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Smart Charge · 2 July 2025 · 1 hr 14 min

Ep 15: Ladeparks & Nutzererlebnis: E‑Mobilität in den Anfängen und im Alltag mit Paul Tonini

Transcript

Cleaned up from a machine transcript. Translations are machine-generated and may contain errors.

Welcome to the Smart Charge by RiDERgy Podcast. This is Claudio Geyken, founder and CEO of RiDERgy. This is your show to learn about all things energy management and smart charging innovation for electric vehicles and fleets.

Welcome to a new episode of Smart Charge. Today I'm broadcasting live from Berlin to Munich, where Paul Tonini is greeting us. He is Country Manager Germany at Electra. Paul brings an impressive background with him. In 2015 as an energy engineer – before that he was also active as a technician at Telekom – he built the world's first pilot facility for liquid hydrogen carrier media at ZE Arzberg, then at BMW and Vibto he established complete charging and fleet solutions. And he was even active at Elly, the VW subsidiary. He has scaled into 30 countries. In this

episode we dive into his exciting background and the various roles he's held. We then look at Electra, what Electra – particularly being founder-led – does differently than other large CPOs, which are usually energy suppliers, and how they differentiate themselves. We also talk about site selection, or what we might call truffle hunting for locations. And we go into the little details of user experience that determine whether charging is a joy or a frustration, and why the industry is consolidating already even though electric vehicle registrations continue to rise – albeit not as quickly as one would like. Of course we also talk about smart

charging, intelligent charging, V2G and bidirectional charging and fleets. And with that, let's get started.

Hello, Paul. Hi there. I think you're in Munich. How are you doing today? Great that you're here. Yes, I'm in Munich and the sun is shining. I'm doing wonderfully. A beautiful day to head to a beer garden after work. Yes, those are the perks of Munich. I'm in Berlin – there are a few beer gardens, but nowhere near as nice as in the Bavarian capital. Before we dive in and really get deep into e-mobility, can you introduce yourself and tell us what

brought you to the e-mobility topic. Feel free to elaborate a bit, and then we can touch on a few things from your background. Sure. I'm Paul, 36 years old, studied energy economics and energy engineering, and I've been involved in the e-mobility space for quite a long time – for about eight years now. But I came to it through a roundabout way. I originally got involved with the topic of how you can store hydrogen, for example in what's called a Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carrier. And

at the time we also built a pilot facility for Areva, a French nuclear conglomerate, which we then also commissioned. It was quite a bit of plumbing work the whole summer long. In the end we had a facility that worked, which could store hydrogen in this carrier oil and also release it. The advantage of that is you can run the carrier oil in a closed loop and reuse it relatively often, though not unlimited times. The facility is still in operation today, I believe, in Arzberg, at a research center

of the ZE in Bavaria – so you can visit it if you're interested. And that was one of the first facilities to work with this topic at all. To my knowledge, the first facility to... In what year was that? That was 2015. Yes, 2015, exactly. And it was really quite exciting how we got into it. At Areva, the nuclear conglomerate, they had been thinking about how, after Fukushima, to make use of the hydrogen that arises during a core meltdown,

to keep backup power generators running. It comes from the chemical process, from the reactions, and accumulates under the dome. And you could suck it out and use a fuel cell to generate electricity from it. And then they thought: if you have hydrogen – which is not just a waste product in nuclear energy but in other places too – you could store it away and solve problems in the future with it. This idea has been around since the 1970s, and they also mounted pilot facilities on trucks back then, more or less successfully. So we got involved with it too. And we then found that whenever we want to do hydrogen mobility, we face a few challenges. For one thing, we need a huge compressor and we have significant losses in this compression process. And such a compressor is a very mechanical unit that of course also experiences wear. If it fails, I have a problem – I can't refuel. Accordingly, that's already a

bottleneck I face. The second thing is, I can't compress hydrogen arbitrarily and thus reduce my storage space, but I always need relatively large tanks at different pressure levels to refuel in a targeted way. So this idea that you can say you can perform arbitrarily many refueling operations in succession with hydrogen and never have a problem – that only applies to very few vehicles. Once I have high frequency, like at a gas station, I need proper infrastructure behind it. And then I have to produce hydrogen. And today it mostly comes as a grey product from refineries, as a waste product in the production of mineral oil products. I have to transport it far. I can't transport that much hydrogen in a truck if I'm transporting it as gas. Liquefying it is very expensive, energy-intensive. So the best solution is to do that on-site. And that's done with electrolysis and renewable energy. And if I'm already using renewable energy, then I already have electricity available. Then I could also just use

that electricity directly for charging batteries. And so through these considerations, through these reflections on hydrogen in mobility, I basically came to the conclusion that battery electric vehicles are the way to go, at least for the next 20 or 30 years in light-duty vehicles. Heavy-duty is a different story. And that's when I then switched over and said: okay, the future is in battery electric vehicles, I'm going to focus on that. And that was around 2015, 2016.

And then I started at BMW on the charging infrastructure and fleet charging solutions side, and worked on that for a few years. Learned a lot about the challenges in the market. And then I eventually moved to Elly, the VW subsidiary, where I scaled charging infrastructure into about 30 countries, helped build that up from the ground up. And from there I came to Electra, where we're now doing really exciting things in the premium charging space.

theoretically pump electricity directly into vehicles. In 2015, the batteries weren't quite ready for that yet. You could already tell that battery development kept advancing and energy density was increasing very rapidly. And in the meantime, we know how that has developed and what's happening right now in China, so we can see that hydrogen research has been completely overtaken. So it's very similar to computer chips back in the day. Computing power basically doubled within years. And it's similar with batteries. And

that will continue for a while too. So we see that we just can't keep up with new compressor technologies or anything like that. Those are much more at the physical limit than batteries are at the moment. And my thought was – well, if that kicked in so shortly after, like when you've been dealing with compressors and electrolysis and so on for so long. One topic I find interesting is what potential can still be tapped, particularly regarding efficiency.

efficiency. Especially as you already said, with batteries you've had a learning curve in terms of costs and technology that's quite impressive. Exponential. Because of that, the technology is simply taking the upper hand right now. So do you see – in your view, was there a way at all to physically influence the efficiency or costs significantly in hydrogen technology? Well, you can see that progress is happening with fuel cells and electrolysis, so generation and then also energy recovery

from electricity again. With storage, on the other hand, not much has happened at all. So that technology we built back then as a pilot plant was of course far from the efficiency you would need. But it was also a first plant, after all. So as always, when you do something for the first time, it then needs a lot of optimization. And over several iteration stages, we would certainly have been able to increase the efficiency from those initial three percent – it was just about showing it was possible – to ten percent

possible. The question is whether those efforts are worth it and whether you'd want to do very industrial manufacturing of these technologies. Because hydrogen in mobility isn't really the right approach. For industry, though, it's not so bad. On one hand as a production medium – for example, hydrogen is used quite often in glassmaking – but we also know the discussion about green steel mills and things like that, where it's supposed to be used as a fuel. And for that I need large quantities, which we then have to

produce accordingly. And at the same time, of course, it's like this: if at some point we use less mineral oil in refineries, less grey hydrogen will be produced there that I could use there too. And because I can't transport it very well, I often need local production. And I think that's really the challenge then. How do I get that done at a steel mill like ThyssenKrupp's? They've, I think, just opened the world's first green, hydrogen-powered steel mill, also in Germany. How do I get that then

produced on-site, delivered, stored, so that I also have supply security? Because the processes are critical, they can't fail. It's much, much more relevant there. And then it also makes more sense to deal with the topic holistically. For mobility there are cheaper alternatives – it's too expensive there. Someone said that once, I don't even know who: you'd basically use champagne to rinse if you dumped it in a car. And I think that really hits the mark.

