1 00:00:05,415 --> 00:00:07,275 Good morning Grid Connections listeners. 2 00:00:07,275 --> 00:00:11,275 Today we're thrilled to have Quincy Lee, the founder of Electric Era join us. 3 00:00:11,275 --> 00:00:15,235 In this episode we'll dive deep into how Electric Era positions itself as a leading 4 00:00:15,235 --> 00:00:19,095 charge point operator in the rapidly evolving EV charging landscape. 5 00:00:19,215 --> 00:00:22,695 Quincy will share insights on the current state of EV charging and reveal how 6 00:00:22,695 --> 00:00:26,635 Electric Era leverages hardware along with cutting edge software to differentiate 7 00:00:26,635 --> 00:00:29,315 itself and prioritize customer experience. 8 00:00:29,315 --> 00:00:32,835 If you find this episode valuable, please share it with at least one other person 9 00:00:32,835 --> 00:00:34,039 who might enjoy it. 10 00:00:34,039 --> 00:00:37,259 don't forget to leave a positive review on our podcast page. 11 00:00:37,279 --> 00:00:40,779 Your support helps us continue bringing you insightful conversations with industry 12 00:00:40,779 --> 00:00:43,449 leaders with that. 13 00:00:48,755 --> 00:00:50,585 the CEO and founder of Electric Era. 14 00:00:50,585 --> 00:00:55,975 Our company builds EV fast charging stations for gas stations, convenience 15 00:00:55,975 --> 00:01:00,935 stores, and quick service restaurants that are modernizing their offerings for EV 16 00:01:00,935 --> 00:01:01,895 drivers. 17 00:01:02,275 --> 00:01:06,475 Prior to founding Electric Era in 2020, I was a SpaceX engineer for seven years 18 00:01:06,475 --> 00:01:11,015 where I worked on predominantly the Starlink program. 19 00:01:11,235 --> 00:01:14,395 So SpaceX's constellation of satellites, I was one of the earliest team members on 20 00:01:14,395 --> 00:01:14,947 that. 21 00:01:14,947 --> 00:01:18,467 joining the team in about 2016, early 2016. 22 00:01:18,847 --> 00:01:22,967 And in my final role there, I was responsible for the global rollout of the 23 00:01:22,967 --> 00:01:28,227 Gateway Ground Station antennas, which are the large antennas that provide backhaul 24 00:01:28,227 --> 00:01:32,247 connectivity to Starlink users and the terrestrial internet. 25 00:01:32,247 --> 00:01:36,587 So, you know, our team is very product focused and engineering and technology 26 00:01:36,587 --> 00:01:40,107 focused, and I think we'll touch on a lot of that today during the conversation. 27 00:01:40,107 --> 00:01:41,174 Good to be here with you. 28 00:01:41,174 --> 00:01:41,634 that's great. 29 00:01:41,634 --> 00:01:44,654 And I guess something I should say just personally, Quince, I want to say thank 30 00:01:44,654 --> 00:01:45,994 you for that. 31 00:01:46,014 --> 00:01:47,434 I actually use starling myself. 32 00:01:47,434 --> 00:01:52,184 I had been living in a hood river, Oregon, which is kind of outside of, Portland, 33 00:01:52,184 --> 00:01:53,794 Oregon by about an hour or so. 34 00:01:53,794 --> 00:01:56,394 And where we were, the internet was terrible. 35 00:01:56,514 --> 00:02:03,714 And, we, I think got starling back in, it was pretty early, like 2020, maybe 2021. 36 00:02:04,624 --> 00:02:08,294 when the first users in Oregon, I guess, so we were told. 37 00:02:08,294 --> 00:02:13,354 And then, now I live in bend Oregon, which is actually a lot larger, but we had 38 00:02:13,354 --> 00:02:16,994 actually come with the local internet provider and then it turned out to be 39 00:02:16,994 --> 00:02:17,684 really bad. 40 00:02:17,684 --> 00:02:19,534 I dropped so much more than starling. 41 00:02:19,534 --> 00:02:21,054 So we actually ended up just getting starling again. 42 00:02:21,054 --> 00:02:24,634 And now that's what we're using here in bend, just cause it's so much more stable 43 00:02:24,634 --> 00:02:28,214 than even the local fiber, which I was pretty surprised by too. 44 00:02:28,214 --> 00:02:31,014 So, but that's just a side. 45 00:02:31,074 --> 00:02:32,954 I would love to talk to you more about that. 46 00:02:32,954 --> 00:02:33,334 Yeah. 47 00:02:33,334 --> 00:02:34,767 It's been such great service. 48 00:02:34,767 --> 00:02:37,907 It's definitely a fantastic product. 49 00:02:38,287 --> 00:02:43,947 It's really, I think, opening up the internet to a lot of places that obviously 50 00:02:43,947 --> 00:02:45,467 historically haven't had it. 51 00:02:45,467 --> 00:02:48,357 So happy to hear that you guys have had a good experience with it. 52 00:02:48,357 --> 00:02:51,827 Sometimes, you know, for early adopters, it wasn't always this good in the early 53 00:02:51,827 --> 00:02:54,214 days, but I'm glad it's doing great now. 54 00:02:54,214 --> 00:02:55,784 No, it's, it's funny. 55 00:02:55,784 --> 00:02:59,714 The only issue we ever had, especially here in Ben is whenever thunderstorms, 56 00:02:59,714 --> 00:03:02,454 lightning storms would come through, it would kind of disrupt it. 57 00:03:02,454 --> 00:03:06,714 And then it would like drop down, every so often, but that was really the first year 58 00:03:06,714 --> 00:03:07,304 we lived here. 59 00:03:07,304 --> 00:03:09,814 And ever since then, even when lightning storms and stuff come through, I haven't 60 00:03:09,814 --> 00:03:10,493 had an issue. 61 00:03:10,493 --> 00:03:13,434 So it's, it's definitely better than the local option. 62 00:03:14,211 --> 00:03:17,311 Yeah, you know, it's funny, like back in those early days of Starlink that they 63 00:03:17,311 --> 00:03:19,651 were really just chasing nines, right? 64 00:03:19,651 --> 00:03:22,371 They were trying to get reliability higher and higher and higher. 65 00:03:22,371 --> 00:03:29,791 And I'm having kind of deja vu all over again, because that was what I was working 66 00:03:29,791 --> 00:03:31,881 on and focused on extensively when I left Starlink. 67 00:03:31,881 --> 00:03:35,451 And now I'm focused on it extensively as we scale up our EV fast charging network 68 00:03:35,451 --> 00:03:39,191 and charging stations for customers all over the country. 69 00:03:39,411 --> 00:03:42,831 We're religiously focused on reliability. 70 00:03:42,947 --> 00:03:48,027 We define reliability very meticulously as when you plug in doesn't work immediately. 71 00:03:48,067 --> 00:03:50,287 And we're chasing nines, right? 72 00:03:50,287 --> 00:03:53,307 We're trying to get up to 99 .9 % success rates. 73 00:03:53,307 --> 00:03:55,267 And that's an extremely challenging thing to do. 74 00:03:55,267 --> 00:03:58,147 Not a lot of people are doing it, but that's really what matters to the EV 75 00:03:58,147 --> 00:03:59,066 driver base. 76 00:03:59,066 --> 00:04:02,967 So we're going through that whole effort that we went at Starlink all over again 77 00:04:02,967 --> 00:04:05,586 here at Electric Era as we build out our charging stations. 78 00:04:05,586 --> 00:04:07,926 like an almost perfect segue. 79 00:04:07,926 --> 00:04:09,526 I just want to commend you on that. 80 00:04:09,526 --> 00:04:12,686 Maybe you should be the host, but, no, obviously we could talk about probably 81 00:04:12,686 --> 00:04:16,006 starling for another hour, but what, what I'm really interested in is what we're 82 00:04:16,006 --> 00:04:21,166 interested about too is exactly that, like electric vehicle reliability, specifically 83 00:04:21,166 --> 00:04:22,376 charter and the vehicles themselves. 84 00:04:22,376 --> 00:04:23,336 It's not so much an issue. 85 00:04:23,336 --> 00:04:25,586 It's really the charting infrastructure. 86 00:04:25,606 --> 00:04:30,950 And I'm kind of curious to learn like, what was it that made you 87 00:04:30,950 --> 00:04:31,980 start electric here. 88 00:04:31,980 --> 00:04:35,490 I think a lot of people have had their own experiences, but what really was, was 89 00:04:35,490 --> 00:04:38,630 there any one moment that you're just like, I can't stand this, this someone 90 00:04:38,630 --> 00:04:44,007 needs to step into the space and, improve this experience for EV drivers. 