It started with a simple frustration: finding a charging point that actually works. From that everyday pain, Wirelane grew into a visible EV-charging network in Germany — connecting drivers, property owners, and cities in ways that feel simple and human.
From frustration to foundation
Wirelane’s story began in 2016 in Munich, right where EV adoption was outrunning the charging experience. Drivers bounced between apps, RFID cards, and out-of-service sockets. Founder and CEO Constantin Schwaab asked a practical question: how do we make a session start in two steps — see the price, tap, and charge — without calling support or carrying extra cards?
Building trust one socket at a time
Wirelane started where charging naturally fits: hotels, parking garages, and municipal lots. Instead of selling boxes and walking away, the team combined terminals + OS + billing into a single product that property owners could actually run. The promise was concrete:
- Fast rollout: site survey, right-sizing power, installation — handled as one workflow.
- One console: monitor stations, revenue, and alerts in a single dashboard.
- Roaming by default: one account works across many networks via international hubs.
Result: owners spent less time on setup and invoicing; drivers spent less time guessing.
When charging becomes hospitality
For hotels and resorts, Wirelane treated charging like Wi-Fi in the lobby — a standard amenity, not a novelty. Guests could start a session with a card at the terminal or a quick app flow; some sites mapped it to room accounts so checkout included the charging bill. That small design choice moved charging from “extra service” to “expected comfort.”
Scaling without the spin
Growth exposed the messy parts: different grid rules by city, tariff zones that don’t match, and bigger brands entering the field. Wirelane kept its energy on the boring-but-essential:
uptime in the 98–99% range, auto-diagnostics, remote reboots, and clear pricing on the screen. Fewer dead trips to broken chargers means more completed sessions per location — the metric that matters to both hosts and drivers.
Cities as partners, not obstacles
Municipal work wasn’t just permits; it meant fitting into local parking policies, public-charging plans, and funding programs. Wirelane integrated tariffs, parking rules, and open discovery so a driver could see connector type, availability, and price before arriving. For cities, the value was transparency and control; for residents, it was a reliable plug on the street they already use.
What Wirelane looks like today
By 2025, Wirelane operated less like a hardware vendor and more like a mobility platform:
- Wirelane OS — connects chargers, payments, roaming, and fleet tools in one stack.
- Pulse & Touch terminals — card readers and clear on-device pricing to reduce support calls.
- Service as a contract — from power planning and installation to acquiring, SLA, and remote monitoring.
The goal isn’t “more boxes.” It’s fewer outages, faster starts, and cleaner handoffs between drivers and sites.
The human side of the charge
Mobility feels good when it’s predictable. A driver sees an open socket and the price, taps, and goes. A hotel manager opens a console and understands yesterday’s sessions without emailing accounting. A city planner looks at utilization and plans the next two blocks. That’s the quiet success behind Wirelane: fewer frictions, more finished trips.