So hydrogen is really available in large quantities, but it's quite expensive as a medium. Yeah, and sorry, I interrupted you then. How did you get to the next phase? Well, then at some point BMW came by us, and they were dealing with the topic of hydrogen forklifts for their plant in Leipzig. They had set up very innovative manufacturing there for the i3. And we sat down with them over lunch. And they told us a bit about what else they were doing, and they were

just about to found a new subsidiary in Munich: Digital Energy Solutions, which later merged into Digital Energy – at least part of it; other parts were divested differently. And yes, exactly. Fissmann just sold off the energy supply part as well. It was definitely an exciting project because we wanted to deal with the topic of sector coupling, namely on an electricity basis. How can I optimally control my heat pump at home, my PV system, my car – how can I do that optimally? And

My role there was then to build up the charging topic completely. 2015. We developed solutions for many BMW employees and company car drivers. So we dealt very intensively with fleet charging too. You need a charging card for public charging. You need a charging station at home. You need someone to install it for you – at home. You need someone to handle billing for you as a central service for your fleet management. And then the whole thing, if you also have charging stations at your location, like BMW dealerships for example, you want to

operate those publicly too. And with that we had a comprehensive portfolio that makes up a CPO, and we developed products along this chain with other BMW subsidiaries like DCS, for example, which made the Charge Now charging card, but also through acquisitions – and there also with Etricity back then as a partnership, which was very exciting because you didn't even know where the journey was heading in that area and there were many new approaches.

Was the DCS then essentially intended for BMW internally, or also as a service provider for third parties? Also as a service provider for third parties. So in addition to equipping BMW dealerships with AC charging stations and 50 kW DC chargers for sales, we also served external customers who wanted to build charging stations on their company car parks and also took energy management from us, so that we could also regulate load peaks. We also, together with BMW Research, had

operated a kind of charging park, and it still exists today. Different power classes. Back then they were capped at 50 kW. There were 30, 40 different charging stations where vehicles were simply tested through. And we used that to develop our load management on it. And back then there were also many plug-in hybrids, single-phase vehicles, CHAdeMO vehicles. So that was all not quite as standardised as the market might be today. And we also had different Renaults that showed quite interesting charging curves and

behaviour. When you throttled them down, they wouldn't come back up during load management. And we then built a software solution for the BMW car park – a load management that ran in our backend and could also regulate phase-specific load imbalance. That was 2015, 16 weeks, or the dealers,

yes, it was a test vehicle for the BMW employee car park, so to speak. But the idea was already to market this product to other customers, which we also did – just not in the same style. So this car park was eventually supposed to have 100 charging points in the AC area. And we designed the solution so that it was scalable, also in terms of response times, with SIM cards and everything else. But you could tell that this was all still a very early phase

in the market. For example, AC charging stations are not entirely compatible with each other. We were at OCPP, which is the protocol that charging stations communicate with, transitioning from 1.5 to 1.6 at the time – 2.0 and what came after that was still so far away in the specification – and many capabilities that we needed were not yet implemented, even on the hardware side. And yet we built a solution that was also compatible with a lot of hardware. So we could

control and operate from Keba via Schneider Electric, Mennekes, the major manufacturers you found back then, ABL, so that we could also serve the customer who had a bit more than one charging station, and nobody wanted to commit to one model. And at the same time we built such a full-service portfolio with energy monitoring for your load peaks from your connected company, but also energy supply. Through our colleagues in Berlin, we also made energy contracts back then and optimised and

supplied you accordingly. All very early, and there was also a lot of know-how involved. But yes, at BMW they also scaled back e-mobility topics a bit. Herbert Diess went to Volkswagen, and I followed him a bit via a small detour. And at Volkswagen my daughter company was founded from it – the Elli – and there we tackled the same thing again, but this time on a much larger, scalable scale. At Elli I then dealt primarily with

public charging. So in the last 5 years before I came to Elektra, I was responsible at Elli for developing and rolling out charging cards for the VW Group, ensuring that we have sufficient charging points in 30 countries, that we can do billing, and that we did not pass on this disruption of the Ukraine crisis, which is also quite interesting, directly to the customer. If you look today, you can see an immediate reaction in the energy market to something like the Ukraine crisis or

now also in Iran last week. Prices went up quite quickly, and in 2022 we had signed very long-term contracts as a CPO. And the bilateral relationship with the charging card providers was also very long – with six months lead time sometimes for price adjustments. All very static. And in the moment when your prices went up, you didn't have to adjust anything for the end customer yet. And many people celebrated it at first: e-mobility great, energy prices are going through the roof. But

at the charging station the price stays nicely low. That was simply due to the contractual relationships that had up to nine months lead time. Then we all switched to spot market prices. And then we had exactly the next phenomenon: overcorrection. So everyone knew we somehow had to raise the price, but nobody knew how long this crisis would last on the energy markets. And everyone pulled the prices up first, and then we suddenly also had very absurd charging prices on the market, and e-mobility was no longer so attractive, especially

was. We also had to rebuild our entire product portfolio within four weeks – from one-year contracts that we made with end customers, i.e. price guarantees, to: you can essentially switch and cancel your rate every four weeks. But we kept our promise back then anyway and didn't somehow terminate customers who had a 12-month contract early, but they got the very favourable conditions we had agreed back then all the way to the last day of their contract. Of course, no end customer thanks you for that, because eventually

has to pay the price. But for me it was already – yes, exactly. Of course, nobody is happy with a price increase, but from this perspective, if you look at it that way, naturally as an insider, then I think you can be a bit proud that you kept the promise. And Volkswagen gets criticised from time to time, but I think they were very fair there, and it was also important to them that the customer gets a good offer, which they had promised them.