91 00:04:44,007 --> 00:04:51,107 Yeah, I think way back in 2018, from a more existential perspective, I started 92 00:04:51,107 --> 00:04:56,427 Electric Era because I really felt that the world was not making fast enough 93 00:04:56,427 --> 00:04:59,267 progress on decarbonization of transportation. 94 00:05:01,087 --> 00:05:05,527 And ironically, while watching a SpaceX rocket launch, I kind of was looking at 95 00:05:05,527 --> 00:05:09,327 the Earth getting smaller and smaller in the rear -facing camera of the rocket and 96 00:05:09,327 --> 00:05:13,037 thought to myself, man, I should be spending my time and talents 97 00:05:13,095 --> 00:05:16,595 making the world a better place as opposed to sending technologies out into the 98 00:05:16,595 --> 00:05:18,575 cosmos, which obviously I love too. 99 00:05:18,575 --> 00:05:22,455 But it was just that kind of that moment tied in with the existentialism question 100 00:05:22,455 --> 00:05:28,555 that really got me to jump and leave SpaceX in 2020 and start Electric Era. 101 00:05:28,555 --> 00:05:33,055 I think when I started the company, it really was around that premise of, man, 102 00:05:33,055 --> 00:05:33,975 charging's terrible. 103 00:05:33,975 --> 00:05:34,685 It's really expensive. 104 00:05:34,685 --> 00:05:35,395 It's hard to build. 105 00:05:35,395 --> 00:05:38,295 It takes years to build in some cases. 106 00:05:38,855 --> 00:05:40,105 how do we make all that better? 107 00:05:40,105 --> 00:05:43,975 Because it's a key linchpin in the overarching EV adoption motion that we're 108 00:05:43,975 --> 00:05:44,715 going through. 109 00:05:44,715 --> 00:05:46,605 Folks, I hear it from folks all the time. 110 00:05:46,605 --> 00:05:48,775 They're like, man, I don't want to buy an EV. 111 00:05:48,775 --> 00:05:50,855 I can't charge my car anywhere. 112 00:05:51,035 --> 00:05:54,115 And the common retort is, well, what about at your house? 113 00:05:54,115 --> 00:05:57,975 And more people than not don't have good, consistent places to charge. 114 00:05:57,975 --> 00:06:01,475 And even if they did, they still need to be able to charge up their car around 115 00:06:01,475 --> 00:06:02,515 town. 116 00:06:03,875 --> 00:06:08,231 So solving that gap, that infrastructural gap, and actually doing a good job. 117 00:06:08,231 --> 00:06:10,471 It was like the motivation for the business. 118 00:06:10,471 --> 00:06:13,311 And clearly there's so much frustration online. 119 00:06:13,311 --> 00:06:17,151 People are fed up with the charging reliability, fed up with the lack of 120 00:06:17,151 --> 00:06:20,631 uptime, fed up with the cut cables, fed up with the low charging speeds, fed up with 121 00:06:20,631 --> 00:06:22,091 the lack of transparency. 122 00:06:22,111 --> 00:06:23,932 We're aiming to solve all of those problems at Electric Era. 123 00:06:23,932 --> 00:06:28,512 Well, that's, I think, probably welcome news to the people listening to this. 124 00:06:28,572 --> 00:06:32,952 What, what do you like when you started in 2020 to now have been kind of the biggest, 125 00:06:32,952 --> 00:06:38,832 like chasing those nines, like what, what has been the biggest, maybe wins or like 126 00:06:38,832 --> 00:06:43,232 improvements you've seen over the last four years to really help make those big 127 00:06:43,232 --> 00:06:47,686 first early differences, kind of the quick moving high impact. 128 00:06:48,473 --> 00:06:52,293 Yeah, I mean, I would say most of the last four years have really just been about 129 00:06:52,293 --> 00:06:55,793 building the technology stack and only recently have we started to scale up. 130 00:06:55,793 --> 00:07:00,073 But now that the scale up is underway and now we're really in the chase the nines 131 00:07:00,073 --> 00:07:04,593 frame of mind, I think like the things that we did early on from a technology 132 00:07:04,593 --> 00:07:08,413 perspective that gave us the framework to go in effect way to be fast charging 133 00:07:08,413 --> 00:07:12,473 reliably were probably threefold. 134 00:07:14,033 --> 00:07:16,985 One, we were able to solve the grid infrastructure problem. 135 00:07:16,985 --> 00:07:21,185 by building our charging stations with the battery backing the charging station. 136 00:07:22,105 --> 00:07:26,005 Having that battery there actually allows you to ride through a lot of transients 137 00:07:26,005 --> 00:07:30,625 and electrical variations that you might see from the grid and actually keep your 138 00:07:30,625 --> 00:07:34,685 charging station online and healthy when the grid is having challenges. 139 00:07:34,685 --> 00:07:36,715 So that's a big part of it. 140 00:07:36,715 --> 00:07:40,245 I think a more important part is having Edge compute on site. 141 00:07:40,245 --> 00:07:41,445 A lot of people do this. 142 00:07:41,445 --> 00:07:45,785 They don't really do it that well, but certain folks have put site controllers at 143 00:07:45,785 --> 00:07:47,065 their charging stations. 144 00:07:47,065 --> 00:07:52,565 That local low latency compute is super valuable for a bunch of different reasons. 145 00:07:52,565 --> 00:07:56,385 And it gives you, again, a good foundational framework to go build super 146 00:07:56,385 --> 00:07:59,705 reliable charging stations that work all the time. 147 00:07:59,705 --> 00:08:04,535 And then finally, the third pillar is like a vertically integrated software stack. 148 00:08:04,535 --> 00:08:06,285 And that's really where the rubber hits the road. 149 00:08:06,285 --> 00:08:09,785 If you're not owning the entire end to end software stack or you're charging at a 150 00:08:09,785 --> 00:08:12,725 charging company that does not have a vertically integrated software stack, 151 00:08:12,725 --> 00:08:14,115 expect bad things to happen. 152 00:08:14,115 --> 00:08:15,971 Because basically, 153 00:08:16,217 --> 00:08:19,577 everybody in the industry with the exception of like essentially Tesla and 154 00:08:19,577 --> 00:08:24,637 Rivian and and us they outsource all their software they They give this part to that 155 00:08:24,637 --> 00:08:26,627 company this part to that company this part to that company. 156 00:08:26,627 --> 00:08:29,217 They're not actually building technology They're not actually building software. 157 00:08:29,217 --> 00:08:33,737 They're they're pulling it all together from other vendors and that leads to 158 00:08:33,737 --> 00:08:37,897 interconnection handoffs that leads to Finger -pointing that leads to a very poor 159 00:08:37,897 --> 00:08:42,207 user -driver experience That's the most important pillar. 160 00:08:42,207 --> 00:08:46,329 That's I think where we really shine because we own everything in -house 161 00:08:46,329 --> 00:08:50,809 We can go really, really low into the firmware, firmware adjacent software stack 162 00:08:50,809 --> 00:08:57,289 and make the charging experience super good across everything from payments to UX 163 00:08:57,289 --> 00:09:04,609 on the driver's screen or on the charging station screen to the OCP 1 .6 connection 164 00:09:04,609 --> 00:09:12,149 and actual charger activation to everything else that is required to make a 165 00:09:12,149 --> 00:09:14,210 charging station session successful. 166 00:09:14,210 --> 00:09:16,310 And I think that's great to hear. 167 00:09:16,530 --> 00:09:21,750 So let's let's say you are a listener to this podcast and you drive an EV and you 168 00:09:21,750 --> 00:09:22,370 hear all this stuff. 169 00:09:22,370 --> 00:09:23,350 That sounds amazing. 170 00:09:23,350 --> 00:09:28,830 How do drivers find electric era chargers or ones using that technology to really 171 00:09:28,830 --> 00:09:31,831 make sure that they're going to the ones probably with the best uptime. 172 00:09:31,831 --> 00:09:34,001 Yeah, so you can find us on PlugShare. 173 00:09:34,001 --> 00:09:35,061 You can find us on Apple Maps. 174 00:09:35,061 --> 00:09:36,471 You can find us on Google Maps. 175 00:09:36,471 --> 00:09:40,291 And because we're in Apple Maps and Google Maps, we populate in the infotainment 176 00:09:40,291 --> 00:09:45,611 systems of all the major automotive companies, with the exception of Tesla and 177 00:09:45,611 --> 00:09:46,811 a few others. 