For over a decade now, Tim Washington (OM 2001) has been truly ahead of his time. In 2012, when electric vehicles (EVs) were extremely rare in Australia, Tim was working on the foundations of JET Charge – a company that would be ready for a seismic shift in the way we travel from A to B.
“My goal has always been to identify a problem, then solve it before people even realise it exists,” Tim says. “That’s the basis for our entire business model.”
A long-term leap of faith
Tim’s career began in an entirely different area – corporate law – before he stepped in to help with his family’s clothing manufacturing business. When it came time for Tim’s parents to retire, the family made the decision to shut down their business. “I was faced with a choice,” Tim says. “I could either go back to being a lawyer, or I could invest in something I truly wanted to do.”
A self-described “geek” and with a natural interest in cars, Tim started looking into a relatively new mode of transport – EVs. “I started to consider how these things would be charged and the obvious answer was at home,” he explains. “What I didn’t realise at the time was just how disruptive that was going to be to the ‘petrol station’ model, because all of a sudden, everyone would be capable of fuelling their own vehicle. I thought this might be the opportunity we were looking for.”
As it turned out, JET Charge’s goal to create a specialised installation service for EV charging stations was groundbreaking. “It was initially hard to get the business off the ground,” Tim explains. “We survived off my wife Ellen’s wage and put all our own savings into it. It was a leap of faith for almost a decade.”
Focusing on the “net good”
In 2024, Australia’s Electric Vehicles Council estimates there are around 140,000 pure EVs on our roads, accounting for about 8% of all new vehicles sold. Having correctly predicted the rise in EV use, JET Charge is now the largest EV charging infrastructure provider in Australia and is about to go out for its biggest funding round to create a new “charging-as-a-service” model, ready for what Tim expects to be an “onslaught” of EV use from 2025.
“If we were going to take this risk, Ellen wanted us to do something that produced a net good, something we could be proud of,” Tim says. “I believe we’re working on a once-in-several-generations change in terms of how we travel, and how we consume energy. To be at the forefront of that, leading the country down this path, is incredibly fulfilling.”
“Melbourne Grammar always gave me the opportunity to do things that were outside my comfort zone and set me up to be courageous in my business life, ” says Tim, who is keen for his two young sons to follow in his footsteps by attending Melbourne Grammar. “Doing hard things is hard. Doing hard things will bring deniers, will bring doubters, will bring detractors, but it’s also what moves the needle. So, despite things being hard, we’ll just keep turning up every day.”
