Prepared For Take Off

Meet The Man Building A Business That’s Amped For The Ev Wave.

- Ash Westerman

DOES ANYONE recall a time when two blokes with a truck were just removalists, rather than ‘relocation solution providers’? It’s become one of those inescapable business buzz-terms, and everyone’s in on it. Your local coffee guy probably calls himself a ‘caffeine solutions provider’ on his LinkedIn page.

JET Charge, founded by 35-year-old former corporate lawyer Tim Washington, actually is an ‘EV charging solutions provider’, but perhaps even more crucially, Washington himself is a human-powered solutions provider. Where you or I may see hurdles, Washington sees opportunities. When naysayers throw up commonly held barriers to mainstream EV ownership in Australia, Washington has a steadfast, unshakeable determination to either hurdle over them or navigate around: “If we accept there’s only one way to achieve a zero-emissions transportation future – and that’s how I see EVs – then everything else is merely transitory; a distraction to arriving at that outcome,” he tells me.

We’ll work through some of those hurdles shortly, but first we need to understand just how JET Charge is succeeding where others before it (such as Israel-based start-up Better Place) have failed.

Washington was born in China, but was brought to Australia at the age of eight by parents seeking greater opportunity. He was a high achiever at Melbourne Grammar, went on to study commerce law, and would later land a job at a large firm practising commercial law.

“I didn’t hate it as much as my colleagues did,” he smiles.