178 00:09:47,391 --> 00:09:52,131 So those are kind of the most common ways of discoverability. 179 00:09:52,251 --> 00:09:55,411 And you'll notice right out the gate that we actually have good driver reviews. 180 00:09:55,411 --> 00:09:58,172 You go into a PlugShare review of an average charging station and the 181 00:09:58,172 --> 00:09:59,712 driver reviews are terrible, right? 182 00:09:59,712 --> 00:10:01,452 It's like comically bad. 183 00:10:01,452 --> 00:10:05,772 One of my favorite driver reviews in Plugshare was somebody saying, wow, this 184 00:10:05,772 --> 00:10:06,362 is the future. 185 00:10:06,362 --> 00:10:08,152 We need this all over America. 186 00:10:08,192 --> 00:10:11,912 Like, that made me feel so good because it's kind of the manifestation or the 187 00:10:11,912 --> 00:10:13,762 verbalization of the vision of the company. 188 00:10:13,762 --> 00:10:17,692 It's just like, build EV fast charging everywhere that's awesome so drivers can 189 00:10:17,692 --> 00:10:21,272 just get on with their lives and have an amazing experience and not worry about the 190 00:10:21,272 --> 00:10:22,753 frustration of charging their car. 191 00:10:22,753 --> 00:10:27,014 So we have a lot of listeners all over the US as they, as these are rolling out more, 192 00:10:27,014 --> 00:10:30,874 is there anything, are there certain areas that your team's looking at first and kind 193 00:10:30,874 --> 00:10:32,094 of rolling out from that way? 194 00:10:32,094 --> 00:10:38,274 Or are there certain partnerships or others that drivers might be best to kind 195 00:10:38,274 --> 00:10:40,235 of look for to find electric or chargers? 196 00:10:40,235 --> 00:10:47,475 Yeah, I think in our first couple quarters of sales, we were eager to build charging 197 00:10:47,475 --> 00:10:49,355 stations wherever and whenever. 198 00:10:50,015 --> 00:10:54,655 And our initial sales motion and installation pattern was kind of 199 00:10:54,655 --> 00:10:55,895 scattershot as a result, right? 200 00:10:55,895 --> 00:10:59,845 So we have charging stations in Boston and Portland. 201 00:10:59,845 --> 00:11:01,435 We have another one coming in Portland. 202 00:11:01,435 --> 00:11:02,975 We have another one in Southern Oregon. 203 00:11:02,975 --> 00:11:05,955 We have three coming along in Northern California. 204 00:11:06,795 --> 00:11:11,175 randomly one in Missouri and Tennessee and others popping up. 205 00:11:11,175 --> 00:11:17,975 I think as we focus, we're going to put our minds to work on building out specific 206 00:11:17,975 --> 00:11:25,555 concentrated corridors, leveraging our customers' properties and coaching our 207 00:11:25,555 --> 00:11:28,715 customers to go to market with their charging stations there. 208 00:11:28,715 --> 00:11:33,495 I think that's going to be key to provide contiguous coverage of super seamless and 209 00:11:33,495 --> 00:11:35,895 easy to use charging that's really fast. 210 00:11:36,491 --> 00:11:41,351 So, that'll be what we start to shift towards going into the next couple years 211 00:11:41,351 --> 00:11:42,671 ahead of us. 212 00:11:42,951 --> 00:11:45,551 But what will that look like in practice? 213 00:11:45,551 --> 00:11:52,871 Well, you can kind of imagine where that'll be based off of EV adoption rates. 214 00:11:52,871 --> 00:11:54,471 It's like the West Coast. 215 00:11:55,051 --> 00:11:58,481 Surprisingly, the Northeast is actually getting a ton of usage. 216 00:11:58,481 --> 00:12:01,641 Our charging station out there gets a ton of usage every day. 217 00:12:01,641 --> 00:12:05,791 And I think that reveals that there's a lot of EV adoption in the Northeast as 218 00:12:05,791 --> 00:12:06,611 well. 219 00:12:06,891 --> 00:12:11,351 And then I think actually Texas is going to be a sleeper, but come along fast in 220 00:12:11,351 --> 00:12:14,731 terms of EV adoption rates in the kind of Tri -City area. 221 00:12:14,731 --> 00:12:20,311 So we'll probably focus predominantly on the West Coast, the Northeast, maybe all 222 00:12:20,311 --> 00:12:24,501 the way even out to Pennsylvania and Ohio down to Virginia, and then Texas. 223 00:12:24,501 --> 00:12:28,331 I think those will be our first core focus areas, but nothing set in stone yet. 224 00:12:28,331 --> 00:12:31,164 And we're still trying to figure that out actively internally. 225 00:12:31,164 --> 00:12:32,084 Totally. 226 00:12:32,144 --> 00:12:36,084 And what have, is it been like Nevi funding or incentive? 227 00:12:36,084 --> 00:12:40,724 What, what have, it's kind of like, what makes an area kind of a better focus for 228 00:12:40,724 --> 00:12:44,707 electric era to go after other than maybe electric vehicle driver Density 229 00:12:44,707 --> 00:12:47,057 Well, it all starts with driver density, right? 230 00:12:47,057 --> 00:12:50,707 I mean, that's the kind of leading indicator of the financial health of the 231 00:12:50,707 --> 00:12:51,707 charging station. 232 00:12:52,127 --> 00:12:56,087 A spicy and lesser known fact about EV fast charging stations is you can actually 233 00:12:56,087 --> 00:13:01,187 make a crap ton of money off them and actually have good margins. 234 00:13:01,627 --> 00:13:06,187 So ironically, EVgo and Electrify America, their networks are actually making a fair 235 00:13:06,187 --> 00:13:12,207 bit of revenue and are supporting decently high profit margins in unit economics. 236 00:13:12,847 --> 00:13:14,819 That's a toolkit that we're 237 00:13:14,819 --> 00:13:18,099 to our customers who want to own and operate their own charging stations and 238 00:13:18,099 --> 00:13:22,939 capture share of wallet from a new class of drivers. 239 00:13:23,119 --> 00:13:27,299 And it makes most sense financially from a pure commercialization perspective to 240 00:13:27,299 --> 00:13:31,599 build in high EV density areas because your stations get so much more 241 00:13:31,599 --> 00:13:32,559 utilization. 242 00:13:32,599 --> 00:13:36,459 Outside of that, I mean, yeah, certainly Neve funding is really key. 243 00:13:36,459 --> 00:13:38,999 We have two stations coming online. 244 00:13:39,179 --> 00:13:43,171 If in Delaware from Neve funding, we have an Ohio station. 245 00:13:43,171 --> 00:13:45,051 that we were recently awarded. 246 00:13:45,051 --> 00:13:48,531 We have one in New Mexico actually coming online by the end of the year. 247 00:13:48,531 --> 00:13:53,571 And we have a really, really big announcement that we're not ready to share 248 00:13:53,571 --> 00:13:58,191 about a huge state where we were awarded. 249 00:13:58,191 --> 00:14:00,391 So that'll be coming out soon as well. 250 00:14:01,171 --> 00:14:04,751 But yeah, I know that's, I mean, it's a pretty exciting one. 251 00:14:04,751 --> 00:14:09,271 I don't think we're technically ready to talk about it, but basically that's a big, 252 00:14:09,271 --> 00:14:13,011 that was a big award for us and our customers. 253 00:14:13,091 --> 00:14:16,191 There's lots of good stuff happening all over the country and I think drivers 254 00:14:16,191 --> 00:14:20,411 should expect to see a lot of electric -era power charging stations across the 255 00:14:20,411 --> 00:14:22,571 country in years to come. 256 00:14:22,946 --> 00:14:25,546 So you talk, I mean, we've had a lot of people on the show that kind of talk about 257 00:14:25,546 --> 00:14:30,006 the challenges around the business model for EV chargers. 258 00:14:30,006 --> 00:14:35,646 And you look at the traditional kind of C stores or kind of fueling stations where a 259 00:14:35,646 --> 00:14:39,166 majority of their profit actually comes from selling hot dogs or what they 260 00:14:39,166 --> 00:14:42,706 actually sell in store versus actually trying to make money off gas. 261 00:14:42,706 --> 00:14:46,626 I realized some of this may be a little bit secret saucy, but I'm kind of curious, 262 00:14:46,626 --> 00:14:48,422 is it just, 263 00:14:48,422 --> 00:14:51,902 Does it have to go with the site assessment to make sure you have high 264 00:14:51,902 --> 00:14:56,362 utilization of the site or what are some of the areas that really, especially if 265 00:14:56,362 --> 00:15:01,382 you are like a person with an interest in putting in a charging location, like what 266 00:15:01,382 --> 00:15:05,282 are the kind of the tips and tricks to really make sure you're getting that high 267 00:15:05,282 --> 00:15:09,422 revenue and high margin, return on the electric vehicle infrastructure 268 00:15:09,422 --> 00:15:10,406 investment. 