Diode to invest £146k Government funding into EV suitability platform

By Tom Seymour

11 November 2020

Diode has won £146,000 in Innovate UK grant funding to further develop its electric vehicle (EV) suitability platform.

The new funding is a share of the £55 million from the Sustainable Innovation Fund (SIF).

Diode will use the funds to continue to develop its automated software platform for businesses, organisations, and individuals to assess EV suitability, profile charging demands, identify infrastructure requirements and run a tender process to procure what they need.

Users will be able to access the software directly from Diode’s website or through their strategic partners, including vehicle leasing companies, car dealerships, energy providers and local authorities.

Jon Horsfield, Diode founder and chief executive, said: “The grant funding will allow us to scale our services and help many more businesses, organisations and individual drivers to embrace electric vehicles.

“The grant is further validation that we are delivering something that will accelerate EV adoption and help drive down carbon emissions from businesses across the UK and beyond.”

Diode is already working with UK leasing company and EV specialist Tusker in order to support organisations and their employees in the take up of EVs.

Nearly 50% of Tuskers new leasing orders are now EV.

Tusker, which specialises in salary sacrifice, says that more than 60% of its total orders are for vehicles emitting 75g/km of CO2 or less, so-called ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEVs).

The company's average CO2 for each vehicle ordered in October was less than 46g/km.

Horsfield said Diode is currently working on a number of further "significant partnerships" and will reveal more details soon.

He added: "EV adopters currently search for charge point providers, enquire, brief, survey, gather prices and select - often with little to no guidance beyond a partnership referral.

"We take a data-driven, transparent, and user-friendly approach, building a business case and timeline for the customer."