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Smart Charge · 27 November 2025 · 1 hr 9 min

Ep. 34 : Solal Botbol, co‑fondateur de Beev - Le copilote des entreprises pour passer à la mobilité électrique

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.

In France, electric vehicles still account for only about three per cent of the fleet, but already reach nearly twenty per cent of sales. Our guest Solal Botbol presents Beev, the copilot for companies transitioning to electric vehicles, bringing together multi-brand leasing, charging infrastructure installation, and centralized fleet management. The integrated model provides a single point of contact to manage tax, TCO and logistics, with a target market of up to three hundred vehicles. Faced with a fragmented and highly vertical market, Beev's multi-brand strategy avoids conflicts of interest and recommends the right vehicle

based on budget and usage. Beev is simultaneously deploying its fleet manager software to replace spreadsheets for customers, tracking vehicles, charging stations and consumption, and better managing mileage overages. The one hundred per cent European charging stations are installed at employees' locations in less than ten working days. Consistent with the company's B Corp certification, we will see how to scale from pilots and why centralizing data, contracts and energy really changes the game. Let's go. Hello Solal, how are you today?

Good, and you? Very well. I am happy to be here at WeWork, your office here in Paris, in central Paris, near Station F, and to do a podcast with you. So to start, can you introduce yourself? Of course. First, thank you for giving me the floor. My name is Solal Botbol, I am thirty-four years old. I am the co-founder of Beev, where we help electrify the French and European vehicle fleet.

We have been doing this for a little over five years. Personally, I have been passionate about automobiles since early childhood, and I have always wanted to direct my professional project into the field of mobility, because it is a subject that drives me every day. And how did you develop this passion for automobiles, do you remember how it came about? It must come from my father, this attraction. In fact, for me,

I consider mobility to be a means of freedom, because it is a mode that allows us to travel from point A to point B. Point A is what we know, it is where we live. Point B can be trips, new destinations, obviously going to work and so on. That is, for me, a means of freedom. So I find it quite

exciting all the topics around electrifying the vehicle fleet today. What is the role of the car, towards what other types of modes can we move? Mobility, for me, is there to meet a need: what is the most effective way, from an economic, environmental and practical point of view, to travel from your point A to your point B. Okay, yes, I can understand that. And so you have

this passion for mobility and you are also an entrepreneur. I had seen in a previous podcast that, at school, it was a while ago, but the entrepreneurial spirit - maybe you felt it already at school, where you had a bit of a mindset where you did not necessarily want authority, it was not necessarily something you appreciated. Do you see in this path that an entrepreneur must have this

mentality towards authority and try to be a bit disruptive in relation to that? How do you analyse how this entrepreneurial spirit was born, already very early in your mind? Well, first, I will speak only for myself, since I do not know if I can make generalisations for everyone. For me, I know that I have been immersed in a kind of ecosystem since I was small. That is, my parents are not originally from France. My father arrived - both my parents come from North Africa and the Middle East. My father arrived in France after high school, without ties, without connections, without anything. So you have to start from scratch. And he oriented himself towards a profession

in accounting expertise and statutory auditing. My mother is the same, she was someone who was self-employed, oriented towards legal professions, then real estate, and so on. And so there has always been this culture in our parents' education, and thus in my sisters' and mine, that you should tend towards independence if possible, because that is what they communicated to us: it is a

way to try to control your life and control your destiny a bit. That is the theory. After that, whether it suits everyone or not, depends on their own life projects. But anyway, we were immersed in that environment. And so yes, it is true that entrepreneurship has always - in fact, I do not know if it is entrepreneurship, but rather that I have always really enjoyed

touching on a bit of everything and not specialising in one given subject, telling myself: "I am going to be the best of the best of the best at just that one subject, and all the other subjects, I understand nothing about them." That has always interested me, in fact, and I have always been intrigued by people who can touch on a bit of everything, but at a very high level, whether it is marketing, sales,

tech, product, and so on. And that is what has always driven me. So yes, when I was doing my studies, I said to myself: "let us first try to start with the most complicated, so that it is done." And I thought engineering studies were arguably the most complicated. So I started with that, knowing that afterwards, I did not necessarily want to be an engineer, but I found it

interesting.

That's incredibly interesting, actually, the way engineers reason about problems. Meaning you put problems on the table in front of them and they have to solve them, regardless of the subject. So really at the start it's: "gosh, how did we manage to solve that? I have no context, I know nothing about thermodynamics or bridge design or things like that." And actually, we get so many problems thrown at us that the

mindset changes at some point. When you're faced with a problem, it's: "okay, I don't know anything about this, but given all the other problems we've managed to solve before without having the context, one more or one less, we're going to find a solution, we're going to make it." And that, I think, does make quite a difference, it does give you quite a lot of confidence

about the future, so to speak. Telling yourself: "okay, I don't necessarily know what's going to happen, but you have to have faith in yourself and faith in the process, and tell yourself that you're going to land on your feet." Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, obviously. But anyway, that way of thinking, I found it very compelling, and I think it stays with me

to this day. After my engineering studies, I oriented myself more towards a business school to do a master's in entrepreneurship, and so to specialize more on the business side. Interesting. As you rightly said, it's a topic that interests me a lot: how in Europe we can drive the economy, and I see that we need to change the narrative, by considering migrants as an opportunity precisely to create a

stronger economy. We see it in the United States, where the big companies and the economy have been driven mainly by migrants. How do you see that? You gave a very good example. Are there other examples that come to mind for you as well, or do you think it really needs to be highlighted even more? I think diversity in general is a wealth, because it

allows you to learn from others. Being insular, it's something that does have its limits in my view, because, besides, it's in another podcast - I think it's Mathieu Stéphanie in "Generation Do It Yourself" - who says: "you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with." There's some truth to that. And so, feeding and having a

