Tom Clarke of Parkopedia

00:00 Overview

JOHN: Today in The Garage, we’re recording live at CES 2025 with Parkopedia. Let’s go.
JOHN: Welcome to The Garage. I’m John Heinlein, Chief Marketing Officer with Sonatus. We’re recording live at CES 2025 right from the Sonatus booth. The shift to EVs is an important thing for the industry, and it’s important thing for Sonatus, but drivers are experiencing complexity as they learn and understand about charging and other kinds of infrastructural things. Parkopedia is one company that is helping to address some of these challenges. We’re pleased to welcome today to the podcast, Tom Clarke. Tom is the EV product manager for Parkopedia. Tom, welcome to The Garage.

TOM: Thanks for having me, John.

00:48 Meet Tom Clarke

JOHN: So, tell us about yourself and your background a little bit.

TOM: Yeah, sure. So, I got started in the EV space back in 2018. I started off in insurance, then got into EV charging, looking at, really, the pain points there were at the time. I guess, when I first got involved in the EV space in the UK, where I’m from, there were only 80,000 EVs on the road. Now, we’re well over a million. So, you see that huge shift in that time. And then, in 2023, I joined Parkopedia as the EV product manager, and I’m the global product lead for all of the EV products that we have.

JOHN: Fantastic. We’re going to get into Parkopedia in a minute. We always like to get to know our guests. You’ve got to start off with a fun fact about you.

TOM: Okay. So, I guess a fun fact about me. I’ve released a Grammy Award winning album. So, I used to have a — what’s now a side hustle, at the time it was a hobby — it was a record label that I ran part-time with a friend, and we released Imogen Heap’s “Ellipse” on vinyl. And that had previously won a Grammy.
JOHN: That’s phenomenal. I always try to come up with a fun fact to match my guest. I don’t even know where to go with that. We have a podcast, and we release it on YouTube. And it’s fantastic, but no, I can’t even touch that. That’s a fantastic achievement. You win the prize for most unique fun fact so far, I think.

02:00 About Parkopedia

JOHN: So, tell us about Parkopedia. What do you do?
TOM: Yeah, sure. So, Parkopedia, we’ve been going since 2007. We’re the global leader in connected car services. So, as our name suggests, we got started in parking, looking at parking data, and it came from our founder, Eugene, going to a conference and struggling to find parking.

JOHN: Yeah.
TOM: And from there, the idea was born around how do we build a database of parking? From there, we’ve moved on…

JOHN: And I suppose it’s a database not only of the parking availability but is it real-time availability?

TOM: So, it’s the corrected parking data. We can get into all of the cleansing that needs to be done for data in general, right? But we look at, like, predictions of availability, understanding how many parking spaces are available at a location. If you’re driving around the streets and you’re looking for, what we call, on-street parking, how likely are you to find a parking space?

JOHN: That’s great. Okay, I interrupted you. Keep going.

TOM: No, no, it’s for sure. So, more recently, in the last couple of years, we’ve gotten into in-car payments. So, we have a whole payment capability to allow paying for services in the car. So, parking, tolling, fueling, and EV charging. And then we have our whole EV charging product set. So, having data on, not only the EV chargers themselves, but photos of the charger, amenities near it, real-time data, predictions around availability, and everything that goes with it to provide a real comprehensive EV experience.
JOHN: That’s great.

03:26 EV Pain Points

JOHN: I’m an EV driver. I’ve been driving EVs for, I don’t know, maybe it’s eight years. Maybe it’s ten years now. My wife as well. Completely hooked. And I live in California. California, it’s super easy to charge, tons of infrastructure. But as you go around the country and around the world, it’s definitely a much more heterogeneous experience. So, tell us about, these pain points you experience and the need you’re serving with your company.

TOM: Yeah. So, one of the key ones is around the location of an EV charger. So, you’d think, EV charger goes in the grounds, CPO has it installed, they know where that charger is. What we see is that 30% of the lat/longs are incorrect. Sometimes that can be wrong by a couple of meters. Sometimes they’re in the ocean. So, why is that happening? Sometimes it’s just human error, you know, someone just put in a number incorrectly. What we see though is that a third-party installer goes to install a charger, gets it installed, then they go get coffee, and then when they get the coffee, they do their paperwork, and they hit where they are on the lat long. And that’s where the charger then appears. And then no one looks at it. So, one of the key things we do is cleansing and looking at all of that data, you know, using a combination of AI and ML models, but also people actually looking at the data itself to improve that. We’re also looking at every aspect of it. We see the address being wrong. We see things around, sometimes, the power being wrong. So, it’s correcting all of that data so that, when you’re navigating to a charger, you can find it because it may only be ten meters wrong, but that could be one side of the highway to another.