269 00:15:11,107 --> 00:15:14,687 Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that makes our company so cool is we're 270 00:15:14,687 --> 00:15:15,797 very tech forward. 271 00:15:15,797 --> 00:15:19,987 So we actually built an entire machine learning model just that we actually give 272 00:15:19,987 --> 00:15:23,867 our customers access to for free to help them figure out where their highest 273 00:15:23,867 --> 00:15:27,926 sessions per day will be across their portfolio of stores. 274 00:15:28,187 --> 00:15:31,347 So that is kind of the most important part of the process. 275 00:15:31,347 --> 00:15:35,167 And we actually just released a blog post on our website today about that. 276 00:15:35,167 --> 00:15:39,907 So for anybody that's listening into this, maybe you could add it to the show notes, 277 00:15:39,907 --> 00:15:40,218 Chase. 278 00:15:40,218 --> 00:15:40,899 sure. 279 00:15:40,899 --> 00:15:44,839 There's a blog post that we just put out today about actually the step -by -step 280 00:15:44,839 --> 00:15:46,999 process of how we walk our customers through this. 281 00:15:46,999 --> 00:15:50,679 But the first step is basically ingest the locations, figure out where the highest 282 00:15:50,679 --> 00:15:56,399 sessions per day are, and from there, financially stack rank the locations based 283 00:15:56,399 --> 00:16:01,019 off of the sessions per day, but also the utility tariff and any sort of kind of tax 284 00:16:01,019 --> 00:16:02,519 incentives that they can get. 285 00:16:02,519 --> 00:16:07,899 And then the output of that is a list of stations that are financially attractive 286 00:16:07,899 --> 00:16:09,179 and... 287 00:16:09,411 --> 00:16:12,971 have an associated internal rate of return. 288 00:16:12,971 --> 00:16:16,231 And from there, we can have a pretty financially literate conversation with our 289 00:16:16,231 --> 00:16:21,611 customers and just boil it down to the basics of the business and assess if the 290 00:16:21,611 --> 00:16:25,271 locations based off of the forecast are going to be attractive or not. 291 00:16:25,271 --> 00:16:29,131 That doesn't include things like in -store sales, which you're right is the number 292 00:16:29,131 --> 00:16:33,971 one profit winner of the kind of car refill business. 293 00:16:33,971 --> 00:16:37,635 I think there's like the old expression in the gas world. 294 00:16:37,635 --> 00:16:42,595 where it's like you make a nickel per gallon on gas and then you make 90 % 295 00:16:42,595 --> 00:16:46,595 profit margins on the Coke in the store because you have a captive audience. 296 00:16:46,595 --> 00:16:48,945 So that is going to be true for EV fast charging. 297 00:16:48,945 --> 00:16:55,055 And actually that's another big reason why we're so stoked about retail adjacent fast 298 00:16:55,055 --> 00:16:59,895 charging is because it provides kind of an anchor for the business and ancillary 299 00:16:59,895 --> 00:17:03,299 revenue streams that they'll be relying on for decades to come. 300 00:17:03,299 --> 00:17:07,799 and charging an amenity that complements that and gets new EV drivers to that 301 00:17:07,799 --> 00:17:08,879 location. 302 00:17:10,079 --> 00:17:12,799 So yeah, I would encourage people to check out that blog. 303 00:17:12,799 --> 00:17:15,939 It's on our website at electricaerotechnologies .com. 304 00:17:15,939 --> 00:17:19,259 And Chase, if you wouldn't mind adding it to the show notes, that'd be cool. 305 00:17:20,039 --> 00:17:20,860 Cool. 306 00:17:20,860 --> 00:17:24,150 one of the things we were talking about right before we can record was, and this 307 00:17:24,150 --> 00:17:28,230 is also interesting to me, kind of having more of a software background is as you've 308 00:17:28,230 --> 00:17:30,410 mentioned, really having a software first focus. 309 00:17:30,410 --> 00:17:34,210 And I think that has worked well for others like Tesla and Rivian, but can you 310 00:17:34,210 --> 00:17:39,050 kind of go a little bit more on the actual tech stack and what that might look like 311 00:17:39,050 --> 00:17:42,490 and kind of what separates electric air from a lot of others in the space right 312 00:17:42,490 --> 00:17:42,801 now. 313 00:17:42,801 --> 00:17:47,521 Yeah, I mean, I think like I talked about it a little bit. 314 00:17:47,521 --> 00:17:50,381 I talked about some of the important parts of it earlier on. 315 00:17:50,641 --> 00:17:53,341 But I'll go a little bit deeper. 316 00:17:53,341 --> 00:17:56,721 Basically, every single EV fast, every single electric car EV fast charging 317 00:17:56,721 --> 00:18:04,141 station has an on -site energy storage system and at least two chargers, maybe up 318 00:18:04,141 --> 00:18:04,671 to four. 319 00:18:04,671 --> 00:18:08,021 Some of our early stations only had one, but basically going forward, we'll always 320 00:18:08,021 --> 00:18:10,528 at least have two or four chargers. 321 00:18:10,528 --> 00:18:11,838 I'm sorry to cut you off there. 322 00:18:11,838 --> 00:18:15,688 What, what was the, what's kind of led to that decision to make sure you have the 323 00:18:15,688 --> 00:18:19,588 battery and then also that two to four charger versus larger sites. 324 00:18:19,601 --> 00:18:20,861 Yeah, that's a great question. 325 00:18:20,861 --> 00:18:28,501 So the two to four larger site configuration is kind of an output of the 326 00:18:28,501 --> 00:18:34,681 learnings that we've seen from the Tesla Diaspora, where all these Tesla people 327 00:18:34,681 --> 00:18:37,561 left Supercharge and they kind of went out in the world and they started to interview 328 00:18:37,561 --> 00:18:39,181 with companies like us. 329 00:18:39,441 --> 00:18:42,861 And one of the learnings from that experience was, yeah, you got to 330 00:18:42,861 --> 00:18:43,841 standardize. 331 00:18:43,841 --> 00:18:48,593 You got to provide kind of configurations that make sense within... 332 00:18:48,593 --> 00:18:50,343 all of your business motion. 333 00:18:50,343 --> 00:18:53,513 So everything from the supply chain team to the implementation team to the 334 00:18:53,513 --> 00:18:57,573 contractors you use to construct the site, having a standardized set of deliverables 335 00:18:57,573 --> 00:19:02,693 really is key to kind of simplifying the go -to -market motion. 336 00:19:02,913 --> 00:19:08,033 So that's part of the reason why we have two or four. 337 00:19:08,033 --> 00:19:13,433 I think we actually technically also have a six sizer, but standardization is key. 338 00:19:13,433 --> 00:19:18,417 It's way better to do that than say three or five. 339 00:19:18,417 --> 00:19:20,797 and maybe sometimes a seven and maybe sometimes at one. 340 00:19:20,797 --> 00:19:23,257 Like that just creates a lot of chaos internally. 341 00:19:24,377 --> 00:19:25,417 Yeah. 342 00:19:25,417 --> 00:19:25,777 Yeah. 343 00:19:25,777 --> 00:19:31,627 I mean, there's a, we think of the product as the whole charging station, you know, 344 00:19:31,627 --> 00:19:35,017 it's, it's, and everything that goes into building it from supply chain to 345 00:19:35,017 --> 00:19:40,757 implementation, to the contractors, to the software, to, of course the charger, the 346 00:19:40,757 --> 00:19:41,927 charge is just a small part. 347 00:19:41,927 --> 00:19:44,457 And I think that's, people need to uplevel their thinking. 348 00:19:44,457 --> 00:19:46,297 It's the whole charging station that matters. 349 00:19:46,297 --> 00:19:47,825 It's not just the charger. 350 00:19:47,825 --> 00:19:51,785 And part of our charging station, to answer your previous question, is a 351 00:19:51,785 --> 00:19:53,125 battery system. 352 00:19:53,185 --> 00:19:59,085 We are one of the first to really take the lead on battery -backed EV fast charging 353 00:19:59,085 --> 00:19:59,925 stations. 