an environment with diversity, whether at the cultural, economic, socio-professional, geographical or other level, it brings richness because ultimately, nobody is right. They are just different points of view each time, and for me, it is still evidence of curiosity and open-mindedness, which are essential. Sometimes we notice in society that these can be lacking at certain moments. And it's a bit

a shame, because instead of putting ourselves in opposition, we could rather come together in coalition and generate value all together. Okay. So, let's talk about Beev. In a few words, if someone doesn't know Beev, how would you explain it? Of course. So Beev in 2025 is the copilot for companies, employees and individuals to support their transition to electric mobility. Concretely, we are here to make the ecological transition simple, accessible and sustainable, by supporting them particularly, for companies, with compliance: understanding what all the challenges are from a fiscal, governmental and economic perspective to electrify their fleet, for the company's needs when you have a fleet of 50 cars. The second component is that we ourselves will distribute multi-brand electric vehicles on leasing contracts that range from 3 months - particularly for employees in a trial period, for which we

don't want to commit to a long-term lease, because again, we don't know if the employee who needs a company vehicle for their work will pass their trial period or not - up to 60-month contracts, on a multi-brand offering. And after that, I'll come back to why we did that. And finally, the installation of charging infrastructure, so chargers at the company's site or sites, and also directly at the employee's home.

And finally, we allow you to centralize all of this, and that's really where this notion of copilot comes in, through a fleet manager where, beginning of October, we are putting it in the hands of our customers to manage their fleet of drivers, electric and non-electric vehicles, and also the supervision of charging infrastructures. Our conviction at Beev is that the journey of acquisition, management and renewal of your fleet, particularly towards electric, is not

up to the mark. You have actors who are extremely verticalized in the market and that, as a result, is particularly what is hindering the switch to electric. Because the reality today, if we take the biggest barriers announced, it's prices. Prices in leasing today, there's almost no difference anymore between electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and 100 percent combustion vehicles. And the TCO, well you make huge savings in operation on your fuel by having an electric vehicle instead of an

an ICE, so a combustion vehicle. From an environmental perspective, there's no issue. There are 1000 studies that have been done showing that the electric vehicle is much more efficient for the planet, over the entire lifetime of the vehicle, than its combustion equivalent. And finally, we often talk about charging infrastructure. Today, all motorways in France are equipped with fast-charging stations with power levels above 150 kW. Obviously,

a shame, because instead of putting ourselves in opposition, we could rather come together in coalition and generate value all together. Okay. So, let's talk about Beev. In a few words, if someone doesn't know Beev, how would you explain it? Of course. So Beev in 2025 is the copilot for companies, employees and individuals to support their transition to electric mobility. Concretely, we are here to make the ecological transition simple, accessible and sustainable, by supporting them particularly, for companies, with compliance: understanding what all the challenges are from a fiscal, governmental and economic perspective to electrify their fleet, for the company's needs when you have a fleet of 50 cars. The second component is that we ourselves will distribute multi-brand electric vehicles on leasing contracts that range from 3 months - particularly for employees in a trial period, for which we

Not all charging stations are distributed perfectly evenly across the territory. But if you step back, today there are almost 40 million cars in circulation in France and only 3% of the vehicle fleet is electric. So, is 100% of people electric-compatible? Maybe not. On the other hand, can we take the vehicle fleet from 3 to 50%? The answer is yes, because there isn't more than one person

in two who isn't electric-compatible in France. By the way, it's quite interesting, we can look at the figures from Norway that came out. Between January 1st and the end of September 2025, in Norway, 97% of sales are electric. And we're talking about a country where it's cold, so you consume more, your range decreases more quickly. And yes, obviously, there are some tax advantages to going electric for Norwegians, but that also means, first, it means

first of all that the product meets the needs of the population, otherwise they wouldn't go for it. And it's the same for France. So, our belief is that these are real barriers that exist, again for certain people, right. There are those for whom they're not electric-compatible because there are deserts of charging stations, and that's true. There are others for whom it's not electric-compatible because the way they travel isn't directly compatible with

electric vehicles, or because it costs too much because you need vehicles that charge very, very fast and vehicles that have very strong ranges, so it's beyond their purchasing power and it's totally unsustainable. On the other hand, the reality is that the majority can switch to electric today without having any deterioration, so to speak, in their daily lives. And thank you very much. In 2019 - I think you created the company in 2020 -

what was the moment? You've already mentioned a lot of elements. So, traditionally, there are leasing companies that are responsible precisely for the vehicles. Then, there are companies that are focused a bit more on charging stations, and then companies that go more towards fleet management, software like that. What was it, when you arrived in the market - I imagine you looked at the market a bit and

these elements - and what was the problem that you discovered, and then the insight of combining all these elements? Well, the structure - so first of all, between 2020 and 2025, there hasn't really been much evolution in terms of market players. What we realized is that understanding what an electric vehicle is isn't necessarily simple for everyone. It needs to be for everyone, because we see a lot now of ads on TV,

in newspapers, on tablets, on YouTube, and so on, and when there are ads related to cars, it's about electric. Nevertheless, and that's normal, people have all been - we've all been - on combustion engines for 100 years. So, knowing what consumption in kilowatt-hours per 100 kilometers is, what the order of magnitude is, how much a kilowatt-hour costs, what charging power is,

what the difference is between alternating current and direct current, and so on. What's the difference between having your cable in type 2 that I'm going to plug in at home and having combo CCS where the cable is directly attached to the charger and where I don't need to take out my cable on the motorway - there's still a minimum of skill building required by users, which can of course be a source of stress, that is I'm afraid of making the

wrong decision and that's totally legitimate. Where there's a problem is the support precisely in this process, where market players are extremely siloed. That is, you look for information, the reality is that you're forced to figure it out by yourself to understand all the concepts we just talked about. The second is that you're then going to want to identify - and that's why we work mainly on companies - it's that their needs have an impact

