E-mobility is all about building solutions for the future market
Leading global trade association NACS awarded Circle K Norway with its ‘European Technology of the Year’ award during its annual Convenience Summit Europe. The award recognizes Circle K’s pioneering role in the E-mobility space.
Circle K Norway’s first charger was put in the ground back in 2011. Progress was steady until 2017, when a strategic decision was made to ramp up the charging service offering to drivers in Norway due to the rapidly rising EV purchase rates. This bet has paid off, as today, more than 80% of all new car sales in Norway are electric.
“We are operating in a pioneer market (in Norway). There’s no other market in the world that’s so progressive on the electrification of cars. We saw this coming and set a strategy to ensure that we can continue to meet our customers’ energy needs, always aiming to stay ahead of the customers and build solutions for the future market,” explains Anders Kleve Svela, Senior Manager E-mobility.
Circle K strives to make electrification easy for customers
Anders describes the transition to EVs as more of a digital customer journey than the typical fuel customer journey. At the heart of this experience is the ‘On the go’ app, a one-stop-digital-shop for managing all charging needs at Circle K.
“We strive every day to make the customer journey as easy as possible. One of the ways we did this was through our app, where people can manage everything from locating the chargers and checking availability and speeds, to even starting and stopping the charging remotely, and paying,” adds Anders.
The goal from the start of this E-mobility adventure was to make electrification easy. Drivers along Norwegian highways should be able to depend on Circle K to meet their vehicle’s energy needs, whether that’s fuel or electricity.
“I think that perhaps one of the reasons we won this NACS award was because we have succeeded in combining the service offer of the traditional fuel business with the new energy form for cars,” says Anders. “No other player in Norway has taken this as far as we have.”
Source: Couche-tard