354 00:19:59,925 --> 00:20:03,205 There's companies out there, like Formally FreeWire, who I think went out of 355 00:20:03,205 --> 00:20:09,385 business, and or ADS Tech, who I think is still in business, that have a battery 356 00:20:09,385 --> 00:20:10,805 -integrated charger. 357 00:20:10,805 --> 00:20:15,105 For people to have a simple mental model, it's basically the difference between the 358 00:20:15,105 --> 00:20:15,473 two. 359 00:20:15,473 --> 00:20:21,013 to battery approaches is kind of like the difference between a gas station that has 360 00:20:21,013 --> 00:20:25,533 a big gas pump or tank rather underneath it. 361 00:20:25,973 --> 00:20:32,273 That's what gas stations do today versus a battery integrated charger is like a gas 362 00:20:32,273 --> 00:20:35,393 pump with a little gas tank inside of it that runs out really quick. 363 00:20:35,473 --> 00:20:37,973 And we realized that early on. 364 00:20:37,973 --> 00:20:42,693 We built a software system called Power Simulation that is like a full physics 365 00:20:42,693 --> 00:20:44,933 simulator of charging stations. 366 00:20:44,945 --> 00:20:48,985 you know, simulate 10 ,000 days and kind of figure out all the edge cases, et 367 00:20:48,985 --> 00:20:50,305 cetera, from that. 368 00:20:50,305 --> 00:20:54,105 We ran our models and we're like, yeah, like that doesn't make sense. 369 00:20:54,105 --> 00:20:57,205 But battery -backed EV fast charging stations are more technically difficult 370 00:20:57,205 --> 00:21:01,245 and you have to have really low latency power control to do it well. 371 00:21:01,245 --> 00:21:06,645 So that's a challenge and part of the reason we have an edge compute system on 372 00:21:06,645 --> 00:21:07,685 site. 373 00:21:09,905 --> 00:21:10,841 that's all good. 374 00:21:11,556 --> 00:21:15,116 so is the battery backup not so much, I think we've heard, and you're totally 375 00:21:15,116 --> 00:21:15,306 right. 376 00:21:15,306 --> 00:21:18,856 You have some that have kind of done it where it's directly tied to the charger 377 00:21:18,856 --> 00:21:21,576 and then like tests and some others will do it. 378 00:21:21,576 --> 00:21:23,976 So it's a much larger one tied to the site. 379 00:21:24,096 --> 00:21:29,256 And is the reason for tying it more to the site driven to reliability or is it to 380 00:21:29,256 --> 00:21:34,156 avoid like long -term costs due to, charges from the utility and stuff like 381 00:21:34,156 --> 00:21:36,057 that, or is it just kind of a healthy mix of both? 382 00:21:36,057 --> 00:21:38,397 It's predominantly the latter. 383 00:21:39,157 --> 00:21:43,237 It's mainly a means of keeping the total cost of ownership as low as possible, so 384 00:21:43,237 --> 00:21:47,797 keeping demand charges low and also keeping time to market low. 385 00:21:47,797 --> 00:21:52,097 We can install in as little as, I think we've done as little as four months, our 386 00:21:52,097 --> 00:21:54,077 average is probably five to six. 387 00:21:54,537 --> 00:22:00,700 It basically is a way to decrease the grid requirements on site pretty substantially. 388 00:22:00,700 --> 00:22:04,700 So minimize is like transformers and kind of the larger stuff that really can slow 389 00:22:04,700 --> 00:22:06,873 down some of these projects. 390 00:22:06,873 --> 00:22:11,813 The vast majority of EV fast charging here on out will, especially as we head into 391 00:22:11,813 --> 00:22:14,123 the next five to 10 to 20 years, it's going to be battery backed. 392 00:22:14,123 --> 00:22:18,113 And it's mainly a function of the grid being undersized and the supply chain 393 00:22:18,113 --> 00:22:19,223 challenges around transformers. 394 00:22:19,223 --> 00:22:23,133 So I think battery backed fast charging is definitively here to stay. 395 00:22:23,133 --> 00:22:25,376 And we're super happy. 396 00:22:25,376 --> 00:22:29,796 chain for that's much greater right now and then it is for transformers in the 397 00:22:29,796 --> 00:22:31,276 supporting infrastructure. 398 00:22:32,016 --> 00:22:33,196 Interesting. 399 00:22:33,196 --> 00:22:36,536 And it makes sense, but yeah. 400 00:22:36,536 --> 00:22:37,516 Yeah. 401 00:22:37,685 --> 00:22:41,025 know, just use the one that's available and cheap and getting cheaper every day as 402 00:22:41,025 --> 00:22:44,084 opposed to the one that's not available and getting more expensive every day. 403 00:22:44,084 --> 00:22:45,514 Are you seeing an overlap? 404 00:22:45,514 --> 00:22:48,684 It seems like it'd be a different chem, maybe not necessarily different chemistry, 405 00:22:48,684 --> 00:22:51,404 but slightly different supply chain around. 406 00:22:51,624 --> 00:22:55,224 people talk about like year ago, EV batteries really expensive. 407 00:22:55,224 --> 00:22:59,524 And now we're kind of seeing, due to some of the changes with that supply chain that 408 00:22:59,524 --> 00:23:05,244 the prices have come down because there's more supply is that same with the battery 409 00:23:05,244 --> 00:23:09,544 backups that your team is purchasing or just kind of coincidental. 410 00:23:10,104 --> 00:23:14,150 or still kind of niche enough market that you're able to kind of keep up with. 411 00:23:14,196 --> 00:23:15,207 the supply. 412 00:23:15,207 --> 00:23:22,647 I would not be surprised if batteries were anywhere from $20 to $30 per kilowatt hour 413 00:23:22,647 --> 00:23:28,507 from wholesalers by the end of the decade or at latest by 2035. 414 00:23:28,507 --> 00:23:35,327 It basically is getting super freaking cheap and it's largely a function of a 415 00:23:35,327 --> 00:23:38,467 huge amount of production capacity coming online across the world. 416 00:23:38,467 --> 00:23:43,327 Everything from the raw material extraction to the refining to the shipment 417 00:23:43,327 --> 00:23:44,871 systems to 418 00:23:44,871 --> 00:23:48,511 processing and manufacturing of battery cells to the battery pack manufacturing 419 00:23:48,511 --> 00:23:50,371 all the way up. 420 00:23:51,711 --> 00:23:56,151 So China is doing what China does really well, which is they are pushing the price 421 00:23:56,151 --> 00:23:58,911 curve down and down and down and are essentially commoditizing the offering. 422 00:23:58,911 --> 00:24:03,231 We saw them do this with solar and now we're seeing it with battery cells and 423 00:24:03,231 --> 00:24:06,151 they're also actually doing it with power electronics, which is something we're 424 00:24:06,151 --> 00:24:07,611 starting to think about more and more. 425 00:24:07,611 --> 00:24:09,511 But basically, 426 00:24:09,831 --> 00:24:11,471 I think it's broadly good. 427 00:24:11,471 --> 00:24:14,531 I know there's a lot of discussions about what do we do with China, what do we do 428 00:24:14,531 --> 00:24:15,551 with China. 429 00:24:16,051 --> 00:24:19,571 At the end of the day, China is making a lot of really important technologies that 430 00:24:19,571 --> 00:24:21,551 are important to the energy transition. 431 00:24:23,051 --> 00:24:26,651 They're drastically cutting the price down and down and down, and that makes the 432 00:24:26,651 --> 00:24:29,051 products more accessible for others. 433 00:24:29,111 --> 00:24:34,771 I think it's honestly, we need to figure out how to keep that relationship moving 434 00:24:34,771 --> 00:24:38,171 in a good direction, in my opinion, especially as it pertains to the clean 435 00:24:38,171 --> 00:24:39,858 energy technologies. 436 00:24:39,858 --> 00:24:40,738 For sure. 437 00:24:40,738 --> 00:24:45,778 So you're looking at primarily, I mean, I haven't heard about it as much lately, but 438 00:24:45,778 --> 00:24:49,558 obviously one of the other big kind of grid tied battery backup systems was kind 439 00:24:49,558 --> 00:24:53,878 of like redox batteries and some of these other things more usually utility scale. 440 00:24:53,878 --> 00:24:58,438 But it sounds like everything that you've been doing or like, like utility solar 441 00:24:58,438 --> 00:24:59,448 scale sort of stuff. 