Automotive News Europe - September 2019 - 37

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

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Connected Kerb
- Fast Facts

UESTIONS FOR

Chris Pateman-Jones

UK-based Connected Kerb is one
of the new breed of independent
mobility startups vying for position
in the rapidly evolving electric vehicle
charging sector. The company
offers an environmentally sensitive
curbside charging solution for
the mass EV market that it aims
to offer globally.

What are the key product highlights
from a customer's perspective?
We are providing EV drivers with what
they need: fast, convenient, easy-to-use
charging that takes advantage of attractive energy tariffs and, where appropriate, has the capability to feed power
back to the grid. Our portal gives drivers the ability to view, locate, book and
receive directions in real time to charge
points on our network.
What is your target market?
In the UK alone 48 percent of the population doesn't have access to off-street
parking or to a home charger. It's these
people we aim to serve. On that basis,
our customers are property developers,
local authorities and car park operators.

Chris Pateman-Jones
❚ Connected Kerb
Head of Strategy
❚ 37
❚ Started current
job in 2018

hat makes Connected Kerb different to other EV charging infrastructure operators?
For a start, we are not owned by one
of the massive oil or technology companies. That gives us a huge amount of
flexibility. It also means we are driven by
our customers' needs rather than internal structures. To that end, we are not
a charging company in the traditional
sense. We are both an EV charging and a
smart cities company aiming to deliver a
suite of smart services to the communities where we deploy.
What gives you the edge over rivals?
We are super-connected so wherever
we are active we deploy superfast fiber
alongside IoT [Internet of Things] smart
sensors, creating a smart cities zone.
We have also future proofed our technology by separating the socket from
the charger. In the next five to 10 years
we believe the way you charge your EV
will change. It's unlikely you will still
be plugging your car in and more likely
that there will be some form of induc-

SEPTEMBER 2019

tion or Wi-Fi charging. We are ready for
that future, now.
What are the key technical highlights
of Connected Kerb's product?
Our low visual impact 3 kilowatt hour to
7 kWh smart charging units are manufactured from 80 percent recycled materials
and offer induction capabilities. The units
are robust in design, easy to maintain and
work seamlessly with our mobile app and
RFID [contactless] payment mechanisms.
Our fiber connections provide a fast, secure and reliable data network delivering
wireless connectivity speeds up to 1 gigabyte per second between people's homes
and their vehicle while our IoT sensors provide surrounding environmental data such
as air quality and parking bay occupancy.

"There is nothing on the
market that is the Apple
or Google equivalent
of ease of use."

What are the biggest challenges facing the EV charging sector?
Profitability, funding and choosing the
right places to deploy the charging points.
So far, we are seeing organizations deploy points where they think make sense.
This is not necessarily where the user
really wants or will chose to use them.
The current charging network is neither
convenient nor reliable. We think charger
deployment [location and charger speed]
should be led by dwell time [how long they
will be parked at the location].
What's hampering EV adoption?
The two big barriers are access to infrastructure and user experience. There is
currently nothing on the market that is the
Apple or Google equivalent of ease of use.
With the infrastructure, it's not just where
charging points are located but the scale
on which they are deployed. In residential
areas and workplaces, we think future deployments should not only deliver higher
reliability chargers but should also be on
a much bigger scale to give drivers convenient access to chargers and, most importantly, confidence that they will work when
they need them.
-- Olive Keogh

www.autonewseurope.com

http://www.autonewseurope.com

Automotive News Europe - September 2019

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