01Case study · New CPO
From installed hardware to paying drivers in six days
Eight connectors, no software team, and a loan repayment schedule that started before the chargers did.
8
Connectors at launch
6 days
Hardware connected to first paid session
0
Software engineers on the team
The deployment
Profile
- Mix
- Two 60kW DC units and four AC points
- Sites
- Three, two of them on partner land
- Team
- Two founders and one technician
The problem
What was in the way
- 01The chargers were installed and idle, because there was no way for a driver to pay.
- 02The founders had no basis for setting a price beyond guessing at their electricity cost.
- 03Two of the three sites belonged to partners who wanted to know when they would be paid.
- 04Nobody would know a charger was down until a driver phoned.
The approach
What was actually done
Each step names the mechanism rather than the outcome, so you can judge whether it would transfer to your situation.
QR charging before app building
Per-connector QR codes were printed and fixed at commissioning. A driver scans, sees the connector and the price, pays by UPI and starts — with no install and no account creation before they know what it costs.
A defensible opening price
A per-kWh rate was set against landed electricity cost including demand charges, with an idle fee after a grace period to keep DC bays moving. Hour-of-day data from the first weeks then informed the first revision.
Partner terms recorded before the first session
Revenue-share terms for both partner sites were entered at commissioning rather than negotiated retrospectively, so the first statement was produced by the system rather than reconstructed.
Monitoring from day one
Connectivity and connector state monitoring meant faults surfaced on the dashboard rather than over the phone, and most resets were done remotely by a founder rather than by the technician.
The outcome
What changed
- First paid session within a week of the chargers connecting.
- Utilisation per connector visible from the first weekend, which changed where the next two units were placed.
- Partner statements generated rather than assembled, from the first month.
- Platform cost stayed proportional to revenue during the slow opening months.
Platform
What was used
Driver app & QR charging
A mobile web charging flow that starts from the QR sticker, plus native apps for the drivers who come back.
Payments & billing
UPI, cards, net banking and wallets through RBI-authorised aggregators, with pre-authorisation, automatic refunds and a full ledger.
Tariffs & pricing plans
Per-kWh, per-minute, flat-fee and time-of-day pricing, with idle fees, driver-group rates and tariff groups across sites.
Uptime & incident management
Connectivity monitoring, fault grouping and uptime reporting per charger, per site and per contract.
Settlements & payouts
Automated revenue sharing with site owners and partners, with statements, payout runs and a reconcilable ledger.
Would the same approach work for you?
Tell us your constraints and we will say honestly which parts of this transfer and which do not.