EO accelerates EV movement
EO Charging, based near Ipswich, is leading the charge in developing smart electric vehicle charging points for the rapidly growing electric vehicle (EV) industry. Founded in 2015 by 25-year-old entrepreneur Charlie Jardine, the company designs and manufactures connected technologies for EVs.
With the EV market growing exponentially, Jardine saw an opportunity to manufacture technologies that provide customers a holistic solution to charging their car and managing their energy. Since its launch, EO has worked to create connected charging products including the eoGenius, eoHUB, eoCloud and eoApp.
In its first year of trading, EO Charging sold over 1,500 charging units and is expecting to turnover £1million in 2017. The company has recently worked with Uber, Addison Lee, EDF Energy and has distributors in six countries across the world namely Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, Spain and Portugal. The company is now raising external investment to accelerate its growth.
The total number of EV’s (inc. plug-in hybrids) on the road in the UK currently sits at just over 100,000 and 4.2% of all new cars sold in the UK in January 2017 were plug-in electric. This is in comparison to Norway where over 40% of new car sales are now electric or plug-in hybrid – a clear demonstration of the future market growth in the UK.
Charlie Jardine, founder of EO Charging, said, ‘The UK currently faces a challenge to prepare for the new automotive revolution with electric vehicles set to overtake petrol and diesel ones from 2030-2040. Whilst the Government has pledged to invest £290m into improving the UK’s ultra-low emission strategy we’re fully aware that more development is required to meet the demand for EVs.’
‘We started the business simply making plugs for electric cars but we’ve always had ambitions to play a big part in the energy revolution. It’s our mission to help people become energy independent and electric car charging is just one piece of the puzzle. We’re currently developing smart energy technologies to help our customers reduce their dependency on the grid and become more sustainable.’
EO Charging recently received the ‘Innovation’ award at this year’s BusinessCar Fleet Technology Awards. Judges based their decision on one of EO’s new products – the eoHUB, a mini-computer designed for fleet customers that can connect ‘smart-ready’ EO charging stations to the internet and provides load-balancing services.
