Automotive Business Magazine – Q3 2026 – Digital edition - Flipbook - Page 71
INT ERVIEW
TUAL
upgrade comes, they pick this up and
deploy it to another site.
“This is more expensive than a normal
charger from a decent company. There’s
a lot more tech in it. The difference is,
all the sites we go to, you can’t plug in a
Kempower anyway, there’s not enough
power. We deploy to mission-critical
fleets [where] the consequence of not
being able to charge is catastrophic.”
TUAL's solutions are not going to fit
every fleet. Some do not need to fast
charge, while others may get a win with
grid roulette. Clarke says: “We're not
trying to be the mass market. We're
trying to be a specialist for technology,
for the bits no one else can solve.
“I was talking to a dealership given a
decent grid upgrade for £50,000, and
was upset about it. That's amazing. Take
it before someone else does.”
PHILIP CLARKE
Alternative applications
Many retailers are attempting to
better support the EVs they are selling
proactive,
more of. Some are being proactiv
adding charging to support their
own operations or to entice n
new
customers in by making them
available to the public, while oth
others
have been required to by their
manufacturer.
Clarke says: “A lot of
organisations are setting br
brand
standards, where you have tto have
100kW, 200kW chargers on sit
site. If
you’re a JLR dealership that’s just
spent £1m on your big box and y
you
haven’t got any cars, you don’t w
want
to do a grid upgrade for
fo £0.5m.
“Buy one of these,
thes plug
it into the existing
supply. We see a
real opportunity
opportunit
for people looking
to comply with
brand standards,
standar
give really good
g
capability to their
th
workshop and
an their
customers, without
with
a grid upgrade.”
upgrade
Beyond fast
charging, having a
large battery on-site
on-sit
offers other benefits,
ben
like integrations with
solar. Clarke thinks the
th
benefits could be felt by the grid as a
whole in the future, not just those with a
PowerUp on site, adding: “Batteries are
a great thing to sit at the heart of a DC
microgrid. We like the idea of this sitting
outside an operating place and being an
uninterruptable power supply. Why would
you have a diesel generator if you’ve got
a big battery?
“It could be a flexible asset for the local
community to reinforce their grid. We’ve
designed this to allow us to do charging
very quickly. The other services will come.
The regulation means we need approval,
which takes a year, to do some of that.”
EV charging requires much more
solar energy than most think, making a
battery-based system that can charge
slowly over time a good fit.
A key selling point of the PowerUp over
a grid upgrade is its eligibility for the
Depot Charging Scheme, a huge help with
getting costs down. It offers fleets up to
£1m of funding, covering 70% of civil and
charge point costs.
Fleets looking to apply in the next
window will be working on their
applications now. TUAL intends to
continue supporting applications now
that the process has been improved.
Clarke says: “It doesn’t fund grid
upgrades, but it does fund technology.
We do technology without grid upgrades,
so it’s great for us. We actually write
people’s applications for them, because
we’re experts in this space.”
Making change happen
Incentives will be instrumental, but
Clarke warns that more must be done, or
the whole process of fleet electrification
is risked: “No one’s done it because
it’s a good idea or it’s good for the
planet. They’ve done it because they’ve
been forced to. I'm a massive fan of
regulation, of the ZEV Mandates that
OEMs and fleets hate. If the stick is
the ZEV Mandate and carbon emission
targets, the carrot is things like the Depot
Charging Scheme.”
Clarke concludes: “Imagine a situation
where we've got, not dozens, not
hundreds, but thousands of these in the
weakest areas of the grid everywhere.
That suddenly creates a strong grid. It’s
great for charging, it’s great for fleets,
but we’re building infrastructure without
having to reinforce the grid.”
Q1 2026
Q3
AUTOMOTIVE BUSINESS
71
