How we picked 40 networks for Volta's first day
Three weeks before launch, our head of partnerships sent a Slack message with a single spreadsheet attached: 'We've got commitments from 42 networks. Which ones do we cut?' I stared at the list for longer than I care to admit. It would have been tempting to launch with every single one, but that's not how you build something that actually works.
The temptation to say yes to everyone
When you're building a charging app in the UK, there's an obvious question that networks keep asking: 'Will you support us?' And there's an equally obvious pressure to say yes. Every network you exclude feels like a missed opportunity. Every gap in coverage is a customer lost before they've even downloaded the app.
We could have launched with fifty networks. Maybe sixty. The data was available; the API integrations were possible. But I kept coming back to something I learned the hard way in my previous company: more doesn't equal better when users are trying to make a decision in the real world.
Imagine you're an EV driver in Manchester on a Tuesday morning. You've got fifteen minutes before you need to be somewhere. You open an app that shows you 200 chargers within five miles. That's not helpful. That's paralyzing. So we had to be surgical about it.
Coverage that actually means something
The first filter was geographic reality. We mapped actual charging density across the UK. Places like London, the Midlands, and the South East have mature charging infrastructure. The Scottish Borders don't. Neither does rural Devon, if we're honest. Our partnerships team went network by network and asked: 'Will someone actually use this?' not 'Can we technically integrate this?'
Then we looked at network type. The 40 we chose span rapid chargers, destination chargers, workplace networks, and community venues. We needed a driver commuting from Swindon to have genuinely useful options. We needed a fleet manager in Leeds to find charging that worked for five vehicles at once. And we needed a homeowner in Brighton who'd put in a seven-kW charger to be able to earn a little from it through our marketplace.
If we'd picked only the big names, we'd have given you three massive rapid networks and left you stranded in the towns where they don't reach. If we'd tried to include every small operator, the app would have felt cluttered and the data would have been spotty.
The thing nobody talks about: data quality
This is the bit that made the final cuts hardest. Data matters in ways that aren't obvious until you go live. A charger that's listed as operational but hasn't worked in six months. A price that changed last month but nobody updated the API. An accessible bay that got blocked by a skip.
We spent two weeks testing real-world reliability with our network partners. Which ones kept their data current? Which ones had proper uptime? Which ones could we actually call when something broke? That culled the list by a handful, but those handful mattered.
The total cost visibility that Volta shows you before you arrive, per-kWh, parking, idle fees, taxes, all of it, only works if the data feeding it is accurate. If we couldn't trust a network's pricing or availability, we weren't going to add to launch. Better to launch strong and expand carefully than to launch broad and break trust in week two.
What forty taught us about scale
The honest truth is that 40 networks isn't a cap. It's a starting point. We're not going to stop at 40. But I'd rather launch with 40 that work well, where journey planning makes sense, where the marketplace connects real people to real chargers, and where your receipt history actually matches what you paid, than launch with 100 and spend the next six months fixing broken data and angry customers.
Some of our earliest users have asked why we don't have their local network yet. That's a fair question, and it stings a bit. But we've got a list, and we're working methodically through it. By the time we add network number 50, we'll have learned what works from 40, what drivers actually need from a charging app, and which partnerships give us the best support for our fleet management and community charging features.
The ecosystem in the UK is still consolidating. Networks merge, some shut down, new ones launch. We're not trying to be an archive of every possible charger. We're trying to be the app that gets you where you need to go, tells you the real cost before you arrive, and doesn't waste your time with guesswork.
Why the first user matters more than the hundredth
There's a moment I think about a lot. A week before launch, I sat with someone who'd been driving electric for four years. I showed her Volta. She looked at a charger on the map, tapped through to see the per-kWh rate, the parking fee, the idle charge, the tax impact, and said: 'Oh. I didn't know I was paying that.' That's the moment we're building for. Not an app with maximum coverage. An app that changes what you understand about your own charging costs.
Forty networks meant we could focus on that moment. We could make sure the data was right. We could make sure the route planning actually worked. We could make sure fleet managers could see cost centres across multiple chargers without tearing their hair out. We could make sure a homeowner could list their driveway charger and get bookings without jumping through hoops.
That's why it's 40, not 15, and not 150.
As we move past launch and add more networks, I keep wondering whether we should have gone bigger, or whether the discipline of that choice is exactly what made Volta useful from day one. Which version would you have preferred to download?
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