Mina CEO Ashley Tate to head new Allstar EV payment business

Allstar has launched its new electric vehicle (EV) payment solution, Chargepass, with the founder and former CEO of Mina, Ashley Tate, taking the helm.

Mina, which was bought by Allstar’s parent company, Fleetcor, in February, will now be fully integrated into the new business and ceases to exist as a brand.

As the new managing director of Allstar Chargepass, Tate told Fleet News that’s he is excited about the potential of Mina’s EV home charging payment software combined with Allstar’s scale and experience of fuelling fleets for more than 40 years.

“Allstar has the reputation, the history, they own the fleet space here in the UK,” continued Tate. “Almost every fleet that is a customer of Allstar, which is in excess of 40,000, is in some way interested in EV.”

Spotting a gap in the market, Tate founded Mina just three years ago and it quickly began to gain traction in the fleet market. “We’ve seen well in excess of 200% growth year-on-year since 2020,” he said.

But, following Mina’s acquisition and the launch of Chargepass, he now expects even greater growth, thanks to having access to what he describes as “probably the largest pool of fleet customers in the country”.

He explained that since the acquisition they have been “working tirelessly” to bring a solution to market that can combine the strengths of both businesses.

“Now with the launch of Allstar Chargepass here, I can confidently say we’ve managed to create that industry-leading solution that will allow fleets to streamline their transition to electric, no matter how big or small,” he added.

Allstar Chargepass allows electric company cars and vans to be charged at home and on the road, eliminating the need for separate transactions, with fleets billed via a single, monthly invoice.

At home, Chargepass calculates and pays for business-use EV charging directly to the energy provider, allowing fleets to replace employee reimbursement processes with a more accurate, controlled and streamlined alternative.

Tate warned: “Don’t underestimate how complicated paying for charging can be. I speak to lots of fleets that do desktop exercises and say, ‘we’ll pay a flat pence per mile’ or ‘we’ll use company credit cards’, but don't necessarily think about the challenges.

“It’s a different world to fuel and the idea that it’s relatively easy to physically plug in your car is true, but the concept of how the company then pays for it isn’t. 

“We’ve thought about these problems and the whole suite of products that we offer is designed to fix these problems and make the transition seamless.”

On-the-road, Allstar Chargepass gives employees access to a growing EV charging network dedicated to businesses, with Allstar surpassing its target of having 10,000 charge points available on its network by the end of last year. 

It signed a series of deals with charge point operators (CPOs) to boost the number of devices available to its customers during 2022. More than one-third of the network consisted of ultra-rapid chargers, with the majority fast chargers. Today, it has a network of 4,000 charging locations and more than 12,000 charge points.

Tate said: “We’re very much focused on the rapids, the motorway charge points; getting quality first, and then quantity second.”

Beyond payments, Allstar Chargepass also aims to equip businesses with tools to manage their EV fleets via an online portal.

Valuable insights, including carbon intensity and emissions, cost per kWh, location, and duration of each charge, are available to help inform fleet decision-making and support businesses with their overall sustainability efforts.

Tom Rowlands, MD of Global EV Solutions at Fleetcor, including the UK brand Allstar, explained that, with the fleet transition to EVs gathering pace, Allstar Chargepass provides a “holistic solution” that can accommodate EV and mixed fuel fleets with one invoice.

“Unifying with Mina and the arrival of Chargepass brings a new era of ease for fleets as they increasingly continue to look to adopt electric vehicles, and we’re excited to see where this journey will take us,” he said.

As well as buying Mina in February, Fleetcor acquired Plugsurfing, a European EV software and network provider, and invested £5.3 million in Zapmap, last year.