and share feedback before we go to market.

E-Shared lets you reserve or host an electric vehicle charging spot. You can embrace EV living in an apartment, plan those longer journeys or make passive income from your charging point. e-shared.sharetribe.com

Is this something you would be interested in? I would love to have a call with you after trying it out to hear your experience. The platform is now live for everyone to try

Thank you

Mod Note: Discussed with the poster, we'll allow the thread for info gathering

silver_sky · 31-03-2023 11:31pm

Your link goes to reddit.

In general, I wouldn't be interested in such a service due to concerns regarding liability. Looking at your terms of service this does not appease those concerns.

One question I do have - what if any costs are incurred by those listing or using the platform? Say I book a charge point for 10 euro - how much does the owner get of that? Looking at the terms it's unclear what the costs/fees are and generally seems that you're running the service based on ads and selling data.

Alkers · 31-03-2023 11:52pm

I tried your link the other day and it didn't work.

Now it's going to Reddit.

I have a driveway with charger on a busy road inside the m50 so would be an ideal candidate, subject to your ts and cs which o haven't read.

slave1 · 01-04-2023 6:43am

Can you change the title to remove “charger” and put in “charge point”, just demonstrates lack of seriousness otherwise. We charge at home with AC which uses the car charger, a DC unit is also a charger but no one has these at home.

T&C please, especially liability and home insurance minefield

AndrewJRenko · 01-04-2023 6:53am

My neighbour just got a charge point fitted, on the side of their house adjacent to ours. If would be great to be able to share the facility and associated costs.

KCross · 01-04-2023 8:05am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058290575/developing-an-ev-charger-peer-to-peer-sharing-platform-open-for-testing

1)

How does the owner control how long you are on the charge point?

e.g. Customer books an hour on your site. Provider is away at the time and the customer stays plugged in for 1.5hrs. How is that handled?

A feedback mechanism isn’t any use if the provider doesn’t know that the customer over-stayed in the first place.

Im guessing it’s basically an honour system?

2)

With the advent of smart meters do you allow for multiple pricing as obviously the provider would need a higher price if the customer wants to use the charge point during the peak time.

4)

I thought there was some law about selling electricity in this country which would prohibit people from (re)selling on a per kWh basis which would mean it would need to be on a time basis. Is that true?

5)

Any tax implications for the provider or is that up to the provider to figure that out?

ted1 · 01-04-2023 8:57am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120426245#Comment_120426245

To be honest at this stage that’s like telling me to stop calling lamps, bulbs.

While not correct it’s the accepted terminology.

the_amazing_raisin · 01-04-2023 8:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120426512#Comment_120426512

Hang on, you call lamps "bulbs"?

As in turn on the bulb?

That is definitely not the accepted terminology 😉😂

choons · 02-04-2023 8:58am

Thanks folks! Not sure how I linked to Reddit, here is the link again if anyone can test it: e-shared.sharetribe.com

Will see if I can address the feedback on each of the points

Edit: Boards might be blocking the hyperlink, we may need to copy and paste into a browser

waterwelly · 02-04-2023 9:35am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120426383#Comment_120426383

And will people be likely to use the charger only if they are in trouble?

For example low range after a long drive with a clatter of kids, next question, can we use your bathroom we really need to pee?

choons · 19-04-2023 5:21pm

I've been working out some of the kinks and wanted to respond to a couple of the posts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120426020#Comment_120426020

As a ballpark, if you hosted a reservation for €10 you would get €8.50. A 10% fee covers the web hosting and Paypal/Stripe charge ~5% for payment processing. This is listed now when you click in to make a reservation and there are no ads

Agreed re liability point - at the moment it sits between the host/user and we can only step in to refund reservations. Will look into the options here.

Thank you

choons · 19-04-2023 5:25pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120426040#Comment_120426040

Would love to have a quick phone call to see if ts and cs seem realistic to you. Let me know if you can chat and we can PM? Thanks

Still not sure why Boards doesn't like the link, hopefully copy and paste works https://e-shared.sharetribe.com/

choons · 19-04-2023 5:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120426245#Comment_120426245

Thanks again for this. I have kept in mind when discussing and creating website/social medias

https://www.linkedin.com/company/e-shared/

https://twitter.com/ESharedEV

T&Cs are linked here now (might need to copy paste link if not working). They cover a fairly standard approach to marketplace services but I'll take feedback onboard. Would be great to have a call to get your thoughts? We can PM to arrange if you had a bit of time

https://e-shared.sharetribe.com/en/infos/terms

choons · 19-04-2023 5:36pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120426268#Comment_120426268

Thanks Andrew, we are up and running now - I'll PM you a link if you want to try it out for free

choons · 19-04-2023 5:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120430486#Comment_120430486

Fair point - we would likely be better suited to the likes of people living in an apartment or rental accomodation and want to charge in a neighbours drive overnight. The 7kw limit on most residential charge points means you would need to park up for a couple of hours.

I've included a filter for self service to subtly indicate if someone is open to conversation. If there is a bit of conversation then maybe both parties would consider coming in to the house but that would be unrelated to the service!

choons · 19-04-2023 6:03pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120426383#Comment_120426383

1)

Great point - it is an honour system however most charge points include a timer that you can set to supply power at the reserved time slots. I'm looking in to other ways of validating for the future but I use the time myself

2)

Yes you can set pricing differently per hour and include/exclude slots. You might even price to encourage usage outside of when you would prefer to charge your own car

3)

I need to look into the details and I've reached out to ESB. We currently offer hourly parking rather than reselling electricity per kw

4)

For most people the amount of income will be minor but tax varies so much per person that I couldn't say for certain

zg3409 · 19-04-2023 10:41pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120496621#Comment_120496621

I believe w rule was brought in to stop landlords reselling electricity to tenants at a higher than normal rate. This could have impacted public chargers but does not seem to have done. I am not sure if law was changed but for NI they needed to make some change.

There are a number of roadblocks I see

1- competitors, plugshare app already has ability to list your home charger and lots of other share my home charge point apps. The big competitor long terms may be big international apps like plugshare or home chargepoint operators building the option into the app for the charger as standard or the likes of google etc offering a similar service

2- Demand Is there really enough demand for 7kW AC charging at random home owners driveways?

3- Desire to offer your driveway and charger to random people, see the can I use your toilet 🪠, people coming back late to move car blocking driveway, blocking other cars in, blocking charger from owner. An overstay fee may help.

4- Legal insurance, if you offer no cover or way of fining bad customers what happens if say someone drives over tethered charger plug or knocks down the driveway pillar. Or claims for tripping over the cable.

I wish you well but linking up with say zappi chargers to integrate the feature through say an api may be a more realistic real business. Even then I dont know if it could ever make any profit.

listermint · 20-04-2023 9:46pm

Businesses never start with naysayers, that's what I'd say OP . Wish you well.

Developing an EV charger peer to peer sharing platform - open for testing

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