Yes, that was an exciting topic, also rolling out an app and a digital product in 30 countries – that's also an interesting challenge. I can imagine. Eventually all group brands were supplied with a product – so Recharge, Audi Charging Service and so on. And then it was time for new challenges. And I increasingly noticed: as a charging card provider, you have a problem. You depend on the charging station operator. He was certainly a

customer and an aggregation of charging station providers, but the charging station operator effectively has the monopoly. He has access to the network and thus to the power, and he's also very price-setting. Article 4 wasn't out back then, still in development, but basically that's already – yes, access to the power grid is via the charging station operator. And if you don't have any yourself in assets – we were just an MSP, a few VW dealers that we equipped, but that's

not a charging network across the board. Then you have a competitive disadvantage. Elli is just an MSP, has no CPO at all. – They also do operations for many VW dealers across Europe and are thus one of the largest CPOs. Also the VW plants. – Dealers, exactly. And that's also an impressive achievement. So we developed a product in a short time and migrated the plants to our own product, and all of it smoothly. It always sounds so mundane, but when I switched backend providers at DES back then, we had 30 charging stations, and that was, I think, one of the largest migrations you could do in the market at that time. We had more charging points in Munich in our backend than Munich's municipal utilities had built across the entire city. So that's where we come from. And then we got to do the same thing at VW, but this time in much less time with a much larger number. And that's

actually the beautiful part. You see: you can increasingly access more standardised service providers over time. There are installation partners who now know what they're doing. You can buy materials that are tailored for it. Where you initially had to find someone to install a wallbox at a company car driver's home, today you have a broad portfolio of providers in the market that you can tap into. Hardware has also become much more reliable and robust. And there's definitely a reason why you see so many Alpitronic chargers out there.

They work well and reliably, and customers can also handle the operation. But it's also becoming increasingly difficult for other providers to maintain that position and bring competition to the market. And that applies to hardware, but also to CPOs and to charging card providers. So customers today expect more and more of what you as a new player have to bring just to establish yourself on an equal footing. And then to achieve market leadership on top of that – that's pretty difficult.

Yes, that's a very interesting observation. E-mobility in particular is still a relatively young industry. And you can see that there were teething problems. And it's good that over time you have more and more players who are very good at what they do. And then there's a certain reliability that's definitely good for everyone and for all stakeholders. Then, as you say, for

innovation and for new players it becomes more difficult, but it's also good that quality rises in that sense and that you can then perhaps build a new business on the shoulders of others and also immediately have reliable stakeholders as partners. You have to constantly reinvent yourself too, I think, and see where the journey is going. I always find it very impressive when I think of Mobility House, for example. They started as a

classic provider of charging solutions. Now they're very active in the B2B sector, and they've also developed their own load management. That's a completely different direction they went in. And it's quite a challenge to move a company in that direction. You can already see, so everyone recognises the value in the market. We have huge batteries here. We have flexibilities here. But so far, nobody has really managed to market them and use them in such a way that they

are actually used meaningfully in the end. There are always smaller pilots, but we don't have a scalable solution that's rolled out across the board. The same applies to smart homes. For years, everyone has known we need smart home solutions. But it's a fiercely competitive market, and no one has prevailed yet. From my perspective. Yes, we'll definitely come back to that. However, to wrap that up holistically before we also come to Electra: are there any other stations in your very

successful career that we should mention?

quite comprehensive resume that you can highlight? Exactly. I also dealt with virtual power plants and energy management during my studies. We offered various consulting services for that too. Besides hotels that we optimized, we also optimized a mill as an industrial operation. A really, really cool story. The miller had no idea how large he actually was in terms of energy consumption. He had the obligation to introduce an energy management system, and he saw that as harassment from the legislator. My roommate in our shared apartment, he

was his neighbor and said we could write a project work on it. Then we got five folders with all kinds of invoices. Then we read through that and found out the man was consuming 5 GWh of electricity per year.

Exactly. So that's a whale you find there. And he doesn't even know how big he actually is. And then we looked at it and found that he could reduce his peak load by 60 percent just by shifting two processes. You don't even need an intelligent solution for that. You just have to tell him: if one system is running, the other one doesn't need to run. And that's what we did. In the first year we achieved savings

of nearly 1.5 million euros for him, so that he then also got a taste of what it actually means when you engage with the topic of energy. I think that's an extreme example. You won't find something like that anymore because in the meantime everything is much better regulated down to that level, so that the people involved are also in it. He originally thought about having his wife, who was already 60, train to become an energy manager so he could fulfill the requirement to have one

employed. After that he hired two people who did it full-time. Good anecdote, definitely made the business future-proof. Yes, cool what you can accomplish as a student. Congratulations. And then I worked for Webasto for a while, because my role at DS was to enable company car drivers to charge at home and on the road. And I kept stumbling over the point that there was no affordable AC charging station on the market that was simply easy to install. Ideally it would be a

system that is plug-and-play capable, where you just have an electrician run a cable and then create some kind of socket where you can simply plug in a wallbox, so the customer can then commission it themselves. The systems that were on the market back then always had to be configured by experts. It was also very, very complicated. I'm a trained Telekom technician, so I spent a lot of time in service operations. And when DSL was rolled out, it was similar. At first nobody could

configure a router. You always had to get the Telekom guy to come for expensive money. Eventually there were the first providers that did it via a six-digit PIN, so the system logged in and did it itself. Nowadays you can move into many apartments without having to have a technician come. And also this point that the technician doesn't arrive on time is gone with that. And it's similar with charging. We suddenly want to create infrastructure for many households.

And it should work as well as possible and be as cheap as possible, because in the end it pays into the costs when you want to operate it. The Telekom reference is maybe a bit of a side note now, but it's because it was just so relevant to me personally. Yesterday I actually dealt with it before going to bed. I wanted to have a fiber optic connection at my home and looked at a few things.

Router compatibility – there are, depending on the requirement, whether it's fiber optic or ADSL and so on, whether the technician has to come, whether you have to change the router, and things like that. And also the topic of load management. I actually find energy management interesting, that there are certain parallels and analogies in the data context to the topic of energy management as well. I wasn't aware of that at all, and then I actually looked into it. Do you actually have load management

or data restrictions if the neighbor, so to speak, uses the internet more when you have fiber optic? And at least in my quick research it was the case that with fiber optic you would have this cable quasi proprietary and if you have a 100-megabit-per-second line, then you get these 100 megabits, no matter what the neighbor does. Whereas with other forms of internet it goes up and down. I don't know if you've looked into this or are familiar with it. But if you could give a few analogies there, that would be interesting.

