Time Charge N Go: Say hello to the fibre company's new EV ...

Time dotCom is known by many as the Internet Service Provider (ISP) that offers high-speed fibre access with extremely competitive pricing and package. Some may also know the company as a data centre operator as well but we have since discovered that Time has also expanded its reach to cover the electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

This is after we stumbled upon this Time Charge N Go (TCNG) EV charger in Shah Alam last week. As we dig further to obtain more information, we have now learned several interesting facts regarding the company’s new endeavour as a Charge Point Operator (CPO).

According to Time’s financial statements for Q4 2023 dated 29 February 2024, the company acquired a local CPO, Charge N Go (CNG) earlier this year. While it is unclear how much it costs Time to acquire CNG, the first payment was around RM4.2 million.

Time has also paid around RM813k to obtain CNG shares that were held by a company called RWC1. Through these transactions, the telecommunication company has obtained 51% of CNG shares and has made CPO into its subsidiary.

Time’s Q4 2023 financial statement also said that the Subscription Agreement that the company signed in mid-December 2023 has two more transactions of up to RM10 million but that depends if CNG can hit certain “performance conditions”. However, these conditions were not mentioned in the statement.

Meanwhile, CNG has also changed the profile and header pictures for its Facebook and LinkedIn pages with brand-new images that reflect its status as a Time subsidiary. That being said, Time has yet to officially release any specific announcement regarding TCNG.

Despite the changes made to its Facebook and LinkedIn pages alongside the charger that we found in Shah Alam, TCNG has yet to update its app with the new branding. Hence, its Android and iOS apps are still carrying the pre-Time logo.

A total of 42 charging bays are accessible through the app and all of them are AC chargers. Specifically, 39 of them are located in Klang Valley with two more in Johor Bharu. The app has also listed a charging bay in Singapore but it most probably belonged to the Singaporean CPO, CDG Engie instead of TNCG itself.

In the interest of time (heh), we did not go through each TCNG location but it seemed that most of them were inside condominiums’ car parks and limited to their residents. It is unclear how many public chargers the TCNG network has at the moment but there are indeed several of them around such as Lotus’ Cheras and Southview Apartments in Kampung Kerinchi.

According to its user guide, it costs RM1 per kWh to utilise TCNG chargers. The charging fee can be reduced to RM0.75 per kWh if you sign up for their annual subscription plan which costs RM400.

However, things are different once we look at the app. For example, the chargers at Southview Apartments have an additional fee of RM0.167 per minute if you use the charger for more than 180 minutes even though the charging fee is still RM1 per kWh.

If you choose to charge your EV at Lotus’ Cheras, you only have to pay RM0.55 per kWh but there is an additional RM0.035 per minute on top of the location’s charging fee. Another charging spot, Fraser Towers in Bukit Gasing PJ also has a much lower charging fee of RM0.70 per kWh but there’s a confirmation fee of RM1 attached to the location.

The pricing for all three examples that we mentioned above is for non-members. All in all, it is better to refer directly to the app for the exact pricing at each TCNG location for the time being.