How to increase occupancy with EV charging (and nine other tips from our Product Manager)

Do you know how to get the most out of your parking spaces? Hint: electric car charging can be a really clever trick!

After developing our system for parking and electric car charging for over a decade, we have learned a lot about how to optimize their parking business. For example, what usage patterns are best in a residential property, how you can use pricing to control your occupancy rate at different times of the day, and how you can increase occupancy with the help of electric car charging. Our Product Manager Oskar tells us about this (and a lot more).

“This is how it will be as optimal and simple a customer experience as possible”

— Oskar Ekman, Head of Product at Mobility46

Three reasons to combine electric car charging with parking

1. Parking and charging in one app provides a better experience for your customers

A good service should be easy to consume, this also applies to electric car charging. The optimal thing for the customer is to collect everything around parking and charging in one place. Instead of two apps, two payment feeds, and two contact areas (as is the case if you outsource the entire charging deal to an external party), you can collect everything in one app. Easy management brings satisfied customers — as a bonus, there will be fewer support requests for you.

2. With everything in one system, charging management is easier

You don't have to reinvent the wheel, everything you do today around parking you can also do for charging. As, for example:

1. Guarding
2. Allocate the garage space to different types of uses (visit, unreserved, reserved)
3. Payment processing (receiving payments from customer and making payments to property owners)
4. Support and customer service

In other words, adding the charging service to your existing parking business would increase your revenue without having to put more strain on your staff.

3. The same forms of use apply to parking and electric car charging

In parking, we are talking about three primary modes of use:

1. Visitor parking
2. Reserved parking
3. Unreserved parking/permit parking

The same utility forms are used for charging. This is another reason why it will be easier for you to offer and manage your EV charging: adding charging to your existing parking business increases your revenue, without increasing your load.

“If you want to maximize occupancy, the same applies to electric car charging as to parking”

— Oskar Ekman, Head of Product at Mobility46

Six tips on how to build your EV charging and parking offer

1. Bet on parking charging

While fast charging takes place along the road at a mack or charging station, in most cases normal charging takes place while the car is parked. Normal charging is therefore usually referred to as parking charging, since parking is the primary service that is consumed. The business opportunity here lies in the fact that it is you who already have parking assets that can earn both revenue and customer satisfaction by adding the coveted charging service to the parking offer that the customer already consumes.

2. Choose the right power for your chargers

We have mentioned this before (among other things here), but it bears saying again. When the car is allowed to charge frequently, and in addition is parked for a long time, it does not need to charge at high power. This means that the electricity capacity you have in your property can be enough for more. And everyone will be satisfied.

3. Choose the right mode of use to maximize the use of parking and electric car charging

There are different advantages and disadvantages of different forms of use. If you want to maximize occupancy, the same applies to electric car charging as to parking — with unreserved parking and charging, you increase the use of your resources.

Keep in mind that unreserved charging does not have to mean public charging, but you can set up unreserved chargers and then control who has the right to use them. Of course, you can choose to offer public charging points as well, for example, to visitors.

4. Differentiate pricing depending on the mode of use

Another common question we get is how one should price parking and charging. We generally say that pricing and form of use are related, simply because different forms of use have different possibilities when it comes to occupancy (which affects the yield on the surface). Here are some recommendations:

• Price visitor usage higher than subscription/contract usage
• Price reserved seat higher than unreserved
• Control occupancy by price: for example, if you have long queues for use during the day but vacancy during the evening/night, put a lower price on the evening/night permits.

Remember: the same price differentiation applies when it comes to charging as for parking!

5. Residential properties and commercial properties have different possibilities

When it comes to a commercial real estate is a tip to use electric car charging as an incentive to move over tenants from reserved to unreserved parking. When a tenant asks for electric car charging, you offer it on an unreserved area. Because it has a lower price than their current reserved parking space (at least if you followed our advice above), while charging is cheaper and smoother than going to the mall, it feels like a good deal for the tenant.

However, not everyone has the same opportunity to offer parking and charging on an unreserved area, for example if you have a accommodation property where the parking spaces are rented reserved. That said, one should keep the surface return in mind when setting prices. And since you cannot get the same high utilization of a reserved charging point as on an unreserved one, you have to compensate with pricing instead. For example, you can take a higher subscription fee to cover the depreciation of one's charging investment, as well as a floating kW price with a reasonable margin (here's a tip to look at the kW price at the nearest public charging station and stay below this).

If you want to read more about which payment models exist for electric car charging, you can take a look here.

6th. The most common mistake we see...

A common mistake that many people make is buying chargers, which are meant to be used by tenants, and configuring them for public charging. It can feel simple because then you don't have to administer who has the right to charge where, but it also creates problems.

We recommend that you take a more strategic perspective from the start and allocate your chargers to different customer groups and uses. Which chargers should be used reserved, unreserved or by visitors? What price should you charge for what type of charging? Do you find it difficult to meet the demand for a certain type of charging, while having vacancies in other parts? To be able to control usage and optimize your business, you need to have these questions with you from the start and be sure to install and configure your chargers accordingly.

“Your tenant who bought an electric car will have a very strong desire to charge the car in your parking lot - use it!”

— Oskar Ekman, Head of Product at Mobility46

This is how you introduce charging while increasing the occupancy of your parking spaces

Do you want to have more flexibility in your garages, be able to work more freely with pricing and different offer forms, increase your occupancy rate and even overcoat your garage? Then you should invest in moving from reserved parking to unreserved permit parking.

But how to do it? It can be tricky to get your existing tenants to switch from reserved to unreserved parking, so to begin with, you need to find a good way to attract them to it. This is where electric car charging comes in!

You can use electric car charging as an incentive. When a customer requests a charging space for their electric car, you can offer it to them in an unreserved place. They will most likely say yes, as they quickly gain access to charging while lowering the price of both parking and charging. The alternative for them would be to pay premium price for reserved parking space and then go to the mall to recharge, which is very expensive.

The advantage for you is that a reserved place is terminated, which you can then change the form of use and rent it out unreservedly. And gradually, as more of your tenants demand charging, you can convert your parking spaces from reserved to unreserved use. Smart, smooth and everyone will be happy!

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