James Foster • August 31, 2023

Bonnet Adds 900 Chargers To App

EV charger payment app startup Bonnet have added 900 GeniePoint chargers to its EV charger app!

A white electric vehicle is being charged at a charging station in a Morrisons car park

Fast growing EV charger payment app startup Bonnet have added 900 GeniePoint chargers to its EV charger location and payment app. This takes the number of UK and European chargers available on the Bonnet app to 32,000.

GeniePoint are the 15th Charge Point Operator (CPO) to be added to the network. The app is becoming increasingly popular among UK EV drivers since it allows a single payment system for a large number of charge points, instead of having multiple apps and cards to do the same.

In March this year, the technology company raised £4 million in venture capital funding to expand its coverage to the majority of UK and European chargers by the end of 2022. Put in perspective, there are around 25,000 public chargers around the UK (not nearly enough admittedly) so the figure of 32,000 across the UK and Europe doesn’t come near covering all.

In the announcement of the funding round, Patrick Reich, co-founder of Bonnet said, “Bonnet is continuing to see rapid growth, with thousands of new charge points added each month and incredible uptake from drivers and fleets alike. This year will continue to see the advancement of our tech offering and we can’t wait to put the new features into drivers’ hands.”

One of the reasons that Bonnet is becoming so popular among EV drivers - and a serious rival to Zap-Map - is that it attempts to offer live, 24/7 updates as to the status of every charger on its network. Considering more than 10% are out of action at any one time, this allows the driver to go direct to ones that work as opposed to crawling in ‘Turtle Mode’ between down chargers in hope that the next one works.

Given that a sizeable minority of EV drivers told the 2022 Shell Recharge survey that they wanted a single payment system for all chargers, an app like Bonnet is onto a good thing. With its route planning software, it can be even more attractive to use than a debit card as one can both head direct to the charger and pay for it using one app. This simplifies the EV driving experience considerably.