JOHN: I admit, there are some chargers where, maybe they’re associated with a hotel, or they’re in some strange parking lot, and it’s somewhat challenging to find them if you’re maybe on a trip or something and you don’t know the area.

TOM: Exactly.
JOHN: Yeah. But then you also mentioned payments, in-car payments, as a second pain point.
TOM: Yeah. So, we run a number of wallets for OEMs. So, Hyundai, Mercedes, BMW, for example, we’ve partnered with these OEMs to run their wallet, enable payment and transaction from in the car. So, in the parking space, for example, you can pull into a parking lot, you’ll get a notification, press a button, pay for your parking. You know, you can set up before, so it creates a real seamless experience.
JOHN: So, I imagine then, when you’re offering in-car payments, then you have the same opportunity for a database of payment-receiving locations, like for EV charging, right?

TOM: Exactly. So, we can utilize that data we’ve got to enable a transaction. And so, when you pull up to an EV charger, you can start that charge in the head unit of the car, whether that’s a remote start or a plug and charge, we have that capability. So, it creates that seamless journey. We see that, on average, the average EV driver has got more than five apps, which is mad, right? So, I’m an EV driver as well. I’ve got two EMSP apps. I have my preferred CPO app. I have another app to find chargers and a route planner app.
JOHN: Right.
TOM: You know, people have even more than that. So, we have this crazy situation where people are going out of the OEM ecosystem to a phone, when it can all be in the head unit.

JOHN: So, that’s a key point. So, the database you’re creating and all this valuable and cleansed, as it were, data. You’re serving that, generally, through your OEM partnerships directly into the head unit, is that right?

TOM: Correct. So, it’ll be native in the head unit. It’s up to the OEM how they implement that.

JOHN: Of course.

TOM: But it’ll be native in the head unit in the companion app. And so, it creates that seamless experience.

06:45 Multi-Provider Integration

JOHN: And what, I think, is very promising, and I hope you’re going to talk about multi-vendor as well because, you know, I used to drive a Tesla, for example. And obviously they have a specific network, and so the problem is slightly easier or different anyway. But most drivers don’t. And they have no sort of single-branded infrastructure. So, I imagine you’re working with multiple different providers and bringing that together, is that right?
TOM: Correct. So, we have a number of integrations with CPOs, EMSPs. You know, direct integration, so we have the data, and then we’re also doing the transaction. So, we see this crazy situation, particularly in Europe, but we’re also seeing it now in North America. I can go to a charger and, depending on who I choose, I can pay up to a 100% difference in price. So, the example I always give, in our offices in London, there’s a charger around the corner. If I use one EMSP, it’s going to cost me about 50.

JOHN: An EMSP, tell me what that is.

TOM: So, EMSP is E-Mobility Service Provider.

JOHN: Okay.

TOM: Essentially, it’s an aggregator of charge point operators. So, let’s take France. There’s 150 charge point operators. You don’t want 150 apps on your phone. So, an EMSP will aggregate those CPOs so you have a single kind of experience. They’ll integrate into those CPOs in a different way. They might go direct. They might go to, what we call, a roaming hub. And that will therefore affect the price. So, looking at our London example, if I use, say, EMSP 1, it’s going to cost me $0.50 per kilowatt hour. If I use a CPO, it’s going to cost me $0.60 per kilowatt hour. If I use a second EMSP, it’s going to cost me $1.10.

JOHN: And so, you effectively even further aggregate those to get the best pricing. Is that the way to think about it?

TOM: Exactly.

JOHN: So, you’re almost like a double aggregator in a sense.

TOM: When we think about multi-contract, we think about inventory. So, we want as much inventory as possible to provide to a driver.

JOHN: Right.

