City EV was founded four years ago by MD Peter Lagesse and long-time partner and technical director Bob Morris. They had successfully sold their last business making base station controllers for mobile networks to Erricson. Their next business venture City EV was inspired by their own experience of driving Electric Vehicles (EVs).
The team started to develop their own charging points and soon realised they could produce cost-effective, easy to install chargers that could be used in the public domain. Their lamp post chargers are easy to instal as they use 3kW power supply which is what you get when you dig up the road. This makes them cheap and easy to install for local authorities.
“Making what was needed had parallels with the business we’d just left – designing and setting up unmanned, connected networks – so we decided to give it a go. We even had a ready-made parts supply chain,” said Lagesse.
“Now they’ve seen we’re ready with an affordable and deliverable product, some of the more progressive authorities have started beating a path to our door. Even during the lockdown, we’ve had a busy time dealing with enquiries.”
As well as the street chargers, City EV makes a range of their own-design fast and rapid chargers for home and business use. The team whose registered office is at The Portsmouth Technopole are delighted with the support they have received locally and look forward to expanding their business into Europe later this year.