WeCharge

Over het initiatief / About the initiative

WeCharge

In welke fase zit jouw initiatief? / In what stage is your initiative?

Uitgewerkt conceptfase

Heb je jouw initiatief al gevalideerd? / Did you validate your initiative?

WeCharge has already passed the proof of concept by directly talking to the EV drivers and other involved stakeholders. We also launched the poll in the EV driver community. Based on the user experience and their suggestions, we made the prototype of the WeCharge kit hardware. However, the software part with the united platform is still up to the development.

Meer informatie over jouw initiatief / More info about your initiative

One of the main drawbacks of driving an EV is range anxiety, which can be defined as the fear of a vehicle having an insufficient range to reach its destination due to a lack of charging options. Besides this user experience of charging at the point of sale, domestic and national networks of public electric vehicle charging facilities are still relatively thin and infrastructure struggles to cope with the fast transition. Most EV owners charge their rides at home, but only if they own homes that are essentially compatible and equipped!

WeCharge – network model is focused on capturing data while attracting customers by boosting the value of each transaction. EV prosumers should expect value-added offerings and services incorporated in simple and global solutions with little thinking or action required. 

Furthermore, promoting the development of smart grid models such as V2G, G2V, V2H, and V2V via two-way communications requires exploring new business model opportunities for EV prosumers in the future energy market.

In Europe, new electric car registrations doubled to more than 1.4 million representing a sales share of 10% in 2020. Global electric car sales rose by around 140%. Our target segments are EV drivers and private charging station owners worldwide. WeCharge is choosing the Netherlands to be the starting point, where EVs accounted for 25% in 2020 compared to 13.9% in 2019 of all new vehicles purchased. In addition to the 75,000 public charging stations, around 190,000 Dutch people have their own charging post at home. All in all, Europe’s electric car market size is about 27 billion euros!

Well, we bring to you a peer-to-peer network, accessible through the WeCharge app, which gives drivers the freedom to charge anywhere and everywhere and at any time.

Let’s have a look at the app, you can filter the availability status, price, connector type, charging speed, and perform in-app monetary transactions through a decentralized blockchain framework. Automated management of hosting and reservation also makes it hassle-free for the EV driver as well as the home charger owners. wouldn’t that be cool?

Not only that, we intend to transform every EV prosumer location into a smart EV charging destination, the charging network will expand further to cover every point on earth. It could be a home with a charging point, a parking space owned by a business, a moving vehicle on the road, or even an established charging station.

How do we generate the revenue?

In total, we will have 7 main revenue streams from 3 different customers, including commissions, subscription, PaaS, transactional and retail, affiliates, sponsorship, data analysis, and the commissions from both EV drivers and EV charger owners will be our main revenue source. 

Now you may wonder, how are we going to attract these potential customers? Well, our 2 main types of customers are EV drivers and EV charger owners. So, contacting partner EV charger manufacturers and distributors is the best way to reach the majority of the charger owners. And this makes it possible for us to achieve fast growth. While reaching EV drivers, the retail market and social media will be a perfect starting point, as people nowadays spend a lot of time on it.
We expect to push our target segments towards 164 500 customers and a market share of 5% by the end of 2028. As a result, our payback period will be less than 2 years, which is the end of 2024.

This is a unique opportunity to build a massive business that has a massive impact on people’s everyday life tomorrow.  Together we can bring EV to every corner and community.
We charge we change!

Wat zijn jouw volgende stappen om het verder te ontwikkelen? / What are your next steps to develop the initiative?

Our general milestones are to
(1) polish the business model in terms of market analysis and financial projections
(2) come up with the first prototype of the mobile application and platform
(3) network with the charger manufacturers to push our go-to- market strategy
(4) raise the money or bootstrapping for the MVP development
(5) talk to the potential customers to pilot the solution
(6) network with the governmental organizations and local distributors to initiate the process

However, when it comes to specific activities, the first milestone is to increase the number of private EV chargers on the WeCharge platform. It is expected to have at least 200 active customers in Utrecht at the end of the first year. In the next step, public charging stations and fast DC charging points will be gradually added to the platform to increase charging options for the WeCharge users. It is also expected to surpass 2k active prosumers at the end of the second year. Finally, it is aimed to expand WeCharge to the whole Netherlands at the end of the third year while the V2V charging method is also added to the WeCharge platform.

Wat heb je nodig om (nog meer) impact te maken met dit initiatief? / What do you need to make (more) impact with this initiative?

The initiative of WeCharge has already seen several contests and polishing from the side of experts in this area. Although, we may still hone the concept and business model with the help of hubs or startup accelerators. In order to come up with the MVP for both hardware and software solutions, we need 220,000 euros for the first 2 years. Apart from the prototyping and software development, we are aiming to spend that amount on marketing, customer support, staffing, and location.