Well, the problem is much older than that. I can tell you that. When I rolled out DSL back then, a lot of people had ISDN before. And then there were also analog connections in mass. And even then you had the problem that you sometimes had settlements where only a thin cable went through but you had to make 12 telephone connections. And then there were so-called connection multiplexers. That was exactly the same – a technology that ensured that the line behind it could modulate three telephone conversations in parallel

in frequency-technical terms, so that these people could make phone calls. So the problem with utilization and restrictions in infrastructure – I think that's been a recurring problem ever since we started laying cables. And yes, you can certainly do quite a lot with algorithms afterwards in optimization. But if everyone drives onto the highway at the same time, I have the same problem. You just have to make sure you build infrastructure so that it can handle a certain peak

can put away. But you also have to accept as a user that not everything always works at 100% capacity when everyone wants it. That's difficult because we've all gotten used to very good times. But that stresses quite a lot of infrastructure operators in all areas. If everyone turns on their taps at the same time, it also becomes difficult for the water works to provide enough at some point. Yes, there are so many analogies, and so that we really get to your lecture – how

did that come about then – was that then, so in chronological order let me summarize briefly, because we've jumped around a bit – so Areva, BMW, and then Webasto or

or was Elli in between? Elli was after Webasto, exactly. In the Volkswagen Group and they had a tender for a wallbox, so I ended up there, so to speak. And I'm someone who, whenever I see new challenges or notice that the path up to that point has worked quite well, but somehow you hit a dead end – I dive deep into that topic. Then I move on, I think, to the issue where I believe the next solution lies. And that's how it was

with Elli too. The charging cards – I really enjoyed that, it was a great team. But I kept coming back to the point of CPO and I realized: well, if we really want to get e-mobility out into the field – and we're still not there yet, so my mother doesn't drive electric, for example – that's probably the case for a lot of people, otherwise we'd have more than two million vehicles on the road. Then

it has to become even simpler. It just has to be that really anyone can do it. And that simply involves a lot of complexity at the charging station too. Then I looked at: which location operators are active in this area? You pretty much know all the common ones if you've been in the industry for years. And some do it well. And some do it a bit less well. And then I thought: what would an ideal charging park actually have to look like so that

it's still easy to use? And then I went on vacation to France and stumbled across Electra. And I realized: OK, they're already checking off a lot of the points that were on my list. And yes, shortly after that a headhunter called me. And yes, that's how I ended up there.

I really stood out in those dark industrial areas. Thank God that's become less common. I got annoyed every time because there was always something missing, like a trash can. I still get annoyed when I look at some charging stations and how they're built, so that I can't charge with every vehicle. So I was in Düsseldorf last week and I was standing at an HPC charger. There was a short cable installed, without a cable management system, and if your vehicle has the connector on the passenger side and on the

other side someone is also backing in with a passenger side connector, then you can't get the connector in. And then I honestly ask myself why I would build it that way so I can only operate it that way. Then I would at least put five meters of cable on one side so I can walk around the car. A cable management system might also be more user-friendly because I'm a man and can lift a cable like that, but if I have my daughter with me, it already becomes difficult. And

all these little things are what ultimately determine whether you create a good charging experience. And many still do that wrong. I come from a very rural area. And the region was once recognized as one of the pioneering regions in Bavaria for e-mobility. There wasn't a single charging station there for a long time. Why you would recognize it as a pioneering region at all. Meanwhile there are some, but many are just poorly positioned. The charging point is installed in a way that you don't know how to park. No

maneuvering space available. The parking spaces are tight. You have to park diagonally against the direction of travel. That's not fun either. And if you experience that a few times as a customer and four out of five experiences are like that, then you have that frustration every day. And then you don't switch over. And then that spreads to your neighbor. And then he says it's all crap. That's exactly how it becomes nothing. Or you search for the charging station. Meanwhile they're in the vehicle navigation. That

also took three months at first because the infrastructure behind it first had to be created in order to feed such rapidly changing availability statuses and charging points into vehicles. And automakers also have corresponding product lead times for such vehicle platforms. They do make great efforts, but it sometimes takes a bit longer than you would expect as an end customer who is used to getting everything new from an app on your iPhone. And yes, there's still

a lot to do. And the next thing that's coming is: we providers are building roofs. Nobody wants to stand in the rain, but I also want to stand in the shade when it's sunny. If the vehicle is not exposed to the sun, I might be able to deliver high charging power for longer with an uncooled cable. That also has a triple advantage for me. It's about charging stations being available. And all that, I found, was there at

Elektra actually provided. So we monitor all of that quite well. We're constantly thinking about how we can improve the charging experience, how we can also roll out quickly. If you look at Germany: some providers need two years there to realize such a charging park, regardless of the grid operator. Then that's not so effective. Others do it really well. They're really moving so fast that they may have built a bit too quickly. And that

are all things you just look at. Locations that then don't have the utilization, right? Exactly. Or they built too big. I think the size is right for the target state. When there really is 40, 50% e-mobility, then it will be just sufficient. But you'll still have to struggle with it for a few more years. And the question is: do you really want to invest that much money in charging stations, in foundations and also the operation

and maintenance of this infrastructure if it's not even being used? Maybe it works a bit smaller. And I'm not saying we do everything right, but I do have the impression that at Elektra in recent years, also because of the somewhat later start – we were only founded in 2021 – you simply have advantages because you can access established solutions. Yes, and that's what I find interesting about Elektra, the fact

that the founder and CEO is still the same. That's not so common. Because you have such good experience in the market, you can also provide insights into how you view the CPO market. I think there are mainly energy suppliers that traditionally nobody knows – so oil and gas or power suppliers – who are active in the CPO segment, and not so many start-ups like you are. And that maybe gives you an advantage. And how do you see

the challenges for you and the opportunities, respectively the CPO market. Maybe you could bring the listeners along a bit, those who may not be so deeply involved. Yes, that was always the key question back then: who will win the race? Will it be the oil company now equipping its gas stations? The big energy supplier? We have a few of those in Germany. Or might it be the municipal utilities, because locally they of course have good customer access, or

independent players like us for example, who aren't actually active in these areas at all. And the race is still open. Even after 89 years, that hasn't been decided yet. But you see, everyone has their challenges. Gas station operators sound great at first – they have good locations all over the cities – but at the same time the challenges: they may have to give up part of their existing business for that. Of course, that's maybe not so simple from a business case perspective. At least roofs are already there. They don't cost them extra because

the oil separator becomes cheaper if I build a roof over it. At the same time, they try to squeeze infrastructure onto their small spaces, which then maybe isn't the best charging experience because it's just done that way. Energy municipal utilities have the challenge, they have a political mandate, sometimes maybe not the financial means to do it well, so they just put up 23 charging stations, but struggle to keep them alive and operating. But it's simple because

they're active locally. Others, who are actually regional energy suppliers, have evolved out of that role and are now active nationwide. It's also interesting to see that some providers see this as an opportunity. They're doing a great job building their parks towards retail. Here they were not known before. Well, I don't come from the Palatinate. I think I would have learned about the Palatinate when I worked for a plant in Wörth.