442 00:24:59,448 --> 00:25:03,866 It sounds like it's all just been lithium ion based grid tied batteries. 443 00:25:04,263 --> 00:25:05,263 Yeah, 100%. 444 00:25:05,263 --> 00:25:08,643 So lithium iron phosphate, that's the specific chemistry that we use. 445 00:25:08,643 --> 00:25:11,943 And we use it for a few different reasons. 446 00:25:11,943 --> 00:25:15,803 It's typically a higher power chemistry, and it's capable of longer cycle life. 447 00:25:15,803 --> 00:25:17,803 And it's actually kind of become the... 448 00:25:17,803 --> 00:25:22,423 It actually, I think, is definitely the lowest cost chemistry on the market. 449 00:25:22,423 --> 00:25:27,343 And that's largely coming from the fact that the majority of EVs are using it as 450 00:25:27,343 --> 00:25:28,583 their primary chemistry now. 451 00:25:28,583 --> 00:25:33,703 Like, we don't really need cobalt, alumina, nickel. 452 00:25:33,703 --> 00:25:35,013 solutions anymore. 453 00:25:35,013 --> 00:25:40,563 We can just use lithium ion phosphate and get the range that the average driver 454 00:25:40,563 --> 00:25:40,973 expects. 455 00:25:40,973 --> 00:25:44,423 So that's, I think, a big win for the environment and also for the cost 456 00:25:44,423 --> 00:25:45,543 structure of the product. 457 00:25:45,543 --> 00:25:49,043 I think actually there's some pretty interesting news coming out of China 458 00:25:49,043 --> 00:25:53,843 around sodium ion battery cells. 459 00:25:53,843 --> 00:25:59,743 I actually haven't studied that extensively, but technically the bill of 460 00:25:59,743 --> 00:26:01,277 materials costs 461 00:26:01,287 --> 00:26:04,547 from a raw materials perspective is cheaper for sodium. 462 00:26:04,547 --> 00:26:09,747 So if China and other manufacturers can figure out how to productize that and 463 00:26:09,747 --> 00:26:13,927 scale it up and achieve economies of scale, then theoretically we should even 464 00:26:13,927 --> 00:26:20,097 be able to go into another big step down in price for dollar per kilowatt hour, 465 00:26:20,097 --> 00:26:20,987 which would be sweet. 466 00:26:20,987 --> 00:26:24,447 And sodium ion has longer cycle life, which is really key for our application 467 00:26:24,447 --> 00:26:25,467 and others. 468 00:26:25,467 --> 00:26:29,407 So we're keeping an eye on that and pretty exciting stuff coming. 469 00:26:30,386 --> 00:26:31,406 No, that, I mean, that's great. 470 00:26:31,406 --> 00:26:34,886 And that's been such a big, I mean, I, there's definitely been more talk of 471 00:26:34,886 --> 00:26:37,486 sodium mine and unfortunately it just seems to be, it's been mostly focused on 472 00:26:37,486 --> 00:26:40,586 the Chinese market than anything from the domestic manufacturers. 473 00:26:40,586 --> 00:26:44,396 And it does kind of feel like it's where LFP was only just a few years ago. 474 00:26:44,396 --> 00:26:48,886 So I think there is a large potential for it, especially in these kinds of, grid 475 00:26:48,886 --> 00:26:53,366 related things where weight density, or energy density by weight isn't as critical 476 00:26:53,366 --> 00:26:55,096 as it is in automotive. 477 00:26:55,096 --> 00:26:57,778 And it's been impressive already just seen. 478 00:26:57,778 --> 00:27:00,858 how many of these different battery technologies have increased in that energy 479 00:27:00,858 --> 00:27:02,319 density too so quickly. 480 00:27:02,319 --> 00:27:04,619 Yeah, the energy density is an interesting one. 481 00:27:04,619 --> 00:27:12,119 And I think I haven't studied sodium ion closely, but I suspect with the vehicle 482 00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:19,639 level efficiency and range benefits that are kind of that companies like Tesla and 483 00:27:19,639 --> 00:27:24,279 Rivian and others are unlocking, we'll be able to unlock and continually use lower 484 00:27:24,279 --> 00:27:26,179 and lower energy density capable cells. 485 00:27:26,179 --> 00:27:28,519 And that's basically what happened with nickel, right? 486 00:27:28,519 --> 00:27:30,543 Everyone was like, my God, we got to put a 487 00:27:30,543 --> 00:27:34,043 crap ton of energy in these cells because everything's so expensive and the arrows 488 00:27:34,043 --> 00:27:38,463 package is not good and thermal control and it's not great and the powertrain 489 00:27:38,463 --> 00:27:39,863 isn't as efficient yet. 490 00:27:39,863 --> 00:27:43,383 And then over five to 10 years, Tesla got all those things figured out and they were 491 00:27:43,383 --> 00:27:45,763 able to unlock lithium iron phosphate. 492 00:27:45,843 --> 00:27:48,483 So perhaps they'll be able to do it again. 493 00:27:48,483 --> 00:27:50,565 So it'll be interesting to see. 494 00:27:50,618 --> 00:27:51,458 for sure. 495 00:27:51,458 --> 00:27:53,608 So we talked about kind of the battery side to it. 496 00:27:53,608 --> 00:27:56,218 So what in this stack is kind of like the next part. 497 00:27:56,218 --> 00:28:00,378 It goes from the battery to then obviously the actual charger itself and have there 498 00:28:00,378 --> 00:28:04,638 been any things in particular with that charging hardware that you guys really 499 00:28:04,638 --> 00:28:08,558 look for or that you've noticed is a big part of the reliability. 500 00:28:08,558 --> 00:28:12,618 I mean, I know from some it's kind of been charging cords and the cables to really 501 00:28:12,618 --> 00:28:14,628 get kind of down to the parts and pieces of it. 502 00:28:14,628 --> 00:28:16,691 But I'm just kind of curious what your team has seen. 503 00:28:16,691 --> 00:28:17,911 Yeah, let me share my screen. 504 00:28:17,911 --> 00:28:23,431 I don't know if people can see this on their screen, but if you're on YouTube or 505 00:28:23,431 --> 00:28:28,852 you're watching this, you'll be able to see the following. 506 00:28:28,852 --> 00:28:32,865 So here's a good slide on just like how we think about reliability. 507 00:28:32,865 --> 00:28:36,765 I think everybody and anybody in the entire industry needs to understand this 508 00:28:36,765 --> 00:28:38,675 fundamental concept, which is why I'm gonna start here. 509 00:28:38,675 --> 00:28:43,665 So there is a very big difference between just is the station online, which is one 510 00:28:43,665 --> 00:28:48,157 part of reliability, and does the station successfully charge? 511 00:28:48,157 --> 00:28:50,677 Really all that the driver cares about is that second part. 512 00:28:50,677 --> 00:28:53,627 They care about that the charging session was successful. 513 00:28:53,627 --> 00:28:54,897 They plugged in. 514 00:28:54,897 --> 00:28:59,417 They quickly tapped their credit card or Google Pay or Apple Pay. 515 00:28:59,417 --> 00:29:00,737 Boom, they're off to the races. 516 00:29:00,737 --> 00:29:05,017 And the power starts ramping up, and they can go inside and not even think about it. 517 00:29:05,017 --> 00:29:09,297 Like that walk away moment of I trust that it's charging and I don't have to fiddle 518 00:29:09,297 --> 00:29:13,877 around with my app anymore is like the delight that we are trying to capture with 519 00:29:13,877 --> 00:29:14,917 our drivers. 520 00:29:16,253 --> 00:29:17,363 So that's what we do. 521 00:29:17,363 --> 00:29:19,413 I mean, we're actually quite good at that second part. 522 00:29:19,413 --> 00:29:21,333 We're also very good at the first part. 523 00:29:21,713 --> 00:29:23,873 So the first part is just basics. 524 00:29:23,873 --> 00:29:25,513 It's like, can you tie your shoes? 525 00:29:25,513 --> 00:29:27,873 It's like, is the station online? 526 00:29:27,873 --> 00:29:28,673 Is it up? 527 00:29:28,673 --> 00:29:29,473 Is it operational? 528 00:29:29,473 --> 00:29:33,653 Well, we know down to the millisecond if it is at our stations, because we have 529 00:29:33,653 --> 00:29:37,213 that edge -compute system, and we have an LTE antenna, and we have a team of five to 530 00:29:37,213 --> 00:29:39,213 six engineers on our network operation center. 