Electric driving is the future. Now more than ever, are the possibilities of electric mobility being used by users and stakeholders to achieve set sustainability goals. Consumers, companies and the government seem to be taking the next step towards more sustainable mobility. Facilitating the necessary infrastructure to support this trend is the next challenge. Plugz, partner of Toogethr, is a company that seamlessly responds to this irreversible development with its services.
Electric driving and charging options, the numbers
In 2035, the European Commission wants to ban the sale of diesel and petrol cars. The expectation is that 45% of all transport worldwide will be electric by then anyway. This is not surprising, given the explosive growth in the use of electric cars, for example. Figures from Statistics Netherlands show that in early 2021, over 525,000 electric and hybrid vehicles were registered. At the start of 2022, there were more than 725,000, an increase of almost 38%.
In the coverage of the electrification of transport, less attention is paid to a pressing question. How do we ensure that the infrastructure that makes electric driving possible grows along with the increasing need for its use? To give a clear example, since 2015 the number of charging points has increased by 485%, while the number of electric cars has increased by almost 3500% in the same period (1). This discrepancy calls for solutions that will ensure that the transition to sustainable mobility so desired by everyone is not delayed.
Bringing together supply and demand for charging facilities
Fortunately, there are more and more companies that recognise the urgency of qualitative and quantitative charging options and support the charging infrastructure with professional charging solutions. One of these is start-up Plugz, which uses an innovative middleware solution to bring together the supply and demand for electric charging stations. In practice, this means that users and charge points are efficiently linked so that the use of charge points can be optimised. Plugz offers a welcome solution, particularly at a time when the number of charging options is still lagging behind demand and companies are finding it difficult to meet the needs of their employees.
Roel Pennings, founder of Plugz, thinks that their solutions are very appropriate in the current office landscape. "For some time now, offices and real estate have been characterised by a scarcity of square metres and energy, so you cannot install many more charging stations. At a certain point, they are simply full. Getting more out of what you already have is the best option. The only thing is that you need smart software to efficiently connect supply and demand. That is what we are good at."
Toogethr and Plugz together on the road to a sustainable future
Toogethr and Plugz are working together in their shared ambition to make the work environment of the future as sustainable as possible. Roel Pennings thinks that the different perspectives from which both companies do that go well together. "Our mission and strategy are quite similar in many areas, only Toogethr looks at parking optimization, and we are good at charging station optimization. For us, it is a great opportunity to act as a reservation portal between the customers of Toogethr and the charge post operator. That way, employees not only know whether there is a parking space available, but also whether there is still space to charge their electric car at the office or if they need to use our public network just outside the office. We are now working out these customer journeys together, and I am looking forward to a great future partnership."
Would you like to know more about our partnership with Plugz and how we can use this to optimally integrate the charging guarantee for employees into your work environment as well? Please contact us, we will be happy to discuss the matter with you.
(1) Source: Independer '22 research, on the basis of data from the RDW and the Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO).
