The rapid deployment of charging stations : a challenge to meet the high demand

In France, it is estimated that in 2030 there will be nearly 13.5 million electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in circulation. This cannot be done without a massive deployment of charging stations. The objective is to go from 100,000 to 7 million charging points in less than 10 years for public spaces. Including individuals (67% of charging points in 2030), nearly 800,000 charging points will be deployed each year. However, only 2% of condominiums are equipped with charging points in 2022, while 98% of the 182,000 condominiums still need to be equipped. 

The market is huge and does not stop at home. The corporate market alone is a market estimated at 100 billion euros in 2027 by Fortune Business Insights (2020 study). It is in this very favorable context that Mob-Energy operates.

We believe at Axeleo Capital that Mob-Energy is going to be a key actor in the deployment of charging solutions thanks to its own innovative technology. We think that this market needs the kind of flexible solutions that Mob-Energy is developing.

Mob-Energy, an innovative company with a singular approach of the market

Combining the thesis of our two funds, B2B tech (AXC2) due to their very advanced level of hardware and software technology, and Proptech (Axeleo Proptech 1), we immediately noticed the quality of Mob-Energy's offer.

The 3 co-founders (Salim EL HOUAT, Ilyass HADDOUT and Maxime ROY), all engineers, have developed a product catalog to answer the main obstacle to the deployment of charging points : the overload of the electrical network, requiring electrical and civil works that induce costs and long delays for companies. Their charging solutions are designed to minimize the power required from the electrical grid while maximizing the number of vehicles with access to the charging service.

This approach, so-called “Lean Charging” is based on two technological pillar: energy storage and end-user’s comprehension. By knowing how long cars will stay in a parking lot and how much energy they need to charge, Mob-Energy’s solutions are capable of providing a seamless and efficient service.

The company has currently developed two solutions that it offers to car park managers:

- CHARLES: an autonomous charging robot that moves in a parking lot to charge electric vehicles by following an optimized program. It is the historical product of the company.

- EIKO: a battery power cube capable of charging up to 20 vehicles in parallel with the power equivalent of a single charging station.

On top of providing energy storage capacity, the Mob-Energy solutions are designed to be extremely simple to install on-site: Eiko does not require any earthworks and civil engineering, allowing customers to lower the risk by deploying charging stations. The solution can also be moved from site to site.

Mob-Energy is currently assembling its solutions in-house, in Lyon, but does not stop at the hardware part. The company has developed softwares that helps companies, operators and users to easily use and manage the final service. On top of the traditional charging operation tools (technical supervision and user assistance softwares), Mob-Energy has developed a parking simulation tool - ME Analytics - capable of predicting the best solution and configuration for a specific parking lot. Those simulation results are then used to strengthen the charging algorithms, in the real world. 

‍EIKO, a new virtuous product with great development prospects

At Axeleo Capital, we are convinced that the large-scale deployment of charging stations cannot be done without flexible and environmentally friendly solutions. The new EIKO cube, like a giant battery, embodies this vision since the cube acts as a buffer solution and allows the load on the network to be reduced by using only one connection point. It also responds to the environmental and material challenge of these new technologies by being built by aggregating reconditioned second-life batteries coming from the automotive industry.

EIKO is set to become the center of Mob-Energy's strategy. The Cube is in the pre-industrialization phase, thus matching our early-stage thesis.

We are delighted to welcome Mob-energy to our community. We look forward to supporting them in the international development of their cutting-edge charging stations.