chargery.de
Seven things you should know about Chargery
(1) What does Chargery do?
Chargery is a service provider for the future of mobility in urban areas—its core focus is on mobile charging for electric cars. With services all around electromobility, Chargery ensures that shared electric fleets can be operated efficiently and profitably.
(2) Who are the guys behind Chargery?
The three founders have complementary competences: Christian Lang is a business economist, Philipp Anders majored in business engineering and Dr. Paul Stuke has a PhD in mechanical engineering. Two of them met at Audi: While Philipp worked in international logistics, Christian was employed in the strategy department. Paul on the other hand was the technical project lead of Local Motor’s “Olli”, the first autonomously driving bus in Berlin
(3) When did Chargery start working on the idea, and why?
Reading a tech-newsletter on a lazy sunday afternoon, Chris found out about a mobile refueling service in Great Britain: “I read that you can get fuel delivered when driving a Bentley. And I thought that was an amazing idea in general. Only: what would you need a delivery for when there are gas stations available everywhere?” Since Christian at the time was using an electric car himself for a few days and had to walk for almost two kilometers to a charging station when he ran out of battery, he thought: we might as well develop a solution for electric cars.
(4) How have things changed since then?
Christian convinced Philipp and Paul: “We all believed in the idea. So it wasn’t hard to quit our previous jobs. With the help of our investors we built the quickest solution: a mobile charging station on a bike trailer”. Mid-2017 the first prototype was developed and since October 2017 they are running their mobile charging service for business customers in Berlin. In the long run the three founders have a vision of an autonomous robot that is used for charging electric vehicles.
(5) What are the next steps?
First of all they plan to improve their charging speed: “At the moment it takes about four hours to charge a car. Within the next months it should be possible to reduce the charging time to less than an hour”. Secondly, they want to expand their fleet and service area in Berlin up to at least ten charging stations. An expansion to further German and European cities is also planned.
Thirdly, the team wants to broaden their customer base and focus on private customers as well.
By the way: the team is “still looking for a software and data engineer who helps us develop a performant backend and to predict required chargings based on numerics!!”
(6) You are part of the AtomLeap High-Tech Accelerator. What do you expect from the program?
As Christian puts it: “AtomLeap does not only provide individual workshops and mentoring with well-known experts but also access to a large network.” Being part of the accelerator he describes as a “fantasic opportunity” to improve their product, service and processes: “AtomLeap gives us the chance to meet people in the tech industry – successful startups as well as larger tech businesses. Furthermore we have been able to get in touch with a variety of politicians and decision makers within the mobility industry – even though we have only been part of the programme for a few weeks so far”.
(7) Why is Berlin the best place to be?
For Chargery there were several crucial reasons to start Chargery in Berlin: “The main reason was probably due to DriveNow”, says Christian. Very early on Chargery managed to convince DriveNow to do a testphase with them in Berlin. “It is the place where new mobility concepts are launched and tested. With all its startups, events and mobility experts Berlin has the perfect environment and we get a lot of support in the city”.