EV Charger Experts with Business Acumen Help Me Succeed (Reverse AMA)

jason101 on 18/12/2024 - 22:21
Last edited 19/12/2024 - 12:52 by 1 other user

Hi OzBargainers, many of you know me for my discount pharmacy offers, the pharmacy is a great little business, but it can't entirely support my family financially, so like many small business owners I also have a "day job" which I sincerely love.

One of my current projects is to roll out at fleet of EV chargers over sites the business owns in SA, NSW and QLD. The core business has nothing to do with EV's, automotive or EV charging.

So rather than an AMA, I thought this could be more of a "tell me what to do" type of post. Who knows (or thinks they know) anything about the commercial deployment of EV chargers chime in, ask me the information needed to best answer my question.

I know there are many EV lovers out there in OzBargainia so I am sure many of you have pondered the idea of owning your own publicly accessible EV charger and may have some great ideas to share.

ChatGTP has helped me a lot, but what I have learned over the years is that there are a lot of good ideas and smart people lurking in the OzB forums.

Ask any questions, if I can provide answers without breaching commercially confidential material, I'll answer - If I can't answer (or don't know the answer) I'll let you know……

The first publicly accessible charger has been installed today and will go live next week.

Automotive Electric Vehicle Charger

Comments

  • brendanm on 18/12/2024 - 22:22
    +3

    Please don't use chatgpt when deciding what to do in regards to a $1m+ investment.

    • jason101 on 18/12/2024 - 22:25
      +3

      Aside from coming here to ask what to do after a car accident with no insurance, I thought Ozb would be the best place to get advice on $1m high performing investments vehicles. Seriously though chatGTP it had some good advice ;-)

      • brendanm on 18/12/2024 - 22:56
        +4

        I would trust this joint more than chatgpt, do with that what you will.

  • chuq on 18/12/2024 - 23:01
    +1

    There are two preferred ways of doing it:

    1) Slow (AC) charging. Install these yourself, at a cost of ~$2.5k each. Treat them as a "value add" for your customers (i.e. charging is free, but draws people to spend in your business). [I'm not sure how this would apply to a pharmacy]

    2) Fast (DC) charging. Contact a charge network operator, tell them you have the space, and arrange for them to lease it from you. They then develop the charging station (can cost between $100k and $500k depending on size/capacity), and manage billing, customer support, and collect the money. (You get the payment for leasing the spaces).

    There is probably also a (1a) option where you install AC chargers and then make them chargeable (non-free) but then you have the overhead of the billing/customer support company taking their cut.

    Interesting to see which combination of these you use….

    • jason101 on 18/12/2024 - 23:08

      The first charger commissioned is an 80kw DC single handle owned by us - we have a large modern transformer onsite which was over specified for the core business and has plenty of overhead for EV charging. I had a great customer experience with Chargefox so they have been commissioned to handle the billing for us…..after speaking with many installers, many recommended dual AC (slow) and DC combo chargers….the first installation location has limited car parking space (consuming 1 space for a charger was already a push) so I thought it would be a bad idea to have peeps charging for hours consuming an additional carpark and only buying power at snail speed, so no AC is offered at location #1.

      Also to add: EV charging is not related to the pharmacy business

      • chuq on 18/12/2024 - 23:32

        Right, I completely misread things. I assumed the EV charging was the "day job" you now had to provide additional revenue to the pharmacy business.

        I now see what you meant! You have another business which is providing good revenue, and the EV charging is on top of that? All makes sense now. I was going to say that EV charging by itself is not a hugely profitable industry yet, but it is more of a long term investment - and if the sites are optimal (e.g. food/hospitality based and well located) it can benefit the core business.

  • Euphemistic on 19/12/2024 - 06:56
    +2

    Chargers need to be targetted at the parking customer's use patterns. You dont want people taking up parking spaces and not using your business. It should be aimed at customer who will find extra benefit from a charger rather than bringing in extra revenue from people who will not otherwise be a customer.

    No point putting in a super fast charger if normal parking patterns are for the whole day. Similarly, if you only have a business that means parking is under an hour there little point installing a slower charger. Dont know if its possible, but having a slow overnight charger available for local apartment dwellers to use might make use of your pakring while other businesses are closed.

