Go Eve, a UK-based electric vehicle (EV) charging technology company, has secured backing from Innovate UK and private investors for an 18-month development project worth £750,000. The funding will support improvements to DockChain, its patented system that enables a single DC fast charger to serve multiple parking bays.
The project is supported through Innovate UK’s Growth Catalyst, Investor Partnerships programme, which combines public innovation funding with private investment.
Founded in 2021, Go Eve is a spin-out associated with University College Dublin and Imperial College London. The company is led by co-founders Hugh Sheehy, CEO, and John Goodbody, Marketing Director. Headquartered in London, it also operates in Ireland and the United States.
Go Eve develops DockChain to help fleet operators expand their charging capacity without installing a dedicated fast charger at every parking space. Vehicles remain connected while a compatible charger delivers power sequentially, allowing operators to manage charging priorities and potentially reduce infrastructure requirements.
The new project will focus on developing custom hardware, firmware and software to improve the reliability of automatically starting, stopping and restarting charging sessions. The improvements are intended to address operational challenges identified during fleet deployments, including vehicles that do not consistently restart charging after interruptions.
Go Eve also plans to investigate bidirectional charging and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capabilities, which could eventually allow fleet operators to supply stored electricity from vehicle batteries back to the grid.
Development and testing will be led by the company’s engineering team in Wolverhampton, with a production-ready version of the upgraded DockChain technology targeted for delivery to manufacturing partners in 2027. Existing DockChain units are expected to be upgradeable.
Go Eve previously secured £3 million in seed funding in April 2023 to support product development, certification and customer pilots. The company reports DockChain deployments across Europe and North America, including installations involving Stellantis, Openreach, SAP and Detroit airport.
