AGL to offer ‘Netflix for EVs’

Angela Macdonald-Smith

Sep 8, 2020

AFR

AGL Energy will offer customers a Netflix-like subscription for an electric car in the first initiative launched by its new AGL Next innovation arm, which will also increasingly expand into telco products.

The business would bring together AGL’s work to collaborate on and experiment with new ideas in line with the rapidly transforming energy market, said John Chambers, the power and gas supplier’s new executive general manager, future business & technology.

AGL will offer customers an electric car for a flat subscription fee.

“The massive transition that is happening in the energy space is fundamental: the industry has never seen as much change as this in its 100-plus years of history,” he told The Australian Financial Review ahead of the formal launch of AGL Next on Tuesday.

“Being able to navigate that change in an agile way, particularly with the shift to digital as well, has really powered the need for an extension of the future business and a brand like Next for us to be able to explore new horizons rapidly and test them with consumers.”

The details of the electric vehicle subscription offer are to be released later this week but are understood to involve an all-in, flat subscription offer for a range of cars.

“It’s kind of like the Netflix of EVs,” said Mr Chambers, a former director of product innovation at Telstra who more recently has been involved with energy tech start-ups. He joined AGL last month to take up the new role, replacing Simon Moorfield.

Mr Chambers said AGL Next was also exploring initiatives in the EV fleet area, in line with the company’s commitment to The Climate Group’s global EV100 program, where signatories commit to switch their fleet cars to electric vehicles.

AGL has pledged to transition its 400-strong corporate vehicle fleet to 100 per cent electric by 2030, from 10 per cent now.

Thousands have applied for AGL’s payment relief program to cope with their power bills.

Other initiatives are expected in the Internet of Things connected home realm, decarbonisation, and in data and phone services, complementing AGL’s move into telco through its $27.5 million acquisition of Southern Phone Company late last year. AGL Next will also house the company’s collaborative relationships with start-ups.

“It’s a wrapper around a lot of the emerging innovation work that is coming out of AGL … in a way the market can understand and our customers can interact with, so new exciting things that are ahead of the curve of what’s happening in our core business,” Mr Chambers said.

“Certainly as we move more and more into broadband and mobile with our Southern Phones acquisition we will be considering extensions of services that could work and support the telco arena.

“If you think about AGL becoming a multi-product retailer and being in a place where your core essentials can be brought together and bundled quite simply, we’ll be looking to explore the more front edge of that.”

Mr Chambers said AGL Next would test and take to market early-stage initiatives, with the intention that they are scaled up and moved into the core business, or potentially spun off as businesses in their own right.

AGL committed in June to offer customers the option of carbon-neutral products across all its energy offers and has also made strides into household batteries and rooftop solar, but is coming under increasing pressure on its timing for an exit from coal-fired power generation, set for 2048.