that can - well, they have an impact that's much more significant if they make a mistake, because the cars, they have plenty of them. So the economic impact can have a real effect on the total cost of the fleet, what we call in English the total cost of ownership, the TCO - for those listening to us, it's the cost of owning the fleet. And so there's this

desire to control all these economic aspects. That is: look, I'm switching to electric, will my lease cost me more or less? In terms of consumption, in real life, what savings do I make on fuel? Same with maintenance, same also with insurance, with taxes, because today you have additional taxes since a year ago that are evolving very, very quickly. We're talking about a tax on company vehicles,

the TVS, which is now called the TVAT. You have non-deductible depreciation, where you can depreciate the vehicle, but you can also depreciate the battery - and that, people know less about. You have the ecological penalty, you have the weight penalty. You now also have the concept of scores for electric vehicles depending on whether they're produced in Europe or not. So, there's a different tax regime. And there, recently, since February 1st, 2025, you have

also the benefit in kind. Basically, before, all these tax costs were borne by the employer, so the company. The benefit in kind now is also a cost that is borne by the employee on their payslip. So now it also impacts their purchasing power. Before, there was the employer who wanted to electrify their fleet to have less important tax treatment and thus control their TCO. Since the benefit in kind came in, it's also a real issue for

the employee. Because if they're given a fairly polluting thermal vehicle, they're going to have a benefit in kind that will be very high and consequently they're going to lose purchasing power on their payslip. So they themselves will want to move towards an electric vehicle. And all these elements - look, we haven't even talked about product choice yet. You see, already just this upstream phase is already quite stress-generating and

a source of error for companies, and also for individuals, by the way. So we have only internal experts who support on this part. Behind that, we distribute a multi-brand electric vehicle offering and we come to solve the problem of the current market where distribution networks are dealerships, and dealerships are single-brand. I go into a Citroën dealership - obviously we're only talking about new vehicles. I go into a

Citroën dealership, Citroën is going to sell me a Citroën. If I'm hesitating between a Renault, a Citroën and - I don't know - a Kia, at Citroën they're going to want to sell me their car. They're going to tell me: "for us, the drawbacks of this model are this and that, maybe you should go check out Kia." In no world - well you know, there's a conflict of interest, they won't do it. So we offer a multi-brand electric vehicle

offering. That means in the end we're on the customer side. What matters to us is that the customer - the business manager or their employees - has a vehicle that meets their needs. Whether it's a Kia, a Renault, a Citroën or something else, for us it doesn't matter. And so that makes a real difference, because we bring exactly this business expertise with a reasoned choice where we listen to our clients to understand what matters

to them, depending obviously on their budget, on how the vehicle will be used, and so on, and to recommend what's most relevant for them that fits their budget, their TCO. And after that, you have to install charging points on your company site or sites. Generally, when you have company sites, sometimes they're not in the same regions, and installers are generally

by region. So what does that mean? It means that in addition to having called in a tax specialist, your accountant, having spoken to several dealerships, having spoken to different rental companies to put them in competition to find out what the most interesting lease payment is for the vehicle you'll have selected, you then have to contact several installers to tell yourself: okay, I need to install this quantity of charging points, it needs to be the same management tool

for supervision, so that I'm able to centralize my charging points that are on my four different company sites, and so on. And in fact, a year later, I realize that with my company vehicles, I give some to my sales team, but my sales team, when they had a non-electric vehicle, they went to clients' locations because they're salespeople. So I install charging points on my site, but it's not efficient for my sales team because they're

not just going to come to charge. It would be much more efficient if I installed infrastructure at their homes. But then if I install charging points at their homes, I want to know how it's going. If my employee leaves the company, how do I get them to reimburse me for their electricity, because I'm not going to pay for the electricity consumption of their home, so I'll make a distinction between the two. And that's important. There are still many challenges and

issues. And are these issues that you also address? Oh yes, very much so. It's something we do. On the car and charging part, there's no part we do more than the other. We do both equally, and we're equally expert in both. On the charging point part, we do installations at employees' homes which, in October 2025, are completed in less

than 10 working days, between the moment you contact us and the day the employee is installed at home, while putting a supervision system in place. And we do it everywhere in France. The vehicle distribution part, we do that everywhere in France too. All the work of putting rental companies in competition, and so on, we already do that. That is to say, in fact, we save our clients considerable time. We enable them to make the right decisions, not to

make mistakes, to be in control. I think that's mainly what it's about: am I suffering from the situation I'm in? In this subject matter, electrification, the acquisition and renewal of my fleet, whether I'm going electric or not, am I in control? We provide the tools so that our clients are in control at that level. And now the fleet manager that we're putting into the

hands of our clients allows them to centralize everything in the end. Because when you have leasing contracts, what's most challenging when you have, notably, a fleet of 50 cars, is ensuring that mileage isn't exceeded. Because a leasing contract has a duration and a mileage allowance, and on the other side you have a lease payment. So if you exceed your mileage at the end of the contract, you obviously have to pay the overage mileage, and