TOM: And therefore, we’ll show a driver the different options. And we’re doing that at CES with our partners at Valtech. We’re demoing this product where you’ll pull up to a charger, it’ll say, do you want to charge? You say, yes. It will then show the prices that we have from the different providers, so then you can choose the one that suits you.

JOHN: Ah, so you’re not only picking the lowest, you’re giving them the option to see they’re different because they may have some loyalty or something like that.

TOM: Exactly. You might be at one where you want to use your utility provider.
JOHN: Right.

TOM Because you can bundle together the billing.
JOHN: Right.

TOM: So, it’s not always the cheapest. What’s the best value for you as a driver?

JOHN: So, which OEMs are you integrated with today?
TOM: So, we’re integrated over 30 OEMs across the globe. When we look at who we’re integrated in for, like, EV charging and also payments, we’re obviously integrated with BMW. So, if you look for an EV charger with BMW, chances are that’s going to be us in the back end. Also, for payments with Hyundai and also Mercedes, so if you look to the Mercedes wallet, or Hyundai as well, and looking for those in-car payment services, that’s us again in the back end.
JOHN: That’s fantastic. I mean, those are some big-name brands and 30 OEMs, good for you. Obviously, Sonatus is a key partner to Hyundai. We just passed 3 million vehicles as of this moment, but depending on when you watch this, it may be much more. But we’re so pleased to work with them and glad to have you as a partner on another part of the vehicle.

09:53 Shaping the SDV Experience

JOHN: Given there’s so much technology here at the show in the west hall, I mean, you’re tripping over all kinds of automotive technology all throughout the hall here. I’d love to get your take on what you’re seeing, and also, what’s your perspective on the shift to software-defined vehicles, both the opportunities and the challenges you see?
TOM: Yeah, I think software-defined vehicles provide a huge opportunity. You know, the car, like I say, it’s now a computer on wheels. So, how can we shape the experience? We can shape the experience in terms of entertainment. I’ve got a big screen. I can watch things whilst I’m maybe charging or, you know, the Chinese idea of the car as a third space and using it for meetings. I think it was the Zeekr Mix. You can see that, like, the way the physical space changes, that’s enabled by the software because of what you can do in the car. The ability, when it comes to driving, more autonomous aspects to it as well. Are we going to see autonomous cars everywhere, like, in the next couple of years? I’m more on the skeptic side. I think it’s just the hurdles we’ve got to get that will take a long time. But improved ADAS and driver support, absolutely. We’re seeing that here at the show, right? The number of companies pushing Lidar systems and other systems that are integrating and require that software aspect to power them. It’s going to be huge. So, I think the opportunities are all over the place for OEMs, particularly when it comes to building ecosystems. That’s what I’m really passionate about is, how can our OEM customers build ecosystems where they can really empower their drivers to offer services that they find really valuable?
JOHN: It’s a great point. And we’re talking about, here at the show, about over-the-air updates and software updates, and we’re also showing our automation platform, that allows rapid prototyping. And all of those things, like your services, are things that can get smarter over time because I think, for me, I think the full promise of SDV is the vehicle adding new services, adding new capabilities. Whether it’s your own services getting better as you have a better network, as you have additional capabilities you can link in on your side, and for the driver’s side, adding new things that weren’t there when they started the thing. Nothing better than you buy a product and the next day, and the next week, and the next month, it gets better. That’s a great way to build brand loyalty. It’s a great way to build customer satisfaction. And I strongly believe — and I really think this is true – that, in the coming years, drivers will be demanding to understand whether the vehicle they’re about to buy is upgradeable. Otherwise, they’re going to be painting themselves into a corner. Now, of course, there’s always going to be low-end cars or whatever, but, more and more, just like, you know, feature phones are pretty much a non-issue anymore. Now, I think people are going to expect their cars to be upgradeable in a similar way.

TOM: I think that’s a really great point. Cars are becoming like the smartphone in terms of, I love waking up and being like, oh, my car’s updated overnight, what new feature have I got? And maybe that’s a new game, maybe that’s a driver assistance feature. But the options out there for OEMs are infinite.
JOHN: Yeah, absolutely. Well, look Tom, it’s been so great to talk with you. Congratulations on your great success. And good luck in the future. And thanks for joining us.

TOM: Thanks so much having me, John.

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