HOUND
A full-stack EV ride-hailing platform built for an electric-first fleet. Rider app with live EV tracking and carbon offsets, driver app with range-aware job allocation and charging station routing, and a real-time dispatch console with fleet health monitoring — built to compete with Uber on product quality while differentiating on sustainability.
Real-time EV tracking, eco-credits, fare estimates by vehicle type.
Range-aware job dispatch, charging station alerts, earnings dashboard.
Full fleet view, active ride monitoring, driver onboarding, analytics.
COMPETE WITH UBER ON PRODUCT. WIN ON SUSTAINABILITY.
The ride-hailing market is dominated by platforms with years of product development and billions in infrastructure. Competing on price or availability alone is a race to the bottom. Hound Mobility's brief to Vazgro was explicit: match the product quality of Uber, differentiate on EV.
The EV constraint added meaningful design challenges: range anxiety is real for passengers and drivers alike. A driver can't accept a job that depletes their battery below safe levels. A passenger needs to trust that their EV won't stop on the M1. These requirements demanded EV-native features — not bolt-ons — at the core of every product surface.
The third surface — dispatch — had to give a small operations team the same visibility as a major fleet operator. Real-time EV health, driver performance, and ride monitoring in a single dashboard that doesn't require a data analyst to interpret.
Of urban commuters would choose an EV taxi over a petrol cab if price and wait time were equal. The demand exists. The supply-side product infrastructure didn't.
Days to onboard a new driver at traditional cab operators. Paperwork, inspections, badge applications — all manual. A digitally-native onboarding flow cuts this to 2 days.
Of ride-hailing cancellations happen because passengers can't see real-time driver location — they lose confidence and cancel. Live EV tracking eliminates this.
Carbon cost per ride on an EV fleet — when paired with offset tracking, this becomes a brand differentiator that drivers and passengers are proud to mention.
RESEARCH METHOD // 42 rider interviews across 4 UK cities · 18 driver interviews at EV operators · Competitive teardown of Uber, Bolt, and Ola driver apps · EV range study across Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model 3 in typical cab cycle use
DISCOVERY & FLEET ARCHITECTURE
We mapped three distinct user personas — the rider (booking-focused, comfort-driven), the driver (earnings-focused, route-optimised), and the dispatcher (fleet-view, real-time control) — and designed around what each needed to see without noise. The EV-specific requirements shaped everything: range indicators, charging station awareness, and battery-sensitive job allocation needed to be first-class features, not afterthoughts.
RIDER APP
The rider app is built around one insight: confidence. Passengers need to know their driver is coming, when they'll arrive, and that they won't be stranded by a car that ran out of charge. Live EV tracking with range indicators, real-time driver location, and eco-credits per ride (accumulating toward discounts) made the sustainability angle functional rather than decorative.
DRIVER APP
Driver apps fail when they treat drivers as subordinates to an algorithm. Hound's driver app shows earnings clearly, surfaces nearby charging stations proactively when battery drops below 40%, optimises job allocation by remaining range rather than simple proximity, and gives drivers visibility into their own performance metrics without burying them in notifications.
DISPATCH CONSOLE & FLEET MANAGEMENT
The dispatch console gives operators a live view of the entire fleet: driver locations, battery levels, active rides, and incoming demand — all on one screen. Fleet-level insights (average on-time rate, revenue per active hour, EV efficiency metrics) are surfaced daily. Driver onboarding was rebuilt from a 7-10 day paper process into a 2-day digital flow with document upload, background check integration, and vehicle registration.
BUILT TO COMPETE. DESIGNED TO WIN.
Range-aware job allocation means the nearest driver with sufficient battery gets the job — not just the nearest driver. Industry benchmark for ride-hailing is 5.1 minutes. Hound averaged 2.3 across all markets in the first 60 days.
Driven by real-time EV range monitoring, proactive charging routing, and charging station reminders before shifts. Not a single reported stranded-vehicle incident in 8,400 rides. 98.2% on-time across all completed journeys.
The old process: 7-10 days of paper forms, manual background checks, and badge collection. The new process: document upload, digital background check integration, and vehicle registration in 2 working days. 3.8x faster. Dramatically lower drop-off during onboarding.
Across 8,400 completed rides in the first 90 days. Rider satisfaction surveys cited live tracking (91%), eco-credits (74%), and driver quality (88%) as primary satisfaction drivers. Zero complaints related to EV range anxiety.