In the tools that leasing companies provide, it's not necessarily in their interest to keep you informed daily about where your mileage stands. Because it's the same thing, there's a conflict of interest. Their objective is for you to exceed it so that at the end you still have to pay. And so, that's why we do mileage tracking, we measure TCO per vehicle and at the total fleet level. We do

vehicle recommendations, since the client has visibility over their entire fleet, all powertrains combined. They can get recommendations and vehicle comparisons relative to a vehicle that's coming to the end of its lease, that is: well, actually, what would be the best fit for me? And also manage these charging infrastructures that are on company sites, but also at

employees' homes, to understand what the consumption is, implement rebilling systems, and so on. And what's your business model? Is it consulting, do you have margins on the products you sell, is it a package? Well, we sell cars, and we sell electric cars. We do that with partners. So that our listeners, if they have vehicle fleets or vehicles in leasing, know the

other types of leasing players we're going to put in competition. And on which we, actually, are the only point of contact for our clients. Because sometimes it's the same thing: the big players have a reputation for being extremely strong on very large corporate fleets. But when you have a fleet volume where you're a craftsperson, a micro enterprise, a small to medium business, or you have a fleet roughly below 100 vehicles, it's

a bit hit or miss. You can call and have nobody answer for 15 days. And they are finance companies, which means they're there when you have an identified vehicle, identified mileage, identified usage pattern, and then they say: the car will cost this much. But that, same thing, that work has to be done with someone. So we save time and we don't

get paid by our clients, we get paid by the leasing company. And so we take a margin from their margin. So actually, it's not an added cost for the client, because otherwise we wouldn't be relevant. So for the client, it's at no cost. And then, on the charging infrastructure side, it's a service we sell: we sell the installation of charging infrastructure

on the company site or at home. And regarding charging stations and products, do you have many charging stations or is it two, three types, or how do you position yourself? Well, we focus on specific references, first of all rather European references because they are - you see, we're certified B Corp. By the way, we're the first company in automotive in Europe to be certified B Corp and the second in the world. So that's

a great achievement and actually we want to be consistent with our values. And so we exclusively distribute European references. And so we have references that meet and cover all of our clients' needs. And B Corp, can you also explain to us a bit how you arrived at this conclusion, maybe also say what makes your company B Corp, what

changes compared to before, or not being B Corp? What do you have to do?

We, from the start we really focused on electric vehicles saying we want to contribute to the transition to a sustainable future - we want to participate in it. And so, to do that, we said the best way to do it is to have a sort of copilot called Beev, which accompanies its clients in electrification on one topic: you have a single point of contact to do everything. The same way you have a Pennylane to manage your billing and so on,

Beev is your go-to for managing, acquiring and renewing your fleet of vehicles, employee vehicles, and charging infrastructure on a daily basis.

Us, this value of environmental impact, and also inclusivity, for us these are values that are extremely important to my partner and me. And so, well, B Corp certification, it came about quite naturally in us saying we wanted to get it, because it's there precisely to establish the legitimacy of a company, to say that it's participating in this effort of ecological transition. There we go. But

can you make concrete what it means to be B Corp or not in daily practice? Well then in fact, it's more about credibility with your clients and partners. You see, we the real difference we'll have - since we have competitors by vertical - the real singularity of Beev is being an expert in electric vehicles. Our competitors are not. You see, you'll have

vehicle distributors or automotive brokers who do multi-powertrain. Which is that they actually use electric only as a business opportunity because before they were in combustion and hybrid. It depends on your values and what is the trajectory and the "why" of your company and why it exists. And so, that also allows - in terms of clients, because I think the question is more at the business level - you have

also customers who are labeled B Corp and want to work with companies that are B Corp, because actually it's all a matter of consistency. Really, if we have to sum up the topic, it's how consistent you are with your company's values in developing what you do, and how you're going to select the partners you work with. OK. And if you had to give an

example just to understand what makes a company a B Corp - I understood the core business and electric mobility is what makes you B Corp, or if you were thermal you couldn't be - there are tons of criteria to meet. Just an example to understand: building consumption. You're going to know how water usage works in the building, what the source of electricity energy is that you consume for

your employees. Yeah, it's a pretty heavy file to complete. And if you were to tell me now the biggest challenges that are bothering you currently, or the objectives you might have in the short term. Well, our next challenge - because we just put our fleet manager into our customers' hands - is going to be deploying it at scale. Because it's a new tool, it's

a SaaS tool that's there to replace our customers' Excel, and especially so they have just one tool, because once you have charging infrastructures, you're forced to supervise your chargers. So the question is: is your customer going to have their Excel and the supervision tool? Do they want to have their supervision tool and their fleet management tool, or do they want to have one tool to manage everything? We developed a tool

to manage everything. So you see, it's really again to improve the experience of acquisition, management and renewal of your fleet of vehicles, colleagues and charging infrastructure on a daily basis. Our challenge is really to deploy that now at scale across our customers, and to listen to find out what essential features are for them, because obviously software is there to live and develop, and to know

what are all the - how are you going to prioritize all the features you want to give your customers over time by listening to them? And to make this transition to the fleet manager, customers who until now have been using Excel - it's their way of operating - what are their arguments, maybe the challenges for them to change, to adopt it... what's the value proposition, if you will, and also the challenges you come across?

When you talk about it, actually, Excel works very well for very small company fleets, when you don't have that much management, when you're in control. It's still adequate up to roughly 5 cars - at least that's what we get from questioning our customers. After that you have listeners, they'll say no, it's not 5, it's 2, others will say it's not 5, it's 15. You're right, those are different perspectives. We

question quite a few. In any case, our observation is that your Excel is efficient up to 5, also because there are people who develop good Excel more or less well and automate it. So, generally speaking, those for whom it works continue with their Excel. For those where there's a limiting aspect, their limiting aspect is about mastering all these fiscal elements and what the impact is

on their TCO at the level of their vehicle and their fleet. Making real-time comparisons, that is: no, I have this car that costs me this much and I want to replace it, and its replacement - which I've pre-selected - will cost me this much, and so here are the savings I'll make from a fiscal point of view, in terms of fuel, in terms of lease, on that given vehicle. And actually having a real comparison.

