Imagine a scenario in which you tuck into bed with the knowledge that a magical fuel fairy will fill your vehicle’s tank before the sun rises the next morning.
Imagine still, if that service was attainable through an app alone and the associated prices wouldn’t be overtly bloated or marked up.
That’s the pitch being made by California-based company Filld, which aims to simplify and modernize fuel delivery in a city that’s becoming increasingly bereft of gas stations.
Filld began its commercial partnership with Car2Go in Vancouver on June 7. The deal now sees all Car2Go vehicles re-fuelled via Filld staffers combing the city in modified, half-ton trucks equipped with fuel storage tanks and pumps.
That commercial partnership will serve as a test case to expand the Filld business model into the consumer market, a move CEO Michael Buhr hopes to have in place by the end of this year. Should Filld expand into the Vancouver market, it’ll be a first for Canada. The company aims to move across the nation based on how the Vancouver experience plays out.
“We pay very close attention to consumer feedback, and one of the things we hear time and time again is that the convenience and the service is magical,” Buhr told the Courier from his company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. “It’s like the gas fairy came overnight.”
Filld opened up to the consumer market spanning San Jose to San Francisco two years ago. The company boasts 4,000 members in that area, according to Buhr. The uptick was slow at first, though member referrals seem to be the life’s blood of the Filld business model.
“We’ve done more fuel volume in one month [this year] than we did in the first year,” Buhr said. “It is that big.”
Once the Filld app is downloaded, users set their location and the cheapest gas from the nearest three stations are identified. The customer then selects the fuel type, and the window of time for service before paying via credit card.
Filld’s business model offers three windows of availability: between 9 p.m. and 4 a.m. costs $3 USD; from 8 to 10 p.m. is about $8 and from 1 to 5 p.m. is about $5, on top of the cost of fuel.
Buhr said all of his employees receive training in First Aid, Hazmat scenarios and receive commercial fuel operator training as well. He added that his vehicle fleet has been designed to meet Transport Canada standards and each vehicle is outfitted with a spill containment kit.
“We want to make sure that when we pull up to either a business or to a consumer, that [regardless] of if they’re there, they know this is a safe thing to do,” Buhr said. “If there’s a truck pulling up to my home or to my business in the middle of the night, I need to trust them.”
Buhr is well aware of the decline in the number of gas stations in Vancouver and said similar closures are happening across the U.S. There is one gas station left in downtown Vancouver and that property will soon be sold. City business license records suggest there are about 75 gas stations in the city.
“The U.S. numbers point to a 25 per cent decline [in gas stations] in the last 10 years but in a large metro area it’s more like 45 per cent,” Buhr said. “Vancouver is truly at the forefront of [this phenomenon].”
City spokesperson Jag Sandhu told the Courier that a business licence for Filld’s consumer model was received by the city in mid-May. The company has since been asked to show the city all of its safety protocols and a review of the application is ongoing.
jkurucz@vancourier.com
@JohnKurucz