And then you noticed, bit by bit: now expansion. I think they're also going to Sweden now and also internationally – for a German utility that's suddenly active internationally. That's not bad when there's simply a bit of competition coming into the market. And others who are really big, ones you always had on your radar: not visible. They promised a lot, maybe didn't even deliver, or still struggle today

to drive the rollout forward, or have also focused on a completely different solution – maybe depot charging – and are making good progress there, but it's just not so visible to the public. And I think a lot will happen in the next few years and also a lot of consolidation will happen. Because everyone of course has their fixed costs. I need a builder, I need a service provider, I need a team to do that. Everyone has activated locations – lots of locations that they maybe don't even

want to build anymore because they don't fit into the sweet spot of the portfolio right now. I think there will also be a big barter market emerging where you maybe trade one or another location with each other if the contracts allow. There are already a few independent brokers on the market dealing with this topic. So there's definitely still a lot happening. And yes, also the question of grid access. So in some places, if I

I'm there, maybe someone else won't get a chance to get a grid connection anymore. That might be quite a nice monopoly for me locally for five years, and you can also play it quite badly. And as a start-up, how do you see your differentiation or your advantage compared to the other, maybe more traditional CPOs? Well, with us it's actually quite interesting: we're not classically project-driven. That means many

CPOs work project by project because that's where they come from. We built very scalable processes quite early on, because one of our founders also comes from e-commerce and was quite active there, and we got to highly integrated processes very quickly. That means when sales closes something, the project manager already has it on their desk and the applications are submitted automatically. So we don't really lose any time there. And that

allows us to build faster than maybe some others, but also saves money because we don't have to do many things two or three times. The second thing is: because we come later, we have the advantage of being able to access standardized services. And we clearly said: we use what's proven where it works. We rely on new things, new technologies – and very early on new technologies if they offer an advantage for the end customer, but also for us. And then we also test that

with the customer together. We regularly roll out new features in our app. Some disappear again, simply because we're used to doing it that way. And that's different from maybe a classic company that focused on project business – we think the whole thing more from the customer's perspective and keep asking ourselves: What do I need as a customer when I want to go from A to B? What do I need as a customer when I'm actually at the charging station? A display that maybe says, well

The status from a distance, right, maybe in the future also show you the waiting time, right. That was also a topic. As of today it's always this kind of perceived shortcoming where you say: Oh my, I have to wait because the charging park is full. In reality it doesn't happen that often. Someone from Elva told us about it last week in an Electrolive podcast. That might happen more. But even then, I think it's quite nice to just inform the customer thoroughly and simply

convince them that way. And the customer will appreciate that. And that's what we're focusing on. If you as a customer have a good charging experience and are satisfied and know it works. The charging points are always there. It's clean. It's bright. I have space to get out. Then I'll go there. Then I really think about whether I drive another 100 meters because I'm right there directly from the shopping center, but then I have to squeeze into the gap and then it takes three or four minutes longer, or whether I

don't charge there and then maybe walk a few more meters. For locations where you're competing with others: If we're the only provider at the location, then we already make sure we find the best spot for the customer, right. And if that means: not the front row, but maybe the second row, because in the front row you'll always be blocked, packed in with combustion vehicles. That was also a mistake at the beginning. Then they put it way back in

the last corner of the parking lot to save a bit of money. Not very effective either, because in a few years maybe e-mobility will be the dominant form. And then everyone says, why do I still have to park in the back? Then you almost can't move it to the front anymore. Maybe also build a bit smarter, so you provide for it: if the station has a certain load, it can be expanded at any time. Ionity did that cool, for example at many charging parks early on at the highway. They

already had the sockets for the chargers planned and so on. They retrofitted them after a while. You can do something like that in a different style too, so that I simply have a variable charging park with minimal effort, and also to swap out the charging hardware. Today we all rely on Alpitronic. No idea if that will still be the case in five, six, seven years. Seven years ago Alpitronic didn't even exist or was just starting. You never know. This whole industry is

super fast-moving, right? Also with grid connections. We also build stations with battery storage. We're looking for solutions to position it as flexibly as possible at the location because such a transformer is quite large, takes up space. That will become increasingly limiting at locations, and the more modular the systems are and the more I can arrange them and the less footprint they have, the better. And yes, many such small detail components that ultimately ensure that you still have a good gap there. And what

would you say are your top three challenges? So what keeps you up at night – hopefully you always sleep well – but in the sense of: what are the issues that cause the most concern or are the most challenging? Well, one thing that's on my mind, and it affects many providers, is the topic of electric vehicle registration numbers, right. We all calculated business cases that assumed a certain ramp-up curve. We all know that the registration numbers

Currently lagging behind. The providers have all done a good job. More infrastructure is being built, or the growth of infrastructure is faster than vehicles are currently being registered. That makes you sleep a bit uneasily, because of course you know that utilization will stagnate or decline in the coming years. On the other hand, it depends a bit on the location. There are some that are significantly above that. You always have to look at what measures I can

take, right? Because in the end, station operators will have to compete for the same customers. And if we gain utilization without excessively more new vehicles coming in, someone else will lose some. What in very early markets triggers competition, right. There are certainly methods, measures, how you can also bind customers. I think we'll see that intensify over the next two, three years. And one or another provider will maybe give up in

this consolidation phase. Exactly. That's such a challenge. The second thing: The number of locations is limited in Germany where I can build infrastructure, right? Many locations are already secured. At the same time, there are also plenty of new locations still, or they come back onto the market – so not quite as simple as five years ago, when you could choose freely. But you do still find sufficiently good locations. So it's not quite that bad. But it will get sharper.

Our sales team always says: You're like little truffle pigs. You have to find the truffle, the truffle location that we can then utilize as well as possible. And the third thing: We're seeing more and more that vandalism is becoming an increasingly big issue at charging stations. And that's a proper challenge, not just for station operators, but also for the consumer who sees on their phone that the station is available, and then finds out that someone has cut off the cable. So that is

Is that theft or is that destruction? To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. I suspect it's theft. I don't want to make this into something politically motivated, to be honest. But you can tell it's increasing, there's a clustering of these cases happening. And now you need new technical solutions for that, which of course cost money again. You have to retrofit that across the board. For us not quite as expensive as perhaps for others,

because we still don't have that many stations here in Germany. In other countries it looks a bit different. But yes, that's a problem that's coming. The next problem will also be increasingly more fraud cases at charging stations. We'll certainly see authentication media being counterfeited – fake QR codes that have been stuck on. That's of course known. Everyone in the industry knows that all of these are weak methods to

Authenticate charging sessions, which aren't really secure. But as long as there's no fraud happening, they're very cheap methods. And fraud only ensures that these products maybe become a bit better, more secure. But as an operator, you do have to factor in that you won't get through the next ten years with what you've built, but there will need to be substantial retrofitting. In that sense – there was a big debate in the industry: QR code

or RFID, what is Direct Payment? Whether you use Direct Payment with what you know from credit cards – which is probably more secure, but more expensive, to install all that extra – how do you or your team feel about it? Well, I don't think Direct Payment is actually a bad thing, in that it already gives customers the option to use every station without barriers. As it stands today, we have this pricing issue again, where you say that ad-hoc prices kind of

represent the price ceiling, depending on interpretation. Which in turn means: in very rigid structures with MSPs, I currently can't map dynamic prices. So we'll have to see that price transmission or price point transmission to market operators becomes dynamized, so that they can then also pass on dynamized prices to the end customer in their area and we then can perhaps eventually also see energy price fluctuations at the electricity exchange at charging stations. That's simply not the case today. And yes,

if you as a provider do that and reduce your ad-hoc price to 0.99 euros now, because the sun happens to be shining, then it could be that the MSP comes and says: with our contract 0.99 euros, how can you do that? That's discriminatory. And to suddenly go down to 0.99 euros, and he doesn't pass it on, is somehow not so great either, because the end customer gets nothing out of it. That is, that's also the hurdle with dynamic

