Free Charging For Drivers On World EV Day But Founder Says ‘Super Tough’ To Monetize Campaign

RAW Charging in the U.K. will allow electric vehicle (EV) drivers to charge for free from selected sites on the fifth annual World EV Day, Monday 9 September, and BP Pulse will offer discounted rates across its U.K. charging station network. There are similar promotions in other countries, too, and in previous years, governments have scheduled EV charging infrastructure announcements on World EV Day.

Despite a great deal of legwork, Green.TV, the British media and marketing agency that created World EV Day during the pandemic five years ago, has not been financially supported by many of the companies that make money from it.

“World EV Day is super tough to monetize,” said Ade Thomas, Green.TV’s CEO. His small, sustainability-focused agency created the promotional day in 2020.

“The day is huge—because companies run with it and do their own thing—but while we want to create a global movement for change only a small number of organizations financially support the campaign,” he said from his office in Oxford, England.

The promotional day’s headline sponsor this year is Auto Trader UK, without which “we’d be on a sticky wicket,” said Thomas, referring to a cricket term meaning a problematic circumstance.

Other partners providing financial support this year include the international navigation app Waze and Octopus Electroverse, which has 850,000 charge points in 40 countries. NYPA, New York State’s power authority, is also a partner, as is Illinois, which, through its Drive Electric program, has attracted EV players such as Rivian, Lion Electric, and Gotion to manufacture in the state.

Green.TV may be small, but the impact of World EV Day has been substantial. Last year, World EV Day achieved over 200 million Twitter/X impressions across 119 countries and was promoted by Ford, Nissan, Tata, Volvo Trucks, ABB, FedEx, and many other companies.

“We’ve captured the interest of the EV community worldwide,” said Thomas. “And,” he added, “it’s not just a PR moment, but there are also real-world activations with company meetups and the like. It’s a day to capture the imagination, propel engagement, and shift the dial around the transition to electric vehicles.”

For Green, a former BBC commissioning editor, World EV Day is also a good hook for the media, some parts of which remain hostile to EVs.

“There’s been a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt spread in the media,” he told a podcast earlier this month.

“I think if we zoom out and look at any major strategic shift in how we live our lives, there’s always going to be some friction, right? We need to address that, and this is where World EV Day has an important role.”

For Thomas, EVs are a “transportation solution” for a world that needs to address the climate crisis.

“Fundamentally, everything that we do in the EV space is pegged against the science of climate change,” he said. “We still have to meet very rigorous targets to get to net zero, and the policy around the hard science of climate change will hopefully stay in place. If it doesn’t, we have a big problem.”