• • • ELECTRICAL VEHICLES • • •
DESIGNING OUT OBSOLESCENCE: THE IN-HOUSE ENGINEERING MODEL ADVANCING EV CHARGER LONGEVITY
In an era where the transition to electric cars is mandated, the crucial enabler is the vehicle charger, a landscape that needs to grow exponentially for both public and home charging By David Simpson, Co-Founder, Simpson & Partners
impson & Partners, the Cotswold based EV charger manufacturer, has established itself as an engineering and design business, delivering sustainable EV charging technology that will always be upgradeable. Many early adopters of electric vehicles will now be finding that their chargers can not be upgraded and will be finding their way to landfill. Simson & Partners, Co-Founder David Simpson commented “There really is a juxtaposition that some of the technology powering electric vehicles is not sustainable. To us it seemed a disconnect that many EV chargers are not upgradeable. Our ethos is to design, develop and manufacture in-house and offer a compelling blueprint for how best practice in sustainability and hardware lifecycle design can and should apply in the EV-charging sector.” David Simpson heads the engineering team at Simpson & Partners, and it is this capability that gives the business a strategic advantage. The team design, build and manufacture it’s own bespoke electronics in house. The business owns the design and production of the charger hardware and firmware to ensure going forwards the business avoids the problems of outsourcing key components and can make agile decisions as and when necessary.
S David and Mandy Simpson
Best-practice advice for other organisations from the founder David Simpson would be to invest in your internal engineering capabilities, ensure you keep up to date with the political narrative and be prepared for changes in legislation. At the very first step, design for quality and longevity, it needn’t cost more, but will help build a trusted brand, which will have a much lower carbon footprint, so important in any business.
Sustainability is not a marketing after-thought or a buzz word at Simpson & Partners, it has been embedded in its design, engineering and manufacturing model. The company states its chargers are designed with sustainability in mind to keep hardware in use and the charger out of landfill. One of the most compelling aspects is the alignment of manufacturing, sustainability and business-logic: by designing the enclosure, electronics, firmware and upgrade paths themselves, Simpson & Partners retain control of parts supply, refurbishment and end-of-life pathways. That means the unit installed today will still serve ten, fifteen or more years with updated software, replacement modules or new features as opposed to being discarded.
In practice, this has strategic implications for the
industry. Charging infrastructure investment is large-scale and long-term: if the equipment becomes obsolete quickly, it undermines both
sustainability and cost-effectiveness. Industry trend watchers should note that the specification of chargers must shift beyond kilowatt-rating and connectivity, to lifecycle metrics: how easy it is to update; how much of it can be repaired, whether the manufacturer still supplies parts. Simpson & Partners is ahead of this curve. Some of the major trends in the EV-charging sector include vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capability, tariff/energy-management integration, solar-charging compatibility, smart load balancing and remote diagnostics. Simpson & Partners’ Home Series V3 supports V2G and integrates solar charging and home energy-management. Because the hardware is modular and firmware is in-house, the company can deliver upgrades (for example enabling V2G) to customers who purchased earlier models.
What emerges is a distinctive offering: a charger rich in features and built from the ground up to last. The combination of in-house engineering, modular upgradeability, repairable parts and sustainable lifecycle design delivers a credible competitive narrative; not as a gimmick, but as a genuine engineering proposition. For installers, specifiers and infrastructure planners, this means that choosing such a unit can reduce future waste, lower total cost of ownership and avoid obsolescence risk. For Simpson & Partners, longevity really matters, with the rush to higher-power, faster-charge, multi-socket units, the back-end lifecycle of the unit is often overlooked. Engineering that anticipates future demands (software updates, network-connectivity, V2G, new tariffs) and supports maintenance/repair is essential. David Simpson’s in-house team at Simpson & Partners shows that a ‘design-for-the-long-haul’ approach is viable and beneficial. In conclusion, as the EV-charging sector matures, there will be winners and losers, those chargers that become obsolete and wind up in landfill and those that evolve and stay relevant. Simpson & Partners is a case study in the latter. Their in-house engineering leadership and sustainability-centred business model offers a roadmap for best practice. For decision-makers across the environment, mobility and energy sectors, ask not only 'what is the charger now'? But, 'what will the charge be in ten or fifteen years'? Engineering, upgradibilty and lifecycle should be top of the list in 2025 and beyond.
https://simpson-partners.com 18 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • NOVEMBER 2025
electricalengineeringmagazine.co.uk
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