electricity prices, in that it's the big hurdle between CPO and MSP, so that we have it across the board and everyone agrees. Or is that a technical hurdle? Both. So as a CPO and also as an MSP you don't have just singular relationships, but back then we had nearly 900 CPOs under contract in Europe. That's a complexity you have to

manage, because each of them ran a different backend and had different technical capabilities and then their own controlling on top of that. And then suddenly you might also have fixed price points emerging from processes. And suddenly you have a problem, because perhaps as an MSP you say, I want to have it all dynamic, but five others just can't. And in my offering I still have to be able to represent it. How can I cover that? Already I have to

build a special solution in that corner. And that's the challenge with roaming. I don't have any of that with ad hoc payment, the chain ends at the charging station. At the same time, I already see an advantage with charging cards, especially in the fleet environment, because as a fleet manager I don't want to make charging contracts with 800 CPOs. Or I would really like to have a unified overview: where did the customers charge, how much did they charge, what is the driving behaviour? I know that

from fuel cards, many of them come from that background. I might also want to be able to buy other things with it, not just electricity, but maybe also enable the driver to buy windscreen washer fluid. Tolls are not necessarily an issue in Germany, but in other countries or parking fees. So it always depends a bit on what the customer group wants. And technically things will change. It has consistently improved. And we're seeing now, we currently have a kind of

spotlight on price – that's good, because where there's also attention, that's where innovation happens. And I do think that will be solved in the coming years and then maybe there will also be more dynamic pricing models at the charging stations. What we've now heard: in the Netherlands it's partly the case that the station operators should display the prices of the individual charging card providers. That's of course also interesting, because that would first mean I need a return channel from the charging station

card provider, who would actually tell me what a charging station operator wants to charge the end customer, you know. Currently I only know what I'm selling the charging card provider for, but what they then take, if it's public, I can find it out. But yes, the information would have to be exchanged, yes. And on the topic of fleets: how we haven't really discussed which charging use cases you all map. The way I understand it, or can you elaborate – you mainly do

pure public charging, fast charging, HPC. Maybe you can elaborate on whether there are other use cases and whether or when those will come, and on the topic of fleets: to what extent do fleets play a role for you. Well, we started developing a fleet product for our charging network in France about a year and a half, two years ago, primarily because we noticed that we kept having reservations from the same customers at stations at lunchtime. Every day. And then we sent someone there

who talked to these people. And then it turned out: these are often delivery van drivers who take their lunch break that way. Because you could make reservations with us, they scheduled it accordingly. And through them we then also got to the fleet manager and spoke with them: from your fleet, your delivery service, somehow ten vehicles charge with us anyway. We could also make a contract, that would be much easier from a billing perspective. And then we started developing a product

with them. And as of today we also have some large fleet providers. These are now not just delivery companies, but also things like Sixt or Bolt, so a car sharing company, Europcar – who then charge their fleet at our stations. And with different use cases: some use it at night. Great to also increase the utilization of public infrastructure at night. And it doesn't bother anyone if the delivery van is there for a bit longer. Maybe not the whole weekend,

but you can have a good, complementary case. Because on the other hand I'm also often, especially in the delivery sector, operating in such a sub-contractor area, which then doesn't necessarily want to invest in charging infrastructure at its location, but which says: these things should be on the road. The drivers should take the vehicle home with them. Please charge it at the charging station at night, and tomorrow morning you drive off fully charged. Or don't have

any way to build something like that at your depot. And I think public infrastructure is a good supplement to such a depot charging case, which is certainly also very important for a broad use case, but I think it goes hand in hand, you know. And also there: a local delivery company in Berlin doesn't need 500,000 charging points in Europe in an MSP charging card, but would probably only need the 20 that really lie on their routes, and that would be completely sufficient and thus

maybe also more cost-efficient, you know, because they don't have to pay for all the roaming overhead with that charging card provider. Yes, we've already done an interesting episode on that with Gerd Seeber from DPD Deutschland. We did a deep dive on that topic too, on how the drivers get home and where they charge. That's exactly this topic. And another question on that: is that HPC charging for you? AC – do you also do

a depot? Can you also deliver that, or do you restrict yourself to HPC? Well, in Germany we're currently mainly in the HPC sector. In France and Belgium we also have a few AC chargers, in France more because of regulations, because you still had to install an AC charging point. We don't build depot charging infrastructure. So if your company is naturally well located and has a publicly accessible parking lot, you can combine it that way, but that would be for you

now in the backyard put a charger there, which then only gets operated for you in the depot – that's not really our use case, right. So it probably comes down to the customer, I have to say, because I don't know who's still listening. But primarily we're in public HPC charging and that's also happening in urban environments. We certainly have one or two stations on the motorway as well, to cover that long-distance use case. But with that we're quite a local

partner and can already offer fleet rates in Germany today, right. We also have a few smaller fleet customers at our first location for example. The delivery vans from the location partner there get charged via our system. That's exactly the solution we have in France. It's a small fleet right now, three vehicles, but the thing scales just as well to large fleets, right. If anyone says, I'm going to go there with my vehicle anyway: feel free to reach out, then we can talk about it.

how you could set up a contract. And that means you also have the option to reserve. Did I understand that correctly? That's actually this security when you have to deliver packages in tight schedules or whatever. That's possible with you. Exactly, that's possible. You can also make it time-controlled or in advance. The driver can make the reservation themselves via the app. With trucks people are discussing

right now whether that should become standard too. With us that's standard at the charging points. That might be an interesting use case as well, although we're not primarily targeting heavy commercial vehicles. Most of the sites we have aren't even accessible for those. But the odd location will certainly fall into that combination. And a topic that's much discussed, also at the regular table, but generally, are the electricity prices at charging stations, that

they're sometimes very, very high, that there would be price gouging. How would you look at that, to maybe calm the waters a bit? To say: Hey, don't worry, if you're betting on e-mobility or also have to rely on public charging and don't have the option to have your own charging station, where the electricity price is a bit cheaper. That it won't increase further, or rather, how can

you then? Yes, how should one look at this pricing issue in your eyes? Well, the infrastructure – a lot of people forget this with public infrastructure – it costs something. And I have to finance that somehow through the charging price. However, you can assume very predictable costs through utilization and then of course make a good contract with a fleet customer who brings that utilization. And because I then really have that as a predictable thing as a CPO, which I might not have with an MSP, those are just different terms I can offer in the direct contract model. Building such a charging park is of course also an investment. So as a fleet company that puts three fast chargers plus transformer stations somewhere – and it doesn't have to be quite as nice as in the public sector – I'm spending half a million to yes, 800,000 euros. And I have to maintain and operate it too. So that's

not really my core business, I wouldn't focus on that. Accordingly, it can already be an attractive deal to say: Hey, sure, then I'll pay 39, 49 cents at the public charging station, but I've arranged that with the provider for the long term. Between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. I might even pay less, because then they get higher utilization. And then I can factor that into my fleet costs in a plannable way. That's a different business case than at the gas station, where I