That's one of the big elements. The second one is managing mileage overages. Because today, you take a fleet manager who has 5, 10, 15 cars - to know where the mileage is at, they have two choices: either install a device, but which is pretty intrusive, costs money. If it's just to know where the mileage is at, you haven't necessarily made a

good choice. And again, do you want to tell your employee that you put a tracker in their car, which they also use on weekends? That's not necessarily a great message to send. Or the second choice is that your colleague declares their mileage at monthly frequency - that's pretty good. Except when you send emails each month to 20 colleagues to report mileage, if they don't reply, you have to

follow up with them. Actually, it's a lot of wasted time. And these fleet managers, the reality is it's not their only job in the company. Because actually fleet management is a task in their job at the company, it's not their full-time job - because there aren't 100 cars. It's not full-time work where you have technical inspections, cars that need to go for technical inspections, that constantly need to go in for

servicing. There's repairs, there's renewal - anyway, it doesn't take up all your time at all. So what we allow is, in a manner of speaking, to have this kind of outsourcing that you can rely on a bit with the tool. So actually, it's really going to depend on those who perform these management tasks, because actually

Do I want to waste my time in a time-consuming way doing what I do, or would I prefer to make better use of my time doing things that have much higher added value, that will have a much bigger impact in the company, than gathering information in an Excel spreadsheet that is time-consuming - when on top of that anyway, I am forced to have another tool to manage my charging infrastructure no matter what, you see? So it's all

a degraded experience anyway, because you have both an Excel and a supervision tool. So it degrades your experience in any case. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And so your target is 5 vehicles to 50 vehicles, is that your ideal fleet? Well, our customers have fleet sizes ranging from 3 to 200 cars on average. We obviously have some that are much larger, and we also have a lot of single-vehicle owners. And the electric vehicle rate in this

segment, or how many companies there are more or less in France - to get an idea?

Well I couldn't give you the number of companies, because a company is a SIREN number - sometimes you have companies or individuals, you see, if there's only one manager, they're alone in the business. I couldn't give you an exact figure. And the electrification rate, that's it - is it 3%? No, the 3%, that's the number of electric vehicles in France on the roads. On the other hand,

the percentage of electric vehicle sales in France now is around 20%. So the rate - and moreover companies are generally the ones who adopt electric mobility the most. It's - you're right to ask the question, Claudio. The way the French market works, is that the new vehicle market is predominantly driven by companies. Roughly speaking, the average over the last ten years,

is 60% acquisitions made by companies and 40% made by individuals. Companies, for the most part, acquire these vehicles on leasing contracts. Not all, but the vast majority. Why? Because it's simpler in terms of management. They have a vehicle fleet that is relatively new, which creates less work behind the scenes on sending vehicles for maintenance, repair and so on, because the more you have in place, the more you have

you have everything, you increase the risk of having mechanical problems. Even though on an electric vehicle, there are 10 times fewer mechanical parts than on a thermal vehicle. And so that means that at the end of the leasing period, the vehicles come back onto the second-hand market, and there, for ours, mostly to individuals. So, let's say it's rather the company market that creates the second-hand market for individuals. And so,

in fact, the challenge is if we want to electrify the French car fleet - that's the reason why Beev specialised more in the business sector - is that in fact, it's the company side that creates the volume of electric vehicles on the second-hand market and so for individuals. Because we still need to say things clearly: an electric vehicle, a vehicle in general, is expensive. It's the second-largest item of expense

or investment after real estate. So it's a purchase that is extremely binding over time, because you keep a car for a while - excluding leasing, I'm talking specifically about individuals - and financially. So you don't want to make a mistake, and on the other hand, you still want to have choice. And so it's first the companies that need to be supported with respect to everything we've just discussed,

at the start, where they have plenty of challenges with controlling their total cost of ownership, tax rules that are constantly changing, a purchasing journey that is degraded, management that is not optimal at all, and so on. And how do you find them, or how do they find you? I think I saw in another podcast that SEO is very important for you, so Google basically. We are well ranked in general because in fact, we create

a lot of quality content precisely to educate our customers and provide them with reliable information on the subject. Which means that naturally, we end up in the top positions on the first pages of Google without having to put sponsored ads. Which means that obviously, that brings you organic traffic, and since your prospects or your readers find the content interesting,

for some of them, they have electrification projects, and so they go through the onboarding to be in contact with us. On the other hand, there is quite a bit of word of mouth that works because we do good work, I think. You can see it in our Google and Trustpilot reviews where I believe we accumulated, we must be at a little over 600 or 700, and it's very positive. And

finally, there are also partnerships that we have developed, where they are prescribers of our solutions for their own customers. I'm going to maybe explain - I'll give you an example that's quite recent actually that we just communicated about - it's with Carrefour. I think everyone knows the retail group, which has somewhat specialised in energy, meaning they have their Carrefour Énergie internet page. Carrefour today does not only offer the sale of consumer goods in their stores, but they also offer to support their customers in energy. Well they've been doing it for several months, even a few years already, on solar panels. They also do it on electricity contracts with Octopus, and so Beev won the tender where Carrefour customers who want to install a charging infrastructure at their home benefit from an offer

from us

very interesting, with a free cable, a Carrefour card, and a discount on the charging station to be installed at their place. And so, you see, it's for example Carrefour that is a prescriber of our solutions for their own customers. We have the same thing also with the car manufacturer Porsche. There, we're on a very different target from Carrefour in terms of socioeconomic status. But

for which the customer journey and acquisition experience must be impeccable, especially for customers of the German manufacturer. And Beev also won this call for tenders. I think that demonstrates the trust and quality of the work we bring to our clients. Absolutely. And AI, or with ChatGPT or LLMs,

which are being disruptive compared to Google. Did that impact you? Have you already adapted something in your approach to find fleets or so that fleets find you based on that? Well, what's really interesting, I think to maybe give a bit of context on the evolution of the automotive market: the automotive market is fundamentally an extremely physical business, which initially worked first on

people going to car dealerships. There was that shift, I believe, starting from the mid-2000s, where obviously with the rise of the internet, it started to digitalize a bit. And today, I think that foot traffic to dealerships has been divided by 3 over the last 15 years. So there's a real challenge already in general terms on the digitalization of the acquisition of these vehicles. And there now,