    EV chargers should not be seen as a money making exercise, but a value add for regular customers that may bring them from other businesses where they cant charge.

    We are in very early roll out for EV chargers. Who knows what the future holds, but we'll move towards a model where competing for EV owners money will mean chargers will become plentiful and I suspect we'll move towards advertised pricing (like petrol stations) so that you'll not only need to compete on convenience, but also very little income while solar feed in is at max etc.

    • jason101 on 19/12/2024 - 08:20

      Thanks, very insightful. I am considering a launch special to make local EV owners aware of the charger (its located in a high net worth area), I haven't seen it done, but I was thinking about an A-Frame with pricing stated on the sign (the price will be lower per kw than any competing chargers near us), Chargefox will list pricing within their app, and I'll load the data into plugshare, but I have a feeling these apps are for "enthusiast" EV owners, I'm hoping we'll catch the average punter driving down the street and realising they can DC fast charge at lower than their at home rate.

      • wannagrababargain on 19/12/2024 - 09:49

        Love the idea of the pricing publicly stated on the sign. I mean this is how petrol stations operate and it is one step closer to removing those barriers that all this app nonsense puts in place of wide spread adoption.

        I don't know how you'll get DC fast charging cheaper than home rates though - Yes I can see you are in Adelaide which has obscene electricity rates (maybe 45c/kWh last time I checked?) but that's still conservatively a 15 c difference to the typical DC fast charge rate that starts at 60c and goes up from there.

        • jason101 on 20/12/2024 - 07:36

          The core business operates an embedded network onsite supported by solar and we'll have a grid scale battery onsite shortly which can arbitrage the wholesale electricity network, I am thinking about sacrificing some of the margin from the greater embedded network/battery operation which spans many sites (another associated business I have involvement with) to give the EV charger(s) a kick to get their initial utilization going.

          There is so little advice available for new commercial operators of EV chargers and given our extreme levels of uniqueness in relation to our circumstances (which all play strongly to our favour) hence I am fishing for expert advice.

  • mskeggs on 19/12/2024 - 07:17
    +3

    @decryption who writes the Sizzle newsletter did a blog post about the two charger start ups he has been involved in. I am positive Anthony would reply if you dropped him a message.
    https://blog.decryption.net.au/t/everything-ive-learnt-about…

    • jason101 on 19/12/2024 - 08:20

      This is awesome, thank you

  • pegaxs on 19/12/2024 - 08:33
    +1

    Allot?

    And what is your actual question?

    I think you need to get consumers advice, like where are they most likely to want to use a charger, what makes a charger appealing at certain locations, what are deal breakers when it comes to wanting to go somewhere and use a charger…

    Another direction to come from is what chargers are you putting in? AC or DC?

    AC chargers are fkn slow and you need to be plugged into them for hours, so maybe I would target businesses that want to install chargers for employees who are going to be parked there all day. Putting an AC charger in front of the gym to plug into for an hour may not work as well. So, I would be looking for places that people attend for hours (work, motel/hotels, neighbourhood parking spaces, pub/clubs etc). Added to that, there is pretty much an expectation that AC chargers are supplied for free use. How are you going to compete there?

    As for DC chargers, well, good luck with that, they are super expensive and hard to get set up and install and need a lot of planning and permits and supply that just may not be readily available at just any site. Again, people are going to have an expectation that these are “fast” chargers, so slapping in 50kW DC chargers may not cut it if people are looking for 150kW+

    The next is your pricing. You are going to be up against shopping centres that have these for free. There are two large shopping centres I go to near me, and one has free chargers, the other one charges $0.60/kWh, I will avoid the paid ones like the plague because there are free ones elsewhere. Also $0.60/kWh is obscene for “slow charging” when a majority of people can charge at home for a fraction of this.

    So, get consumer feedback on what appeals to them and where they are most likely to want to use them. There is little to no point on getting information on how to get them installed if you put them in the wrong places and charge too much and consumers don’t want to use them.

    And FFS, do NOT put EV chargers in prime parking locations, ie: right next to the front door of a shopping centre, as they will just get ICE’d and no one will be able to use them.

    • Euphemistic on 19/12/2024 - 08:46

      do NOT put EV chargers in prime parking locations, ie: right next to the front door of a shopping centre, as they will just get ICE’d and no one will be able to use them.

