Octopus branches out into continental Europe
Octopus says Italy, France and Spain are the first countries the so-called Electroverse has expanded into and that the roaming service is gearing up for further international expansion “soon”.
As for its first markets outside the UK, the company cites emerging EV markets. France targets producing two million electric vehicles annually by 2030, backed by €2.5 billion in investment. This comes alongside a €300 million scheme to aid the deployment of charge points nationwide.
Meanwhile, the Italian car market has seen “a resurgence in 2023”, with the EV market expected to reach €6.8 billion by the end of the year. Spain also increased its EV sales by almost half in the first half of this year, writes Octopus.
“Now drivers in France, Spain and Italy will have access to hundreds of thousands of charge points with one tap,” said Matt Davies, Director of Octopus Electroverse. “We’re on a mission to make EV charging seamless, and we’ve got big plans to roll out our tech to even more countries around the globe.”
Electroverse is open to anyone, with Octopus Energy customers having the option of linking their public EV charging with their home energy bill.
Other embedded features include an interactive global map showing chargers and their availability, a route planner, and in-car support with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
EV connoisseurs may know the Electroverse as ‘Electric Juice’ launched in 2020. Octopus took the one-app, one-card approach early on, with bills going straight through the Octopus electricity account.
The company went on to score roaming deals with prominent UK networks such as Mer in 2021. In 2023, Octopus reportedly enabled Plug&Charge and, at the time, claimed its platform included 40,000 charge points from over 460 CPOs.
In today’s news, this number has climbed to over 550,000 charge points from more than 580 charging operators in over 40 countries.
Octopus Energy serves 5.8 million customers through its retail arm. It has licensed its machine learning platform, Kraken, to support 30 million customer accounts worldwide through licensing deals with energy companies, including EDF, E.ON and Origin Energy.
0 Comments