don't have these fixed purchases. And in the future, generally, not just thinking about fleets, but about the average consumer who, let's say, lives in a rental apartment, buys an electric car and says: Okay, I've seen price increases at public charging stations, where diesel is almost cheaper. Do you see that stabilizing in the future, or through potentials like dynamic electricity tariffs or otherwise intelligent charging, that you can

also get around very cheaply? So maybe you can also comment on what you've seen there. Octopus Energy and Honda made this announcement just this week, which is very, very exciting, with a 300 pound lease rate for an electric vehicle, which isn't that bad at all. With the V2G tariff you could even drive for free. Yes, well, first of all, not everyone will have access to infrastructure at their place of residence. I

was a street parker for a long time and still am now. Now I just have an AC charger right in front of my door. That makes it a bit easier, but that's already a major problem when we want to make the switch. Such a V2H offer with V2G is really nice for someone who has a single-family house or access to infrastructure at their house tied to their electricity contract. The British electricity market is built a bit differently than the German one. But yes,

that's the direction we need to go, to enable many people to charge. For the rest there needs to be a good, affordable offer in public space. And then of course you have to ask yourself: Do I as an end customer need access to a charging network that provides stations all the way to Portugal, if my commuter vehicle drives the same 30 km route every day anyway and never goes on long distance trips? Then I make an offer or a contract with a provider that

is available in my region. That changes the whole price structure. And to be honest, if charging networks in the future can really tap into the flexibility of electric vehicles, meaning if they can stagger charging loads via smart charging, then energy suppliers or charging operators can negotiate much better prices with the grid operators. And those savings can then be passed on to customers. That's how we'll get prices down. I'm pretty optimistic about that.

exactly covers my needs. That can be the municipal utility. They also have better prices than what might be assumed today. You always have to say that clearly. This discussion that the kilowatt-hour costs over 1.10 euros – nobody actually pays that in reality. I have my charging card provider and then I consciously drive to the stations where I get that price. Or I pay ad hoc at the charging station the price that happens to be displayed there. But I'm not forced to charge at 1.10 euros per kilowatt-hour. And the coverage is dense enough that I could also drive around the corner and maybe charge somewhere cheaper. That shows exactly these loopholes in the regulations that I described earlier. Every provider of course has to make sure they don't engage in price discrimination. And if that means I have to set my ad hoc price so high that

I can maintain all my MSP contracts well, then exactly this kind of thing results, right. That's hard for the end customer to understand, I'll be honest about that. It's not solved well currently. At the same time, there are still municipal utilities that operate very protectionist and simply don't accept charging cards. For example, I was in a larger city in western Germany south of Cologne last week. There was almost no MSP card accepted there and ad hoc the price was okay,

totally fair. 0.90 euros per kilowatt-hour at a public AC charging station. Could maybe be a tick cheaper, but it's not excessively expensive. Only it wasn't comfortable, right? So as a user I don't want to deal with that every time. There was no payment terminal, I had to scan a QR code, enter credit card details. Then the whole thing took so long that on the first try my vehicle was already showing red. I don't want to do that daily. So I lack the motivation for that and overall it needs to be solved better. And how can you imagine that as a normal e-car driver, not as a CPO? You understand the dynamics. Okay, there are costs to build these locations. That's certainly not trivial, you have to recoup them first, and that's why you can't pass the electricity price one-to-one to the e-car driver. I think everyone understands that. The question is how high these additional costs are, so to speak. And I assume

you could maybe comment on the extent to which this low utilization that still exists now – we don't know what's feasible long-term, but probably it could still go up – that of course there will be price differences compared to the current status quo, where utilization isn't as high as it could be, right? Yes, well you can of course first calculate where the optimum is for the operator in terms of utilization relative to their operating costs. The parking space rental is part of that, maintenance and so on. I have to allocate all that across the kilowatt-hour. And then of course I also have intraday optimization: if I can buy electricity at negative prices and then sell it with a slight markup, I also have arbitrage on top of that. And during that time I want to have even more utilization. And these two mechanisms run somewhat contrary to each other, because a very highly utilized station makes

no sense to offer dynamic pricing. I can't service that at that moment. At best I can prevent the customer from leaving to someone else during peak utilization times, but bringing in another one doesn't help me. So you have to take that into account too. It's a service offering in public space and that also has a price that will be reflected in the kilowatt-hour. What I always find interesting is also in these V2G discussions to

say: I charge my vehicle at my employer. That first presumes that my employer enables that for me, but if it is that way, I take the electricity from my employer cheaper and can feed my house with it. We considered that at the BMWK back then – for the future, in the sector coupling area, that's a super interesting model, and with battery sizes and vehicles it will certainly be possible at some point. But then the legislation remains, because I then get electricity

provided cheaper by my employer that I consume at home. Then certainly the tax office will come along and talk about taxable benefit. So there are many, many stakeholders in these chains to make what actually sounds so obvious and so simple workable. A systemic problem. Yes, and that's what the whole industry is working on. So many companies and people are working on making that better every day. But of course it's hard for the end customer to understand. And today

in Amsterdam and other places there are already very exciting projects where in some cases smart charging – that is, delayed charging at times when the grid isn't so overloaded or prices are particularly cheap – is already being implemented. And prospectively I also believe that V2G, as planned or already in implementation. Austria is, I think, at least as far as I know already in the – yes, but not because they really want to, but because they have to. The grid is completely at capacity.

exactly covers my needs. That can be the municipal utility. They also have better prices than what might be assumed today. You always have to say that clearly. This discussion that the kilowatt-hour costs over 1.10 euros – nobody actually pays that in reality. I have my charging card provider and then I consciously drive to the stations where I get that price. Or I pay ad hoc at the charging station the price that happens to be displayed there. But I'm not forced to charge at 1.10 euros per kilowatt-hour. And the coverage is dense enough that I could also drive around the corner and maybe charge somewhere cheaper. That shows exactly these loopholes in the regulations that I described earlier. Every provider of course has to make sure they don't engage in price discrimination. And if that means I have to set my ad hoc price so high that

I can maintain all my MSP contracts well, then exactly this kind of thing results, right. That's hard for the end customer to understand, I'll be honest about that. It's not solved well currently. At the same time, there are still municipal utilities that operate very protectionist and simply don't accept charging cards. For example, I was in a larger city in western Germany south of Cologne last week. There was almost no MSP card accepted there and ad hoc the price was okay,

totally fair. 0.90 euros per kilowatt-hour at a public AC charging station. Could maybe be a tick cheaper, but it's not excessively expensive. Only it wasn't comfortable, right? So as a user I don't want to deal with that every time. There was no payment terminal, I had to scan a QR code, enter credit card details. Then the whole thing took so long that on the first try my vehicle was already showing red. I don't want to do that daily. So I lack the motivation for that and overall it needs to be solved better.