there's obviously the new revolution over the last five years - let's say really the last five years - of electrification. So actually, it brings yet another new topic, where then we went back to what is Beev's singularity to support on this subject. And then there's obviously the subject of AI. AI, we use it as a tool to, how to say, deliver the best experience to your clients, you

see? That is to say that obviously we're going to use it in our manager suite, where you run algorithms to determine what is the best recommendation for your clients on given vehicles, based on the choices they want, or to improve your operations to be much more reactive in terms of your clients, deliver a better quality service. So actually, we really use artificial intelligence to move faster in what we need to develop internally in

the business, and all of that in service of how do I propose the best experience to my clients. And regarding the theme - here the podcast is called Smart Charge by RiDERgy - so energy management: a big challenge that we haven't yet addressed, but I think you certainly also have in your ecosystem, is that electrical installations in companies, from a few vehicles onward, start to be limited compared to the power that can pass through the cable, right? So how do you address that challenge, and then the opportunities like you said, which are all around smart charging, that is to say recharging during hours when electricity costs less, or well - you mentioned Octopus earlier - which also have an offer, I'd like to have

your opinion on that. Given that it's also very similar to your business with BYD, where they did this V2G leasing in the UK where you can drive for free if you take a vehicle there. How is that something that would be relevant for you, or how do you see all these subjects? Well, what we already notice with our clients is that there's a real challenge already in mastering and understanding how I electrify

my parking lot. And regarding that, fortunately you bring in technicians to see if there's available power, and if not what all the electrical engineering you have to do. And you also try to anticipate the need for fleet electrification. And that's why Beev actually has a real singularity: we always make the parallel between the vehicle fleet, the company's fleet and its electrification need, with the charging infrastructure installations. Because we still need to, I think, remind our listeners that electric vehicles are unequal to each other regarding the power they accept in alternating current and direct current. You have some that accept a maximum of 7 kW, others 11, others 22 when you're on alternating current, and on direct current, it's also

very disparate. You have cars that accept 100 kW and cars that accept more than 400 kW. So that's part of the decision-making and it also defines what type of charging stations you're going to install, and how you want to develop your vehicle fleet in the coming months and years, to already predimension in terms of electrical engineering the wiring for future charging infrastructure that

will be coming. Because again, companies in general, when they install charging stations, we notice that at some point, they contact us again to continue deploying that same parking lot of stations they had, to add charging stations. And transformers too. Well, transformers, we haven't needed them that much. We don't do so much direct current, we

very disparate. You have cars that accept 100 kW and cars that accept more than 400 kW. So that's part of the decision-making and it also defines what type of charging stations you're going to install, and how you want to develop your vehicle fleet in the coming months and years, to already predimension in terms of electrical engineering the wiring for future charging infrastructure that

will be coming. Because again, companies in general, when they install charging stations, we notice that at some point, they contact us again to continue deploying that same parking lot of stations they had, to add charging stations. And transformers too. Well, transformers, we haven't needed them that much. We don't do so much direct current, we

we really focus on the 90% of electric vehicle charging, namely at home or at the company. So we really concentrate on alternating current chargers. Direct current chargers, we do them, it's roughly 10% of what we do, but it's a bit less of a priority for us. We really prefer to focus on the reason why

people switch to electric by having a sustainable charging solution in their daily routine. People switch by thinking: "I know I can charge my vehicle at home or on my company's site." They don't switch because they think there are charging stations at gas stations. That's the reason why afterwards they travel, they move around, they take long trips. But reason number one is: do I have a

sustainable daily charging solution or not? And so the other topics I mentioned, with electricity being cheap or the offering. And so for them there might be - we feel it's not yet their immediate priority for most - because actually they're already saving a lot of money by switching from combustion engines to electric. We try to educate them by saying: "Be careful, because your electricity bill is inevitably

going to increase, you're going to want to optimize it." I think it's really a matter of time: first, I get my bearings, I know how it works well, I'm sure to maximize the use of my electric vehicles, I make sure they're well charged, well used while traveling, at home, at work, and so on. And then I'll take care of the optimization part. Actually, the optimization part is essential and crucial,

but it's not step number one. First your first step is: I deploy, and then you analyse and there you do the optimization. But you don't generally start directly with optimization. And besides, that's why we thought vehicle-to-grid would be something much more in demand from our customers. For now, we realize it's not at all. No. And when do you think that could - when you say step

two - towards the automotive market? Because you see, you have cycles that are quite long. It's a leasing contract, it's three years. When you install chargers, they're going to stay around for quite a few years. I rather get the impression that the vehicle-to-grid part, we need to look at the car offering already. You don't have that many electric vehicles that do vehicle-to-grid. You have

some that do it on a marketing level, like with a Renault R5. In real life, what we notice - because the distributors are also our partners, we buy the cars from them - is that customers buy Renault R5s for the style or for the vehicle itself, but not because they do vehicle-to-grid. Because vehicle-to-grid chargers, they still cost too much, so to speak,

at least that's what the customer considers. So there's still work to be done. Like any new technology, it's the industry: the more you produce, the more production volume you do, the more you can drive costs down and therefore the selling price. Vehicle-to-grid for now is not really a priority. We see it at the vehicle offering level: there aren't

many of them. I think it will rather be a topic towards the end of this decade, around 2028, 2029, 2030. There I think vehicle-to-grid will start to become a topic - in any case the topic of optimization in general will really start to come on the table. There we won't be yet, so to speak - sorry for the Anglicism - at early adopters, for whom vehicle-to-grid

makes sense, it's great to do it. I'd like to do it in the building anyway; we only charge here and it's not our building. Do you have chargers here in the building? There are about ten of them. And the people who do it, it's great, you have to do it. I think we haven't reached the

mass market stage yet. Actually, people are still discovering electric. So in terms of processing information about how an electric vehicle works, vehicle-to-grid comes second. That's why I'm thinking more towards the end of the decade. That said, I also like to differentiate with respect to the stages of smart charging - there are different