531 00:29:39,213 --> 00:29:42,613 We actually literally staff a network operation center, which is pretty crazy 532 00:29:42,613 --> 00:29:44,125 and pretty wild, but it's like a... 533 00:29:44,125 --> 00:29:47,845 cultural defect or a cultural carryover from our Starlink days. 534 00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:49,680 No, I think that's huge. 535 00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:53,020 You just don't see, I think that's where a lot of others struggle at first. 536 00:29:53,373 --> 00:29:54,693 Yeah, it's crazy. 537 00:29:54,693 --> 00:29:57,773 I mean, I don't know if this is true, but I heard the other day that Electrify 538 00:29:57,773 --> 00:30:02,813 America has 80 people on their network operations team, which is crazy. 539 00:30:02,813 --> 00:30:08,233 So we're able to basically have one person on call and monitoring the fleet at any 540 00:30:08,233 --> 00:30:08,973 given time. 541 00:30:08,973 --> 00:30:12,833 And we actually expect to, because we leverage so much software, we expect to 542 00:30:12,833 --> 00:30:17,593 continue, maybe slightly increase, but predominantly continue that single source 543 00:30:17,593 --> 00:30:18,472 coverage. 544 00:30:18,472 --> 00:30:19,916 Yeah, that's why. 545 00:30:19,941 --> 00:30:24,641 Even as we go and build eventually more charging stations than Electrify American 546 00:30:24,641 --> 00:30:27,221 EV Go, which I actually think we will go do. 547 00:30:28,161 --> 00:30:32,841 So that's a key way to just discern if it's up and operational. 548 00:30:32,841 --> 00:30:36,121 Some of the more challenging things are like, okay, did the cable get cut? 549 00:30:36,121 --> 00:30:39,011 Well, you have to be able to tell with your software if the cable got cut. 550 00:30:39,011 --> 00:30:42,121 And if it did get cut, then you need to alert the network operations center 551 00:30:42,121 --> 00:30:46,741 operator immediately, at which point they can go and look at the telemetry and 552 00:30:46,741 --> 00:30:48,477 figure out, yeah, it got cut. 553 00:30:48,477 --> 00:30:52,277 we need to trigger a technician to go out there. 554 00:30:52,277 --> 00:30:57,277 So at that point, or let's say if the screen breaks or if there's like a pump or 555 00:30:57,277 --> 00:31:00,877 some power module, something like that that fails, we can see all of that. 556 00:31:00,877 --> 00:31:06,017 And we then go and trigger a maintenance technician to go out and fix it. 557 00:31:06,017 --> 00:31:12,297 So we're very much in the monitor early, monitor often, and monitor with software 558 00:31:12,297 --> 00:31:15,640 frame of mind so that we can stay ahead of downtime issues. 559 00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,221 The more challenging part is the charging session reliability. 560 00:31:18,221 --> 00:31:24,181 So in order to successfully charge, you have to oversee and successfully initiate 561 00:31:24,181 --> 00:31:25,941 everything in the following sequence. 562 00:31:25,941 --> 00:31:31,421 Car shows up, they plug in, they tap their payment, their credit card, whatever. 563 00:31:32,141 --> 00:31:37,541 The charger actually connects and starts talking to the car. 564 00:31:37,541 --> 00:31:42,191 There's about 10 step to 20 step process that they go through. 565 00:31:42,191 --> 00:31:45,095 There's a checklist of electrical safety tests. 566 00:31:45,233 --> 00:31:49,533 Things like ground isolation and faults that they need to go and work through 567 00:31:49,533 --> 00:31:52,033 together, the car and the charger. 568 00:31:52,253 --> 00:31:55,893 And then if that all passes, then the session initiates. 569 00:31:55,893 --> 00:32:01,013 At which point you start to ramp up power and the car says, give me more, give me 570 00:32:01,013 --> 00:32:02,373 more, give me more. 571 00:32:02,573 --> 00:32:07,093 And at which point you'll kind of reach your peak power and then you'll then start 572 00:32:07,093 --> 00:32:08,653 to do the longer dwell. 573 00:32:08,653 --> 00:32:12,173 And of course, as everybody knows in our industry, like then the power rolls off as 574 00:32:12,173 --> 00:32:14,693 you get to higher and higher states of charge in the battery. 575 00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:20,521 You also need to be able to be ready for a driver to come by and quickly rip out the 576 00:32:20,521 --> 00:32:22,081 connector because drivers do that all the time. 577 00:32:22,081 --> 00:32:24,901 So you need to be able to safely turn it off really quick. 578 00:32:25,441 --> 00:32:31,021 And if anything in that sequence goes wrong, you need to have kind of... 579 00:32:31,021 --> 00:32:34,881 Well, first off, you should just design your software such that it doesn't go 580 00:32:34,881 --> 00:32:35,261 wrong. 581 00:32:35,261 --> 00:32:39,781 If the payment doesn't work, you failed. 582 00:32:39,781 --> 00:32:42,833 You failed the charging succession reliability test. 583 00:32:42,833 --> 00:32:48,573 If the power doesn't initiate or the car can't talk to the charger, you failed. 584 00:32:48,573 --> 00:32:52,453 So designing the software at a lower level to make sure that those don't fail is 585 00:32:52,453 --> 00:32:53,633 super key. 586 00:32:53,693 --> 00:32:59,833 But if there is a failure, you need to be able to quickly recover it in software so 587 00:32:59,833 --> 00:33:01,193 that the driver doesn't notice. 588 00:33:01,193 --> 00:33:06,633 For example, power cycling some power module so that it comes back up safely and 589 00:33:06,633 --> 00:33:11,193 is ready to then deliver power into the car as an example. 590 00:33:11,889 --> 00:33:15,469 All that to say, that's the brains of the operation. 591 00:33:15,469 --> 00:33:17,829 We started this conversation talking about our technology. 592 00:33:17,829 --> 00:33:19,189 That's the core technology. 593 00:33:19,189 --> 00:33:22,749 It's really this vertically integrated software that makes Tesla really good at 594 00:33:22,749 --> 00:33:23,359 what they do. 595 00:33:23,359 --> 00:33:26,729 It's what makes Rivian really beautiful, really good at what they do and all the 596 00:33:26,729 --> 00:33:28,219 fancy controls that they have in their cars. 597 00:33:28,219 --> 00:33:35,249 And it's what makes electric era really fantastic at charging our customers, EV 598 00:33:35,249 --> 00:33:36,316 drivers cars. 599 00:33:36,316 --> 00:33:36,736 Yeah. 600 00:33:36,736 --> 00:33:39,976 One of the things I hear a lot from EV drivers is like, why, why don't they work? 601 00:33:39,976 --> 00:33:41,176 This just seems so simple. 602 00:33:41,176 --> 00:33:44,336 It's been solved in so many other industries in a way. 603 00:33:44,336 --> 00:33:48,876 And I think the more you learn about the industry or the technology, especially you 604 00:33:48,876 --> 00:33:53,376 realize it isn't the concept of what you're trying to execute is pretty simple, 605 00:33:53,376 --> 00:33:58,236 but there are a lot of things involved with making sure it's done efficiently and 606 00:33:58,236 --> 00:33:59,476 then also safely. 607 00:33:59,476 --> 00:34:01,692 And in your opinion, is that. 608 00:34:01,692 --> 00:34:05,132 just because a lot of others have struggled with having a really strong kind 609 00:34:05,132 --> 00:34:10,652 of software first approach with kind of making the experience more difficult for 610 00:34:10,652 --> 00:34:13,143 EV drivers and kind of reliability in general. 611 00:34:13,143 --> 00:34:18,654 I think the very like... 612 00:34:18,654 --> 00:34:22,114 A very skeptical and pessimistic person in me says, man, I just don't think they 613 00:34:22,114 --> 00:34:22,934 care. 614 00:34:23,574 --> 00:34:27,374 I think that one of the core cultural things that makes our company so 615 00:34:27,374 --> 00:34:30,014 exceptional is we're just super obsessed with EV drivers. 616 00:34:30,014 --> 00:34:31,934 And so is Tesla, and so is Rivian. 617 00:34:31,934 --> 00:34:36,754 There's an element of love in their products and an element of love in ours. 618 00:34:37,534 --> 00:34:41,474 And you look at Electrify America, you look at the origin story, they came out of 619 00:34:41,474 --> 00:34:46,134 the diesel gate scandal and it was just this big corporate thing that got stood up 620 00:34:46,134 --> 00:34:48,254 out of a government... 