A-to-Z EV Rally: Team "Paua Rangers"

Returning for a third year, GREENFLEET caught up with Paua's Pam Hanlon to find out how planning for the EV Rally is going – and how teams will benefit from having access to the Paua EV charge card and dedicated EV Rally app

Team Paua Rangers, as you are affectionately known, is returning to the Rally for the third year. What has made you decide to get involved again?

We love the Rally! As the only EV charge card in the market with actual nationwide coverage, it makes sense that we are the charge card provider. As you know our mission is to make EV charging simple and this is the perfect opportunity to showcase not only that, but also all the features we have added over the past year. Plus, we get to see all our customers, friends, and potential new customers. 

Collaboration has been key to our success, and with many Rally participants as network partners, it is a natural place for us to showcase our capabilities.

Please tell us about your team - who is driving and in what vehicles?

Well, now that would be telling wouldn't it! We plan to bring two aspects to the rally for vehicles: second hand vehicles and vans. Something more affordable for everyone and something that shows that electric vans can do the job! As for the team, let’s just say, expect to see some familiar Paua faces as well as a couple of our guest drivers, customers, and partners!

Paua is also joining as the Rally's EV Charge Card partner - please tell us what this involves and how teams will benefit?

All team members will get access to a Paua EV charge card for their charging needs. And we will be taking care of the costs. Once again, we will launch a dedicated white label EV Rally app so drivers have pin point location for checkpoints at their fingertips, simplified social check ins and of course their charging network covered!

How has Paua's charging network grown since last year?

In simple terms, its doubled! We are delighted to cover 50 per cent of all the UK's charge point connectors and 70 per cent of rapid connectors. As you have probably seen, we won the Best Electric Fuel Card 2024. So, we promise to keep delivering the best to our customers who love to tell us “It just works”.

And how do you hope the charging infrastructure overall will have improved since last year?

Sites are getting larger. No longer one or two chargers! We introduced a hub filter recently from customer requests. Our aim is always to ensure that all of those larger sites are visible to drivers, improving their chances of getting a high-quality charge.

The Rally is over 1,400 miles and this year will be visiting towns and checkpoints from A to Z in alphabetical order. As you have completed the rally before, what learnings will you be bringing with you to help you with your strategy this year?

My absolute favourite thing about The Rally is chatting to all the people, so my strategy is to talk to everyone. The app we build for the EV Rally will have even more features this year so it will help us to ensure that we actually drive from checkpoint to checkpoint and stop the chatterboxes talking all day, the biggest offenders of this is Niall Riddell and myself. Last year we had so much fun talking to people that we ended up at the back every day! No planning needed - it is all in the EV Rally app!

Why are events like the EV Rally important for the driving up EV adoption?

Firstly, it is visibility of the vehicles on the road. Secondly it is the showcasing of technology. And thirdly, it is the positivity that the rally represents. It's also a great way to shut down the chat that the infrastructure isn’t there.

Please tell us about Paua's future plans and how it can help fleets with their net-zero ambitions?

Where do we start, are you ready for the list! We launched Paua Reimburse – this is an actual cost reimbursement product that works very similar to the liquid fuel model. We designed it to include every single EV driver, whether they charge at home, work or publicly. We have built a set of sophisticated fraud and abuse controls that we will launch later this year; this product was built to ensure fleets gain better control of their charging.  

Of course, we still offer our well utilised white label products, putting Paua the hands of more Enterprise customers than ever before. We plan to launch a Salary Sacrifice product in the near future, and of course we continue to extend our network every day with a target of 80% coverage by year end, which we are well on target to achieve. Watch this space.

To keep up to date with EV Rally news, visit the website and follow us on LinkedIn.