Partner Content
In just seven short years, Chargefox has stormed ahead of the competition to become the largest electric vehicle (EV) charging network in Australia.
This success was no accident. As CEO John Sullivan explains, it’s at least partially the result of forming relationships with strategic partners—from major car manufacturers to payments providers like Pin Payments.
Being among the first to seriously pursue EV charging infrastructure in Australia gave Chargefox a decent head start in what, in 2017, was very much a burgeoning market. But it wasn’t just good timing that set this company apart.
By partnering with major car manufacturers like Audi and Mercedes, as well as organisations looking to electrify their fleets, Chargefox has been able to grow rapidly alongside the market.
“At a time when the average Australian is priced out of owning an EV, around 60% of the market currently comes from organisations, including private, public and government institutions, transitioning their fleets to electric vehicles,” Sullivan says. “Partnering with these organisations has been a significant driver of our growth.”
Of course, there are other factors that have contributed to Chargefox’s success. Sullivan explains how his team also takes the time to learn from other, more mature international markets, adapting best practices based on local research and conditions.
“We looked at overseas models, especially in Europe where the EV market was years ahead of us, and took what worked,” he says. “But we always localise those solutions, because we know that what works in the UK or the US won’t necessarily translate directly to Australia.”
Chargefox’s mission has always been to make EV charging simple and scalable. To achieve this, the company has put a relentless focus on delivering a frictionless experience for its users, constantly refining its service based on customer feedback.
“We do customer research weekly,” Sullivan says. “We talk to current and potential future EV drivers and businesses and ask them what they need, what problems they’re facing, and how we can improve. It’s a continuous cycle of test-and-learn.”
At the heart of this customer-centric approach is ensuring that no one is ever left stranded, even in remote areas with poor connectivity.
“In Australia, mobile connectivity can be spotty, especially once you get a couple of hours outside a major city,” Sullivan says. “We had to account for that, so we’ve built systems that allow for payments to be taken offline. That way, if someone arrives at a charger, they can still charge their car, even if their phone doesn’t have a signal.”
Just as Chargefox has used partnerships to scale its network, it’s also relied on Pin Payments to help it process customer payments.
“Pin Payments was the first company to really lean in and help us,” Sullivan recalls. “We’ve worked closely with them to build a frictionless payment experience for our users, which is especially important when you’re dealing with something as essential as charging your vehicle—the payment process needs to be invisible and smooth.”
One challenge Chargefox faced in this area was dealing with pre-authorisations on credit cards, which could leave customers with large sums of money on hold for days, particularly if a payment failed and had to be processed more than once.
“We didn’t want customers to be pre-authorised multiple times, potentially tying up their entire credit limit,” Sullivan says. “Pin Payments was great—they really understood the problem and helped us find solutions that worked for our users.”
This close collaboration is what sets Pin Payments apart from larger, more traditional financial institutions, he adds.
“We have a meeting with the Pin Payments tech team every six weeks, where we brainstorm ways to improve, and they come back to us with solutions,” says Sullivan. “It’s not just about sticking to out-of-the-box solutions—they really work with us to create what we need.”
By outsourcing the complexity of payment processing to Pin Payments, Chargefox has been able to focus on its core business.
“When you run a business, you want to spend all your energy focusing on the things that differentiate you, without getting caught up in all the operational noise around the sides,” Sullivan says. “Working with a partner like Pin Payments allows me to focus on the things that really matter to my business.”
Pin Payments is Australia’s first unified approach to payments for small to medium-sized businesses. It supports over 12,000 businesses in Australia and New Zealand to accept payments from debit and credit cards bearing the Visa, MasterCard and American Express brands without requiring a merchant account.
