Visa has teamed up with community electric vehicle (EV) charging service JustCharge with the intention of simplify payments and boosting uptake.
Visa customers using JustCharge will receive rewards when they pay using their debt or credit card as part of the new partnership, which the companies said makes paying for EV charging “as easy and natural” as any other contactless purchase.
Contactless payment options are now common across the UK’s EV charging networks following increasing focus on interoperability in recent years.
Additionally, in the government’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy, it outlined how it is to ensure consumers can compare prices and seamlessly pay for their charging using contactless cards.
JustCharge – operated by parking company JustPark – enables EV drivers with a private charger installed at their home or business to rent it out to others when not in use.
The company said that its research shows that if 5% of households joined its community charging network, the number of charging locations available in the UK today would double.
Enabling private homeowners to monetise periods when they’re not charging also helps to mitigate the loss of the OZEV EV charger installation grant, which ended in March 2022, the company said.
It also pointed to research from the Society of Motor Manufacturers that showed the majority of new EV drivers charge at home but almost half of British households have no designated off-street parking, creating a divide in the viability of EV charging.
“Unlocking thousands of home chargers during the 90 per cent of the day they are not in use makes EV adoption a possibility for more than 50% of British households without access to designated off-street parking,” Mike Strahlman, director of EV at JustPark said.
“This partnership with Visa is a landmark moment in our efforts to redress the balance and make EV adoption an effortless, viable and cost-effective solution for millions more UK drivers.”
JustPark has also previously partnered with Zap-Map to add its network of community chargers to the Zap-Home feature, which also allows drivers to pre-book and pay to use residential chargers through the Zap-Map app.
Meanwhile, JustPark launched a fleet-focused community charging solution dubbed FleetCharge in partnership with Octopus in 2021.