How Kyiv Company “GreenFuel” develops the market of electric vehicles and charging stations in Ukraine 

In the summer of 2015 GreenFuel start-up announced release of its own range of charging units for electric vehicles on the market. The company’s goal was to prove that available engineering and technical utilities permit to create competitive product beating foreign analogues in price-quality ratio. Expectation was confirmed: in 2016 GreenFuel has already sold more than 50 charging units and started the small-scale wholesale. Neither of the charging station manufacturers available in Ukraine can boast of such activity. 

National charging stations

Over the past year GreenFuel development had a number of technical improvements: configuration of the charging stations was upgraded, more than 7 new software firmware versions were issued, and design of the process controller was optimized. Complete cycle of development and manufacture created in Ukraine permits quick solution of engineering problems and fulfillment of individual demands of the customers while keeping up high quality level of units. Company actively develops the partner trend: GreenFuel solutions use the network of national TOKA charging stations, UkrAvto Corporation, KAN Development building company, Electrocars Company and network of Doctor Sam medical clinics. 

Among significant locations where GreenFuel charging stations are used the following can be marked:

• in Kyiv: Ukrgasbank, Metro trading centre, Blockbaster shopping and leisure centre,  Karavan trading centre, Avtocentr na Stolichnom, Avtocentr na Petrovke, Tower 101 business centre, IQ Business Center;
• in Odessa:  Metro trading centre,  Renault autocentre, Lanzheron beach (NEMO), Sady Pobedy trading centre.

Apart from charging units GreenFuel sells different accessories for electric vehicles: J1772 charging cable and connectors are in high demand. For development of this trend the partnership relations with leading international manufacturers, such as Phoenix Contact, are established. All delivered goods are subject to additional internal quality control of GreenFuel. Since contemporary Ukrainian market is full of low quality and cheap accessories, quality assurance of the products to be sold is strategic for sales and gaining of the long-term customer’s confidence.

Important aspect of GreenFuel activity is warranty and post-warranty liabilities, which often require quick performing of service maintenance or mounting works.

What vehicles charge at GreenFuel stations?

For a year specialists of GreenFuel have been collecting the photos of electric vehicles charging at the charging units of the company. As a result there was formed the whole fleet of cars varying from low-cost models, such as Nissan Leaf, Renault Fluence, Ford Focus and up to more expensive ones: BMW i3, Mercedes B-electric, Tesla Model S. Recently Tesla Model X has been caught on camera. All photos are available in the facebook.

Dmitriy Nikolayko, Director of GreenFuel: “Today, in Ukraine we need to overcome “childhood diseases” of the electric vehicle market which are multiplied by national customer’s way of thinking. Practically each of them would like to get individual product or exclusive solution and in some cases the ready-made business but they are not ready to pay. The most widespread reason for withdrawal of GreenFuel from negotiations is the lack of strategic thinking of the customers.  They simply don’t see that very soon the development of the present technology will transform residential complexes, business centres or shopping and leisure centres into charging stations of 21-st century in the parking areas of which all vehicles will be charged. In America and Europe for about a decade hundreds of millions of USD have been contributed to development of this trend, however, they still don’t talk of huge profits. Everybody longs to take up strategic positions on the market that is eventually more expensive. In our country people expect to get everything at a cheap price and get profits on the next day. Fortunately, not everybody follows this approach.

We produce complicated advanced charging units. Pool of competitors mainly consists of foreign companies or international corporations who have invested tens of millions of USD or more in this sphere of business. Nevertheless we are the main seller of the charging units in Ukraine ant we reached this position in two years of work having begun from the scratch with minimum financing and mainly due to optimization of costs. I am sure that after solving the main manufacturing, financial and technical problems we will be able not only to strengthen the positions in Ukrainian market but to enter the international supply chain. The most priority-oriented markets are the markets of European Union and Asian countries”. 

Plans for 2017

Achieved results of GreenFuel enable the company to release resources for new developments and open new business trends in 2017. The company has a plan to introduce into the market the commercial smart charging stations, network commercial solutions with monetization functions (introduction of payment for the charge service), which intensively gains wide interest. Also one of the most perspective trends is the development of ultrafast charging units for electric vehicles and municipal heavy transport. This product sets up strict claims to technical and material base, that is why preparation for trend launch has been made together with partners for over half a year. Besides, in 2017 the sale of charging controllers with individual functions developed for individual customers will begin. This offer will permit all persons who want to launch such business to create similar charging stations under GreenFuel franchise.