For the eMobility industry, getting the customer experience right will lay the foundations for mass adoption and significant additional value creation. Without a seamless charging experience, many drivers may be deterred from buying a new EV. And the only way to create a seamless experience will be for the different eMobility value chains to work in harmony.
Players across the eMobility ecosystem must ask themselves one simple question: “How do I reduce friction across the customer charging journey?”
All companies have a responsibility to remove this friction and increase customer confidence in EV charging. For most – if not all – organizations, the answer lies in closer alignment between the many parts of the ecosystem. Many organizations are well aware of the problems in their own value chains, but are doing less to address problems in the other two value chains. So the second, but equally important question, is “What must I bring to the table to reduce friction across the entire EV charging value chain?”
Alignment effectively means standardization, opening interoperability between EVs, charge points and power networks.
- The oil and gas sector faces an existential threat – including those from EVs – and needs to reinvent itself. Many may become CPOs. As with other CPOs, they have the opportunity to seek to implement services that increase interoperability, not diminish it. The charge points deployed today should support the functionality required by the energy market of tomorrow. Their technology cores need to share data with the rest of the market, not lock it into silos.
- Power networks should ensure their assets are sufficiently robust to support the localized increases in power demand over the coming decades. Their business practices should be reinvented so they can adapt to the speed and scale the growth in EVs requires. Their technology cores need to support mass-market flexibility programs to control EV charging.
- Automakers need to fit their EVs with technology that can connect seamlessly with charge points. They should ensure EVs interoperate with new charging infrastructure, and redefine their business models around a completely new drivetrain.
The more seamless the charging experience, the more satisfied the customer – and the more business models can be created on this infrastructure. This can only be achieved by adopting a value chain perspective. All stakeholders – including regulators – need to recognize the additional value and improved customer experience that cross-industry collaboration brings. And to do that, all participants require a deep understanding of what they need from others and a willingness to supply and support the rest of the ecosystem.
Collaboration will not be easy, at least initially. But it is vital. Each point of friction in today’s charging infrastructure may delay EV adoption and impede the development of new business models.
Accelerating eMobility serves as a net positive for the industry, consumers and planet, bypassing the only alternative of ICE vehicles.