functionalities, if you will. V2G for me is kind of the final stage and I agree, it's what will come latest. But already now, I think France is not really a challenge compared to other countries. For example in the Netherlands, the networks are very congested, so you can't allow many assets - whether they're charging stations or other equipment - to connect to the network, because the network doesn't really have

much available power. So you have to charge intelligently, otherwise you simply can't charge. It's a big challenge, whereas in France we export electricity. Yeah. And so in France, you've never had this challenge in your current fleets - of not being able to connect to the network - because there's a lot of power in the French network? It hasn't been an issue. So how much power is there

in the French network, to be very transparent, I don't know. But anyway, France sells electricity abroad, so that means we have more than we need. So presumably, for now, it's okay. After that, how long is it okay? If we move the car fleet from 3 to 10%, I think we still have quite a bit of margin, but I couldn't tell you exactly where

the cursor. And speaking of internationalization, I think you're mainly in France. Do you also have activities elsewhere, in other countries, and what's your plan regarding that? Well, for now, we're all in France, so we operate throughout metropolitan France. For us, as you asked me earlier what our biggest challenge is, it's going to be

deploying this fleet manager that allows you to manage your entire fleet of vehicles, employees and charging infrastructure from a single tool. That's our main challenge. The French market is already a big playground where today we're still quite small. We want to increase our market share in France first before moving towards internationalization. For us, internationalization, if we do it, I think it will be naturally first towards the Benelux region, because we already

have requests from there. And these are also regions that are somewhat more electro-compatible than others, in terms of financial resources and adoption of company vehicles. So that's it, but internationalization won't really be our focus for the next 12 months; we're going to concentrate on France first. And where are you as a company? You can give a few figures - I don't know, employees, revenue, whatever you want to share - and

where do you want to go? Are you looking to raise funds? On the information I can share, roughly speaking, we're in full growth. We're experiencing three-digit growth every year. So that's great. Today, we have a team of 40 people, all here in this building - there are 3 people working full remote. But otherwise, we're all

here, yeah. And of course, it's quite possible that we'd like to do much more, but we're making progress. And as you said, France, there's a lot to do. That said, Belgium, what I'd followed a bit in the markets, it exploded in recent years, I think, because there were even more subsidies than maybe in other countries, and there

is also a culture in Belgium around company vehicles that's extremely important. And I was wondering why you didn't… Because it's always the same thing: choosing means giving up. So we first made the choice to say we want to first maximize the value we bring to our existing clients before going to find new ones. And so maximizing the value we bring to our current clients is

putting in their hands the fleet manager we developed to manage everything. That's it, it really was a matter of choice. Afterwards, do you miss out on opportunities? Yes and no, because you do miss out on the Belgium opportunity, but if we don't build the fleet manager in France, we'd miss the opportunity to support our existing clients and maximize their

experience at that level. And do you see big challenges if you wanted to launch RiDERgy at a global international scale, in terms of products or operations, in other aspects…? On the operations side, we've anticipated things a bit. Obviously, operations is a challenge for all companies, especially when you're rolling out. I think the biggest challenge, especially, is when you internationalize. And if we do it, I'd really like us not to make

this mistake: thinking that it's enough to copy and paste, to just replicate what you did in your base country elsewhere. When in fact, that's not how it works. Each country has its specificities, each country has its way of functioning, and you need to adapt to it, not the other way around, because if you don't adapt,

anyway you'll end up leaving through the back door. So I think the biggest challenge is especially finding the right people from the country in question. For example, if tomorrow we say: we're launching Belgium - it will be about finding the right person to launch Belgium. Because we could say OK, it's one of the founders who goes, but the reality is that I don't know the Belgian market. So

wouldn't I move faster if I had someone who already knows the Belgian market much better and who knows what mistakes not to make when trying to replicate a French model? So for me the biggest challenge is more the human resources side and finding the key people who will make the difference. Because sometimes it's not about the quantity of people

it really comes down to quality and sometimes it's better to have one excellent person than to have a team of five or six that isn't optimal. And if you had to say the biggest challenge that SMEs underestimate and where you can help them most, what's the biggest myth that fleets should get rid of? Well then, I think we're going to start with the myths.

The idea that you're not electro-compatible, or that having an electric vehicle is too expensive, that it doesn't have enough range, that it doesn't charge fast or that there are no charging stations. All of that is false in 2025. It might have been true at some point, with lots of anti-electric lobbying involved. But in 2025, with the offering on the market, it's no longer true for the majority of cases.

And your second question, excuse me. So that was the myth, and the biggest challenge - which is indeed a real challenge, but where you can help the most - is mastering all the elements to do a proper analysis. As I said, you're going to have control over all the parameters of your TCO: tax, financial, and so on. So sometimes access to information is very complicated.

It is not necessarily reliable. You see, the last time we were in France, one of the good data sources is the government and the URSSAF website. We noticed errors on the URSSAF website. And it's complicated. We contacted them telling them there were errors in their texts, and then they modified their site. So it's really: having access to the right

information is difficult. And the real challenge, well, it's what we talked about for an hour: it's the journey. It's challenging and, sorry, it's terrible. I don't know how else to say it, but it's not suitable, and even less so when you're a company where the person managing the fleet has this as one of their tasks among others, and there are 20 or 30 cars in the

fleet and it has a huge impact on the company's finances. You see, for this reason, you still need to optimize your company's finances. They have this challenge, particularly in 2025, we sometimes talk about periods of austerity, crisis, and so on. Everyone is being careful. And so, moving towards electric vehicles is not making a financial effort, it's actually going in this direction of: I have

control of my cash. So do it. And maybe one last thing I don't understand: we were talking about electricity earlier. Electricity in France is not expensive and it comes from France. One hundred percent of the petrol and diesel in our vehicles is imported. Why don't we want to develop our economy when we produce energy? For me, that's a real absurdity.

