Anyone used Pod Point?

[gregf40]

Hi everyone,

Just wondered if any of you have used Pod Point (for charging)?

If so - how do you rate them? Is it a good service? Any issues?

I have an opportunity to invest (through Seedrs in my profile if anyone's interested) and would like to get some feedback from users if possible.

Cheers,

Greg.

[Carparticus]

gregf40 said:

Hi everyone,

Just wondered if any of you have used Pod Point (for charging)?

If so - how do you rate them? Is it a good service? Any issues?

I have an opportunity to invest (through Seedrs in my profile if anyone's interested) and would like to get some feedback from users if possible.

Cheers,

Greg.

There was a recent EV owner survey of who bothers to use various public charge systems, and Pod Point came out worst ...

https://speakev.com/threads/vote-who-is-the-uks-be...

As an EV owner, with 30K+ miles driven since 2011, I can state that I've only 'needed' to use a public charge point on three occasions. This is a similar experience for other EV drivers I know.

Whilst there's not exactly millions of EVs out there right now, most of them have a daily range (or range between top ups) of 75 miles +/- 15. The national average commuting distance is less than 40 miles for 96% of road users. The small percentage of people who really do 100's of miles a day are probably using the motorways, and every UK motorway service station now has fast and free charge points operated by Ecotricity or Chargemaster. (The installation is paid for by the commercial ventures nearby who benefit from people stopping for a coffee/meal whilst their car is topping up for half an hour.) Podpoint seem to have installed an awful lot of medium to low power charge points at council offices, commercial buildings and town centres, but they just don't seem to get used much, and they are reportedly very often out of action (read through the above link for example).

So what I'm getting at is that only a small percentage of EV owners rely upon regular use of public charge points other than as a last resort. Electricity is so much cheaper per mile than petrol that I don't see much of chance of them being profit centres for network operators either.

To date the likes of PodPoint and Chargemaster have made good T/O due to the exploitation of govt grants from OLEV for excessively priced installations. Both companies are looking at ways to produce other income streams such as installing grant-backed home chargers instead. But all this grant money will dry up.

All the EV owners I know simply get home, plug in, and go indoors, not thinking much more about it. The car is magically brimmed full of electrons every morning and they almost never rely upon public charging except as a last resort. If the public charge networks like pod point or chargemaster start asking for excessive fees to top up whilst shopping, I think you'll find that none them will get used.

Everyone has their view on this, and there's far more to it than I can mention here, but if it were my money, I would not invest in Pod Point or any other charge network operator as I just don't see much money in it.

Edited by Carparticus on Thursday 4th December 23:04

[jeremyc]

Carparticus said:

All the EV owners I know simply get home, plug in, and go indoors, not thinking much more about it. The car is magically brimmed full of electrons every morning and they almost never rely upon public charging except as a last resort. If the public charge networks like pod point or chargemaster start asking for excessive fees to top up whilst shopping, I think you'll find that none them will get used.

Don't forget that one of Pod-Point's revenue streams is in selling home charge points.

They also derive revenue from subscriptions to their software management system that allows hosts to manage their charge points (whether public or private), and in the future will have a revenue stream from their smart grid technology that allows them to control the load they place on the UK electrical grid.

[gregf40]

Thanks for the replies - unfortunately, the reason came last in that (rather small) sample was because no one had used it - so not really a true reflection on their service.

jeremyc - I completely agree with your 2 points.

I'm going to wait until I've seen the financials from the company and will let you know what I decide once I have looked over them. Cheers!

[gregf40]

Interesting - someone has just put in over £400k.

[Pvapour]

they've improved allot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX8Cv-NtN6c&li...

[gregf40]

Decided to put in 10k - I'm impressed enough with the management to consider this a worth while punt and the financials look strong enough to justify the valuation. Let's wait and see what happens!

[Pvapour]

well done

1.2m achieved today, seems they're overfunding now

[AOK]

Darn... was at 75% over the weekend and was umming and arring whether to put some money into pod point or into intern avenue.

Walked past a pod point street charging point which made me make my mind up, and looks like I'm a day too late!

Greg, what's your experience with companies taking over funding?

[Pvapour]

you can still put in AOK, think cut off is early Jan, they're just way ahead of schedule

[Beefmeister]

Everyone at POD Point is blown away by the response to the crowdfunding, so thankyou Greg.

FYI, I do the design engineering for all of POD Point's units, the latest of which being the one next to Erik in that presentation video.

Onwards and upwards!

[ecs]

I start working at POD Point in January - going to be doing software engineering

Edited by ecs on Thursday 11th December 12:57

[Beefmeister]

Awesome, I guess I'll see you around the office then, I'm generally around once a month or so.

[.blue]

gregf40 said:

Hi everyone,

Just wondered if any of you have used Pod Point (for charging)?

If so - how do you rate them? Is it a good service? Any issues?

I have an opportunity to invest (through Seedrs in my profile if anyone's interested) and would like to get some feedback from users if possible.

Cheers,

Greg.

Greg, this is off topic but would it be possible to get in touch with you by PM/email?

[ecs]

Beefmeister said:

Awesome, I guess I'll see you around the office then, I'm generally around once a month or so.

Cool, hopefully see you around then

[gregf40]

AOK said:

Darn... was at 75% over the weekend and was umming and arring whether to put some money into pod point or into intern avenue.

Walked past a pod point street charging point which made me make my mind up, and looks like I'm a day too late!

Greg, what's your experience with companies taking over funding?

You can still invest during 'overfunding' - so not too late!

The 'target' is the minimum which the company has to obtain for the funding to proceed (i.e. 100%) as opposed to a cap - most accept well over 100%.

If anyone else is interested the links in my profile - I think the campaign will close in the next 2 weeks ish.

I actually also invested a smaller amount in Intern Avenue - they seem to be getting some really great press over the past couple of weeks...as do LandBay which I have put the most in to date.

[gregf40]

AOK said:

Darn... was at 75% over the weekend and was umming and arring whether to put some money into pod point or into intern avenue.

OT but you may want to check out Veeqo - just received £500k from a VC.

Still over funding for a week or so before closing.

[.blue]

gregf40 said:

OT but you may want to check out Veeqo - just received £500k from a VC.

Still over funding for a week or so before closing.

What's the best way to get in touch with you about an SEIS investment opportunity that is not crowdfunding? (That is if at all you want to be contacted - totally understand if you do not!).

[ecs]

POD Point's crowd funding campaign on Seedrs has been extended until the 31st Jan, in case anyone was interested

[Losangeles]

How have people found the customer service from Pod Point ? My unit installed last month but didn't collect the car until last week. Turns out the PodPoint is faulty and doesn't charge. Only contact is via a call centre who pass on messages. Almost a week on and no sign of an engineer or even a date when one might be able to attend. Funny, but the grant application and collection of payment was rather more efficient.....

I see Legal and General took a 13% stake..................