      Thats a good point, but you also dont want to put them in the futhest back corner of a carpark. Its gotta be a balance of convenient and not so convenient that 'I'll only be 2 min' parkers will use the spot without charging.

      • Protractor on 19/12/2024 - 10:10
        -7

        EV drivers are committed to saving the planet.Therefore walking is in their wheelhouse.
        ICE drivers need to preserve that walking energy for the workout at the servo.
        Plonk the EV chargers up the back.It has the added advantage of the EV owner salivating as they walk back towards their ride, gazing wistfully at it's sleek voluptuous lines.

    • jason101 on 20/12/2024 - 07:41

      I probably should have share more info about what I "believe" is currently our direction:

      1/ All DC chargers only
      2/ All 50kw or higher
      3/ All public facing (we have commercial/residential populations onsite we can also serve
      4/ We will always be cheapest in market (for similar speed) save for the jolts of the world who give away kw under government subsidies.
      5/ We can give our clients free or discount kw's
      6/ Ideally our first round of chargers will be at sites where we have existing transformer overhead capacity (no new transformer)
      7/ Ideally the sites will be serviced by an existing embedded network that we control (ie better than retail input pricing), solar backing (so not all power, in theory) needs to be grid sourced.

      • wannagrababargain on 20/12/2024 - 10:37

        I am not an expert, just a user.

        The infrastructure cost for the DC Chargers might be prohibitive - that's why there are charge 'networks' who are trying to capture market share with fleet pricing, subscription models and just strategic placement on arterial highways. This sort of spreads out that capital cost and due to the number of sites and market capture has a revenue growth plan to recover that over time. Prime locations subsidise the lesser used locations.

        Also you need to think about how tech support / faults will be handled. Looking at how big network operators do it, they have a central tech support call center that can up support calls almost instantly - spreading out the 'support' cost of individual charging stations. In my experience DC chargers will fault regularly, and those on smaller networks or individual businesses that are not maintained properly can be down for days or weeks at a time (usually easily identified as having a 1.0 Plugscore on PlugShare :) )

  • dannyboi on 19/12/2024 - 09:59

    Consider the long-term maintenance and renewal costs too. These high-use chargers will inevitably be subject to wear and tear or vandalism, so the cost of replacing these can get prohibitively high.

    • jason101 on 20/12/2024 - 07:43
      +2

      Yes - we are learning this very quickly.

  • Look Up on 19/12/2024 - 10:58
    +2

    @jason101 Offering small scale EV charging is the green equivalent of running a vending machine or ATM business

    Unless you are a sparky who can do the majority of maintenance, you will be losing upfront and over the long term

    …the pharmacy is a great little business but it can't entirely support my family financially…

    Re-purpose the $ you have budgeted for this venture and invest it

    You will spend a fraction of the time and the risk to deliver the same result

    • jason101 on 20/12/2024 - 09:44
      +1

      I appreciate the comment, but I also hope you're wrong ;-/ The need isn't only to provide a benefit to the public but also to commercial and residential tenants (who I believe will have an expectation of EV charging onsite into the future). Even though EVs are mainstream I am concerned about being a pioneer in the EV charging field and parts of my thinking share the exact sentiment you're sharing.

      • Look Up on 20/12/2024 - 11:28

        I am only telling you this because you have helped reduced the medical costs of thousands of OzBer's which puts you in the top 1% of members on OzBargain with the most positive impact

        Your hustle, willingness to try new fields etc is commendable

        But as soon as you mentioned the family angle, you have to be real about this

        EV's are not mainstream yet - if they were, every standalone McDonald's, KFC, Bunnings and franchise chain with a car park would have a set of chargers

        Even if you're financed with 0% "Green Loans" or other government kick backs, it's a capital intensive startup with low barriers to entry, high ongoing costs and subject to overnight changes in political policy

        See how your first charger goes for X months, run the numbers and then decide whether it's worth proceeding with the rest of the network

        • jason101 on 21/12/2024 - 08:23

          Thanks for the kind words. I should have been more specific, the EV charger roll out it part of the "day job" (not my families personal finances), that said I have a reasonably senior position at the "day job" and don't want to let the Directors of that company down when I am trusted with millions of their dollars.

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