SEATTLE -- Filld is bringing its on-demand fueling services to Seattle residents.
While Filld has offered fueling to fleets in Seattle for some time, this will be its first new direct-to-consumer market beyond its San Francisco Bay Area base. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company is piloting the consumer service in the northern part of Seattle and plans to introduce it to southern portions of the city in the coming months.
“Seattle is the perfect use case for testing distribution and building a flexible fueling infrastructure as gas stations increasingly continue to disappear and city planning and urban development continue to evolve,” Michael Buhr, CEO of Filld, told GeekWire. “The city has a wide footprint—so many people have to drive for their daily commutes or just to get from place to place. A density of drivers is something Filld looks for in determining how it might be able to serve a particular area best.”
Three Filld trucks are currently serving Seattle’s consumer market. Customers order, coordinate and pay for the fuel delivery through Filld’s mobile app. As Chris Aubuchon, co-founder and former chief technology officer, told CSP Daily News in 2017, Filld can offer a fill-up for below the average price of gasoline stations in its markets (not including a $3 to $9 delivery fee). At the time, it had plans to expand its offer to two to four new markets outside of California. Filld has drummed up $16 million in investment since its founding.
Filld’s growth news comes as another on-demand fueling service—Yoshi—has expanded into several new markets thanks to a $13.7 million round of funding from ExxonMobil and General Motors, among others. San Francisco-based Yoshi plans to expand to 25 markets by the end of 2018. The newest include Cleveland, St. Louis, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn., and Tampa/St. Petersburg, Fla.
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