Erik Fairbairn has made an odd career choice. After setting up a club for petrolheads to rent out supercars such as Ferraris and Lamborghinis, the youthful entrepreneur has founded Britain’s fastest-growing supplier of charging points for electric cars.
Fairbairn, aged just 34 and chief executive of Pod Point, says the UK is uniquely placed to lead the world in green technology and expects company turnover to increase twelve-fold this year to £6 million (US$9.7 million) as more electric vehicles (EVs) are launched on the market.
But how did he go from promoting the use of, say, a Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 (top speed 325kph, 552 horsepower), to a G-Wiz (top speed 80kph, 17 horsepower)?
Photo: AFP
“To look at it another way, it was about sharing a particular asset. If people are going to use a supercar, it’s better that there’s one between 10. But as an entrepreneur, it’s about where the market is. Green is at the forefront of thinking and that really steers what an entrepreneur has to do,” he said.
Not surprisingly, he’s extremely upbeat about the future for green cars and is encouraged by a new government subsidy of up to £5,000 to help people buy an EV.
“We’re currently seeing a massive change,” he said.
Pointing to the recent launch of Nissan’s Leaf — made in Sunderland, north-east England — and of EVs from Renault, Peugeot Citroen, Ford and Mitsubishi, he expects to deliver up to 10,000 Pod Points for homes and 2,500 parking-meter style street units this year. The buyer of a Leaf will get a home-charging unit free.
However, there is still great skepticism about EVs, with the Financial Times last week dismissing them as driven only by the “smug and the famous,” an accusation that riles Fairbairn.
“We’re right at the beginning of EVs. I think it’s unwise to bash an industry that has only just got started,” he said.
Fairbairn, a mechanical engineer who began his working life with Ford, already exports a fifth of Pod Point’s output to Denmark and is in talks to sell products to Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain from its manufacturing base in Basildon, south-east England. He plans to become the European leader in this field and has cemented deals with Tesco, Ikea and Sainsbury’s in the UK, with “green” electricity supplied by the ethical energy company Ecotricity.
London has about 2,500 EVs on its streets — more than almost any other city in the world apart from Oslo. Fairbairn expects to see 10,000 on British streets within 12 months and numbers to double each year to just under 300,000 by 2020.
A member of the technology group for industry body the Automotive Council, Fairbairn said Britain can lead this market because “we’re changing from a nation of shopkeepers to one of entrepreneurs and inventors.”
He recognizes that Britain will not be home, for example, to mass production of EVs, but, rather, to the “clever solutions and technologies” that fit around them. Pod Point has developed an iPhone application to show people how to find a recharging point and to tell them whether it is in use; shortly, you will be able to book a charging session via the app.
“We’re just in the right place at the right time to innovate in and develop green technology. Green is more relevant to us and there’s growing consumer demand, so we’re not just talking about it, but going out and doing it,” Fairbairn said.
Fairbairn agrees that EVs are just one form of technology that will help to “de-carbonize” transport. This fits in with government and industry aims to position the UK as a leader in developing and exploiting low-carbon vehicle technologies.
He set up Pod Point two years ago after selling ecurie25, Europe’s largest supercar rental club, in August 2008, and invested much of his own capital in the new venture. He attracted “angels” in the form of venture capital investors, but still retains 80 percent of the equity.
“My real vision,” he said, “is to be a serial entrepreneur and support UK manufacturing. The country needs more companies like ours to turn into the next Virgin. Ten years ago, being an entrepreneur was almost a dirty word, but now it’s being taught in schools. It’s still very difficult to raise money; banks have no interest in entrepreneurial engineers, but there’s funding out there if you’ve got a good idea.”
Rather than seek out government grants, such as the help available from the risk-sharing Technology Strategy Board -created by the business department in 2007, Fairbairn welcomes initiatives such as British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s recent decision in the budget to extend enterprise zones and enhance tax credits for research and development.
He also endorses plans by London Mayor Boris Johnson, for 25,000 charging bays to be installed in the capital by 2015 and government financing for London, Milton Keynes and the north-east to install 10,000.
Fairbairn would like the government to boost innovative small firms by overseeing a more generous tax and national insurance system in the early years of startups.
“They need to see the difference between a one-man, self-employed business and a true entrepreneurial endeavor trying to create value not only for itself but for the country as a whole,” said.
“There are fairly heavy national insurance charges for small companies, which need to recruit more staff rapidly — and ahead of revenue growth. There should be more phasing-in, helping a company to succeed and meet the full burden later,” he added.
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