In fact, to find lots of reasons and lots of things, and at the same time say: yeah, but actually we still need to buy French, and so on. OK, but then your energy consumption is not French. It's one hundred percent imported and, besides, generally from countries that aren't really democracies. So are you really being consistent? After all, once again, I have no

judgment, it's just an observation. It's to say: I don't understand the logic of saying we can develop our industry, our economies. Electricity is decarbonized, it doesn't cost much and it's one hundred percent French. Why do we consume imported energies that are much more carbon-intensive and cost much, much more? These are hundreds of billions of euros per year that the European Union

spends, that we could invest in something that, moreover, doesn't destroy the climate. That's something I don't understand. So, in 2020, you created the company, we're in 2025, you've already achieved a lot with your team. If I project forward, I really have the impression we're still at the very bottom of the hill. That's why the question was: in 2030, so let's say in five years,

where will you be? If you could, in an ideal world - but that will only depend on us, on our efforts, and how well we're able to implement this - it depends on us, even if you tell me there's the market, there are lots of things, and so on. We want to become the copilot, the reference for companies,

to manage their fleet: the acquisition and renewal of their vehicles, their charging infrastructure, the management of their employees. In the same way, as I told you, you see, you have Pennylane, a billing tool for your company, you have Alan in France for your health insurance, you have Qonto for your bank - and so to manage the acquisition, renewal and management of your fleet, well then you have... It's, we

We succeed if we do this. Cool. And so, last message for the listeners: how can people find you if they want to get in contact with you or the company? And do you have a final message, a request? Well, the only social network I have is LinkedIn. So you can contact me on LinkedIn, Solal Biv, on LinkedIn. And if I have a request to make, well,

we, in general, are looking for talent for all positions. You need to love five things. I think you need to align with our values. We have five values. The first is excellence. In any case, we aim for excellence, because we'll achieve it - I don't know - but in any case, if you don't aim for it, you have no chance of achieving it. So we're looking for people who want to aim for excellence.

The second thing is people who have this sense of ownership, that is, when they start on something, they see it through to the end, they don't stop halfway. And if there's a problem, they need to take the initiative to solve it and, in any case, to centralize all of that. The third thing, for us, is team spirit, that is, being able to put your ego aside for collective success.

That's super important and it also allows for a very good atmosphere in the team, despite the fact that everyone aims for excellence - one doesn't go against the other. The fourth is that, in fact, we do all this for our customers. That is: how do I remove all the friction from acquisition, management and renewal? And for that, you really need to have this notion that every decision you make is customer-centric, that is, very customer-oriented

It must start and end with the customer value you're going to provide. And the last one, for us, is rigor. Because it takes you more time to do things badly than well. So you might as well do them well from the start, it saves everyone time. It shows that you respect yourself, it shows that you respect your colleagues you work with. And it also shows that you respect your customers. So if you have

If you have these five values and you believe you're a talent in the sector you work in, then don't hesitate to contact me on LinkedIn by sending your CV and specifying your area of expertise. Man or woman, by the way - I want to say that, you see, we were talking about diversity, and I find that there's a lack of diversity and inclusivity in general in the automotive sector. I'm a co-founder

and we noticed how much it's still a profession that is very, very, very male-dominated. So really, my message goes out to everyone.

Thank you very much and good luck with what's ahead, see you soon. What emerges from my conversation with Solal is clear and quantified. Beev targets fleets of 5 to 300 vehicles, with the majority between 50 and 200. The fleet manager centralizes data and compares TCO by vehicle in real time, which frees managers from time-consuming tasks and makes decision-making more reliable. On the infrastructure side, AC covers 90 percent of current needs, with installations taking less than 10 days at employees' homes and sizing

planned in advance according to the power actually accepted by the vehicles. France can absorb up to 10 percent electrification of its fleet without major network risk today, which opens the way to a gradual ramp-up. V2G is an end-of-decade milestone according to Solal, when compatible offerings will be wider and more affordable. Beev is advancing with three-digit growth, a team of about 40 people in Paris, partnerships with prescribers - for example Carrefour and Porsche - and a roadmap that prioritizes the development

of the fleet manager in France, with a move towards the Benelux. The B Corp, first in automotive in Europe and second globally, validates the ambition to be, by 2030, the integrated reference for electric fleet management. Thank you for listening, please share the episode, and see you soon.

Episode notes

Dans cet épisode de Smart Charge by RiDERgy, Claudio échange avec Solal Botbol, co-fondateur de Beev, la solution qui accompagne entreprises, particuliers et collaborateurs dans leur transition vers la mobilité électrique. Créée en 2020, Beev combine dans une seule expérience : conseil, véhicules électriques multimarques en leasing, installation de bornes de recharge en entreprise et à domicile, et un fleet manager SaaS qui remplace enfin Excel. Dans cet épisode, vous découvrirez : - Comment le parcours de Solal, entre culture de l’indépendance et passion auto, l’a conduit à lancer Beev - Pourquoi Beev agit comme copilote des flottes : de l’analyse fiscale et TCO jusqu’au choix des modèles et contrats - Comment Beev simplifie un marché fragmenté entre constructeurs, loueurs, installateurs et opérateurs de recharge - En quoi les idées reçues sur le coût, l’autonomie et l’infrastructure des VE ne tiennent plus en 2025 pour la majorité des usages - Pourquoi l’électrification des flottes d’entreprise est clé pour alimenter le marché de l’occasion électrique - Comment le nouvel outil de fleet management Beev centralise véhicules (thermiques et électriques), conducteurs et bornes - Le rôle de la cohérence environnementale, de la qualité de service et de la diversité au cœur de la culture Beev Un échange concret, pédagogique et sans langue de bois pour celles et ceux qui veulent enfin passer de l’intention à l’action sur la mobilité électrique.