Asteroidea: Revolutionizing Electric Vehicle Charging Experience
Founded by Tunisian engineers, Asteroidea has established itself in over 15 countries with its digital solutions for parking. Its spin-off, Park & Charge, aims to resolve the fragmentation of the charging experience for electric vehicle drivers.
The Problem
When arriving at a parking lot equipped with charging stations, the experience often starts poorly. Drivers must download the charging operator's application, settle the charging session, and then pay for parking separately, often using another app or cash. Ghassen Chattouna, co-founder and commercial director of Asteroidea, summarizes this experience as "fragmented."
Asteroidea's Solution
Asteroidea, a Tunisian startup specializing in digital solutions for parking and urban mobility, has already delivered over 60 projects in two years of existence, with 150 connected charging stations on its platform. The company positions itself as an integrator of smart mobility solutions, developing digital tools that rely on existing parking infrastructure.
Park & Charge: A Solution to the Fragmentation Problem
Park & Charge is a startup that has gained market attention and has been transformed into a separate company. It aims to resolve the fragmentation problem, which can be broken down into three levels:
- For the driver: a fragmented experience between the charging provider's application, parking payment, and sometimes the need for cash or a third application. As a result, many drivers avoid using charging stations in parking lots.
- For the parking lot: thermal vehicles occupying spaces reserved for charging stations, blocking electric vehicles and reducing the utilization rate of the infrastructure.
- For the charging operator (CPO): an abnormally low usage rate. Chattouna cites a notable statistic: during a test conducted by a major European operator, offering free parking during charging resulted in a 50% increase in the use of charging stations.
How it Works
The Park & Charge solution relies on a cloud platform that connects the parking management system with the charging operator's system. The user journey is designed to be seamless.
- Upon entering the parking lot, a camera installed at the entrance automatically captures the vehicle's license plate number, which is transmitted to the platform.
- The platform can then offer 30, 45, or 60 minutes of free parking to the driver who initiates a charging session, according to the configured policy.
- When exiting, the fees are calculated and paid in a single transaction. The driver does not need to interact with the parking system.
- If a vehicle is parked in front of a charging station without initiating a charging session, the platform detects this and can apply a penalty.
International Expansion
Asteroidea's flagship client is Rome's airport, where 150 charging stations are already connected to the platform, with over 20,000 charging sessions recorded since installation. The startup is also in advanced discussions with two major European CPOs to extend integration to existing parking lots on the continent, as well as in Latin America and Asia.
- In Kuwait, Asteroidea has digitized parking in 48 parking lots with over 350 license plate recognition cameras.
- In Tunisia, the team has developed ParkingTN, a mobile application deployed in La Marsa and Sidi Bou Saïd, in partnership with a local company and parking operators. The service covers four zones, including blue zones and two barrier parking lots.
Park & Charge's Plans
Park & Charge plans to launch an application in the coming weeks, allowing Tunisian electric vehicle drivers to locate available charging stations and, eventually, connect them to the platform for real-time monitoring.
A 100% Tunisian Team
Behind these international deployments is a team of around 20 engineers, men and women, graduates of Tunisian public and private institutions, who develop the entirety of the solutions from Tunis. The startup works with local partners in each city for the hardware installation and connection of cameras.
Environmental Impact
Asteroidea was co-founded by Ghassen Chattouna, Rami Hedfi, and Zied Bradai. The environmental dimension is not forgotten: by making the charging experience more fluid, Park & Charge aims to remove one of the psychological barriers to the adoption of electric vehicles, indirectly contributing to reducing CO₂ emissions in urban centers.
In a context where Europe must multiply its charging infrastructure to meet its 2030-2035 objectives, and where the number of electric vehicles is growing much faster than the network of charging stations, Park & Charge arrives with a clear positioning: connecting two worlds that have long been ignored, parking and charging, so that one can finally serve the other.