Nothing works anymore. So accordingly, I need mechanisms that create incentives for me to shift this somehow. And I also want to keep my house running. In Germany – we complain about it, sure, our distribution network operators are already at their limit, but in fact, no one is really ramping things down or switching anything off for me yet. Over the last 15, 20 years we've heard that there will eventually be a blackout in the low-voltage, uh, in the distribution network,

because I have corresponding PV feed-ins and so on. Our network operators did a great job with that – I have to say that. It hasn't even gone dark here in recent years. We have the most reliable power system in the world, with like ten minutes of downtime, I think. But what I wanted to get at is: do you see that in France, Germany or other markets where you want to be active, that people do this at public charging stations that maybe aren't so heavily used? Or will that only happen with AC in the cities? You guys also do more HPC. And there will never be any use cases in that direction there. Yes, though. So we're already seeing that and we're looking at it closely, where there are business models too. Maybe at some point we can build an interesting product where you say: I'm charging vehicles here with an AC charger in public, which is set up with the

heavy-duty grid connection. The customer takes the power home with them and relieves the distribution network, and in return they get a portion credited back as credit, which they then share with us because they get a benefit from it. So I don't know where the business models will go from there. We're also talking about pass-through models in Germany these days. Then every customer brings their home electricity contract with them. Then I actually have a moving asset in hand, and let's see what

my energy supplier offers me. And we as an infrastructure operator then just become the transaction provider and get a fee for it. So I think there's really a lot of exciting things ahead over the next ten years. And we once had the topic of bottlenecks in telecommunications. That will be an issue too, and I think it will become increasingly relevant in the future. There are already software companies emerging again – like Amazon does, I think, in the USA or

also Tesla. They just drive trucks with hard drives around because that's faster for certain distances of data transmission than fiber optic for transferring these massive amounts of data from autonomous driving and so on. Yes, I read yesterday too: the Chinese do that to train their AI models – they fly to Malaysia, train them there and then fly back with the trained model because they don't have the chips on site and that's probably just simpler. So that

could be applied to electricity just the same. If every car is rolling around with a huge battery, then a lot of electricity is rolling on German highways from north to south. And we're always talking about how we have bottlenecks in the transmission network and so on. Maybe interesting models will emerge there too, especially with trucks and so on. Absolutely, yes – a cool idea in any case that the vehicle is brought to where there are bottlenecks as a rolling battery. And

we're getting toward the finish line too. You're – the thing that's interesting actually – a French company that has only recently come to Germany, I think. What have you learned geographically, what's this kind of French flair when it comes to CPO compared to the German approach? Well, I'm German, despite Italian roots I'm still 100 percent German. And you notice that French people are a bit

more relaxed about a lot of things, maybe like project timelines or construction. And they appreciate us for maybe being a tick more accurate about a lot of things. And I think that's what makes the charm of an international CPO like that, coming from all these countries. We're also in Spain, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, but also in Benelux. We have a national company in each country, good people sitting everywhere, and we exchange regularly with each other and then

we also just take new solutions from these countries, and can then build differently, better, and maybe improve the charging experience a bit. Because if you've never driven out of Germany to charge, you believe that all charging stations have to be somewhere in an industrial area and without a roof. And the Facebook groups or forums here are all full of experience reports: "We were in France – every unmanned rest stop has a charging park with a roof, and that's how it should be" – with price display and everything. Exactly, you see that there.

On LinkedIn too, you regularly see that charging is actually cheaper abroad and works with a credit card at the stations than it currently is in Germany. And that helps to look beyond your own horizon and transport one thing or another from the other country respectively – and as an international player you can do that pretty well. Cool. Yeah, I think that's a nice closing thought. Before we really wrap up, can you point out once more what

your listeners can learn from you or from you in general. And what you'd like to have as a final closing word. Well, so we've now gone live with the first parks and we'll roll out a lot more over the next few weeks. I'd be happy if we could welcome one or the other at our charging station who maybe also shares their feedback with us. We always love it when customers let us know what they

think, and we incorporate that directly into our product development. So anyone who wants to find out more about us can visit our website or follow us on LinkedIn. And my closing word would be: charging is becoming better and better, and we want to be part of making that happen. So I'm looking forward to seeing you at one of our stations or hearing from you. Thank you very much for having me on Smart Charge by RiDERgy!

thought was good, and what we might be able to do even better. That also falls on receptive ears with us. And yes, if in a couple of years we are mentioned in the same breath as the other established players here, then I know we've done a good job. And if the prices are right for everyone too, then the job is even better. So thank you very much, Paul, for the time and fingers crossed with the German expansion. Thanks, Claudio, it was fun. Thank you too. That

was the episode with Paul, who has an Italian surname but is actually German and brings a lot of international experience with him. Currently doing a 30-country scaling at Elli. Wow, that was impressive. Also, I've met few people who bring so much diverse experience in the energy and e-mobility world. From the virtual power plant at Mühlhan, so many gigawatt hours and what kind of optimization he got out of that – that was an exciting anecdote – but also how he was then able to build that exciting project right from the beginning at BMW. That and

with DCS and especially build load management for all those BMW locations very early on. And then Elli: 30 countries, the MSP experience and fleet experience and so on. And then of course at Elektra now this exciting task, to play the German market and other markets with a founder-led start-up from France, and how they differentiate themselves with these smart displays. Reservability is also very important, already with logistics companies and fleets. That's essential. And for the trucks that are coming now, already thinking ahead about dynamic

pricing, and of course are open to it and see the potential and the exciting price dynamics that will develop over time. So from my perspective a very successful all-in-one-care package of topics that we covered here – particularly from the CPO perspective, but also MSP and so on, the entire value chain of e-mobility. If you enjoyed the episode, then also check out Paul's tips. Stop by one of these

Elektra charging stations and give your feedback. And subscribe and share the episode by all means. That helps us tremendously. So, until next time.

Episode notes

In dieser Folge von Smart Charge spreche ich mit Paul Tonini, Country Manager Germany bei Electra, über seine Reise von der Wasserstoff-Pilotanlage 2015 bis zum Aufbau flächendeckender High-Power-Charging-Parks. Paul gewährt Einblicke in: - Kabelmanagement & UX: Wie zu kurze Kabel, fehlende Rangierflächen und fehlende Mülleimer das Laden nervig machen. - Stations-Design: Warum Dachkonstruktionen, Steckertypen und Parklayout über Erfolg oder Frust entscheiden. - Smart Charging & V2G-Ausblick: Welche regulatorischen und technischen Bausteine dynamische Tarife und bidirektionales Laden endlich voranbringen. - CPO vs. MSP vs. Flotten: Wie Betreiber, Roaming-Partner und Fuhrparks um Auslastung, Preisgestaltung und Kundenbindung ringen. - Marktdynamik & Konsolidierung: Was passiert, wenn Infrastruktur schneller wächst als die E-Zulassungen – und wer am Ende bestehen bleibt. Mit vielen Anekdoten aus BMW, Webasto, Elli und Electra liefert Paul praxisnahe Tipps für alle, die wissen wollen, wie Elektromobilität im echten Leben funktioniert.