In the UK, Octopus Electric Vehicles, the EV business from Octopus Energy Group, has partnered with Co Charger to focus on community charging. Co Charger allows those with private chargers in their driveways to share them with neighbours.

The collaborative scheme and app from Co Charger enables someone with a charger to rent it out on a regular basis to a small number of neighbours. According to Octopus, Co Charger’s network of shared home chargers is now equivalent to the second-largest charging network in the UK. The platform from Co Charger allows charger owners to make additional income from sharing their resources. Octopus says that some Hosts earn as much as £1,000 a year.

For their part, Octopus Electric Vehicles offer a home charger with every vehicle they supply. The British clean energy company subsidiary says it will encourage drivers who lease their EVs to join the service as hosts so that more people can switch to electric cars.

Octopus Electric Vehicles points out that community charging addresses the problem that those who can’t have home chargers are over five times less likely to go electric.

Natalia Peralta Silverstone, head of propositions at Octopus Electric Vehicles, commented: “Co Charger is helping to plug the gap for those who don’t have access to cheap charging from their own driveway. Instead, we can create an army of EV drivers to rent out their charger – providing another charging option while earning some cash.”

Bradley Smith of Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire says, ‘Co Charger just swung having an electric vehicle for me. I’m not able to charge at home and it took away any anxiety from charging on the public network. The app connected me with a neighbour 10 minutes’ walk away and handles all the bookings and payments. I plug in after dropping my daughter off at school and walk home – it’s so simple!

Co Charger pledges to plant a tree for every Octopus EV customer that becomes a host on the service. Joel Teague, CEO at Co Charger said: “By planting just one tree per new host, we hope to create a small forest that represents well over a million tonnes of CO2 saved.”