621 00:34:48,254 --> 00:34:54,574 payout mandate and how could you have love for anything in that situation? 622 00:34:54,574 --> 00:34:57,514 Not to talk bad about Electrofair America, I'm sure there are people that very much 623 00:34:57,514 --> 00:35:02,534 care about EV drivers at that company, but I just think if you're a startup or 624 00:35:02,534 --> 00:35:07,614 you're, which Tesla was and Rivian was obviously, you have to have an obsessive 625 00:35:07,614 --> 00:35:11,194 approach to high product quality experiences. 626 00:35:11,594 --> 00:35:15,294 So I think it's just like almost a metaphysical answer to your question. 627 00:35:15,294 --> 00:35:17,534 The technology on top of it. 628 00:35:17,618 --> 00:35:20,618 There's a lot more that I'm not talking about that also has to go right. 629 00:35:20,618 --> 00:35:25,718 So it's like, you got to get all of these things together, working seamlessly, whose 630 00:35:25,718 --> 00:35:28,798 value is greater than the sum of the individual parts. 631 00:35:31,218 --> 00:35:37,138 And the way to work yourself through that pain and chase those nines is really just 632 00:35:37,138 --> 00:35:40,248 coming back to the labor of love that is electric era. 633 00:35:40,248 --> 00:35:44,598 It's that mentality that we have every day that causes us to approach our jobs with 634 00:35:44,598 --> 00:35:45,534 intensity. 635 00:35:45,534 --> 00:35:50,774 Because we really truly believe that we got to get EV charging infrastructure out 636 00:35:50,774 --> 00:35:53,514 there that's awesome if people want to drive EVs. 637 00:35:53,897 --> 00:35:54,607 Yeah, that's great. 638 00:35:54,607 --> 00:35:59,017 And we've definitely been talking about kind of like looking back on the charging 639 00:35:59,017 --> 00:36:02,837 space and how electric areas started and grown. 640 00:36:02,837 --> 00:36:07,137 I'm kind of curious on your thoughts looking forward, like what do you see are 641 00:36:07,137 --> 00:36:13,017 some of the interesting trends in the space and kind of ways that you're looking 642 00:36:13,017 --> 00:36:17,457 to help stand out even further or like possibly even accelerate the rollout for 643 00:36:17,457 --> 00:36:18,226 electric era. 644 00:36:18,226 --> 00:36:24,866 Yeah, so of the things that we're comfortable talking about externally, I 645 00:36:24,866 --> 00:36:27,006 mean, I guess there's a lot. 646 00:36:27,006 --> 00:36:33,626 So we have a very comprehensive and almost, I think, 10, at least, year view 647 00:36:33,626 --> 00:36:34,686 of our product roadmap. 648 00:36:34,686 --> 00:36:40,066 And it is pretty technically intense. 649 00:36:40,086 --> 00:36:44,986 Like, we're aiming to do to EV fast charging what NVIDIA did to GPUs. 650 00:36:44,986 --> 00:36:47,462 Like, we're thinking that deeply in that... 651 00:36:47,462 --> 00:36:49,622 afield about the problem. 652 00:36:53,602 --> 00:36:56,722 And obviously, we're early in that planning exercise. 653 00:36:56,722 --> 00:37:00,702 So it's not like we're going to commit to doing one thing or the other. 654 00:37:00,702 --> 00:37:03,582 But of the things that we've identified that are really interesting, it really 655 00:37:03,582 --> 00:37:07,562 kind of comes back to solving some of the core points that we hit on the pod today, 656 00:37:07,562 --> 00:37:14,442 which is power access, power efficiency, power delivery. 657 00:37:14,834 --> 00:37:18,234 Reliability, instantaneous and low latency control. 658 00:37:19,974 --> 00:37:23,734 Product and customer experience, the driver experience at retail locations. 659 00:37:23,734 --> 00:37:27,194 We're going to announce some really cool stuff there down the road as well. 660 00:37:27,194 --> 00:37:30,934 So I think EV drivers are going to be really, really fired up about our product 661 00:37:30,934 --> 00:37:31,514 roadmap. 662 00:37:31,514 --> 00:37:35,514 And I truly think we're going to be the cutting edge technology in this space. 663 00:37:35,514 --> 00:37:40,454 I think that's a pretty bold statement, but with what we see coming, I think it's 664 00:37:40,454 --> 00:37:40,994 actually true. 665 00:37:40,994 --> 00:37:44,754 I think Tesla is very split focused. 666 00:37:44,818 --> 00:37:47,318 You know, they're going to go build optimists and they're going to go build 667 00:37:47,318 --> 00:37:49,328 like new EVs and FSD. 668 00:37:49,328 --> 00:37:52,198 They don't really have a whole lot of bandwidth to think about the charging side 669 00:37:52,198 --> 00:37:53,158 of things. 670 00:37:53,218 --> 00:37:58,118 And that's the beauty of focus in a company is you can go in compound value 671 00:37:58,118 --> 00:38:03,248 around a specific niche of customer value that is highly differentiated. 672 00:38:03,248 --> 00:38:05,838 It creates a highly technical and cutting edge solution. 673 00:38:05,838 --> 00:38:07,778 So I would just say, stay tuned. 674 00:38:07,778 --> 00:38:12,838 I mean, we got a lot of stuff coming out over the next year alone and, and, and the 675 00:38:12,838 --> 00:38:15,034 years following that are going to be even more exciting. 676 00:38:15,261 --> 00:38:15,841 That's great. 677 00:38:15,841 --> 00:38:20,781 And I think just looking at the broader EV market right now, there's, I think a lot 678 00:38:20,781 --> 00:38:26,081 of narrative around that it's EV sales are slowing when in fact, other than kind of 679 00:38:26,081 --> 00:38:29,321 Tesla slowing down their sales overall, it seems like a lot of the auto manufacturers 680 00:38:29,321 --> 00:38:33,321 are growing and increasing in their year over year sales. 681 00:38:33,321 --> 00:38:40,641 What do you see is the best way to kind of get people over the hump if they're 682 00:38:40,641 --> 00:38:42,653 skeptical about EVs or 683 00:38:42,653 --> 00:38:47,153 anything that's really kind of stood out to you as like the experience of it. 684 00:38:47,153 --> 00:38:49,953 Cause I think there are so many narratives, but when you live with it day 685 00:38:49,953 --> 00:38:52,213 to day, you realize, this is so much easier. 686 00:38:52,213 --> 00:38:55,053 And there's a lot of benefits over the others. 687 00:38:55,053 --> 00:38:58,553 I'm just kind of curious with what you've done and your experience, what you've 688 00:38:58,553 --> 00:39:01,097 found to try to 689 00:39:01,245 --> 00:39:02,235 Get people interested. 690 00:39:02,235 --> 00:39:06,385 I think the most common and easiest way is usually just get butts in seats and drive 691 00:39:06,385 --> 00:39:07,385 an electric vehicle. 692 00:39:07,385 --> 00:39:11,745 But I'm just kind of curious if there's anything that you've seen that has been of 693 00:39:11,745 --> 00:39:16,565 interest or kind of changed that perspective for others that might be 694 00:39:16,565 --> 00:39:19,370 skeptical or kind of leery of making the switch to electric vehicle. 695 00:39:19,370 --> 00:39:22,579 Well, I mean, as somebody who's watched 696 00:39:22,579 --> 00:39:30,019 Rockets land themselves and satellite constellations take fold and new 697 00:39:30,019 --> 00:39:33,199 technologies in the automotive space emerge. 698 00:39:33,699 --> 00:39:39,119 It's just inevitable to me that better products and better technologies are going 699 00:39:39,119 --> 00:39:40,119 to come out. 700 00:39:40,119 --> 00:39:46,039 I think the framework for people that are considering EV drive in EV is you should 701 00:39:46,039 --> 00:39:52,079 select a very good EV car company that is reputable and has a lot of ... 702 00:39:52,595 --> 00:39:55,475 excitable fans like Tesla and Rivian specifically. 703 00:39:55,475 --> 00:39:56,835 And you should go buy their cars. 704 00:39:56,835 --> 00:39:58,995 I think a lot of EVs are just not that exciting. 705 00:39:58,995 --> 00:40:02,655 They're just kind of like, eh, it's our attempt. 706 00:40:02,655 --> 00:40:04,675 We're not really good engineers and we don't really care. 707 00:40:04,675 --> 00:40:05,355 And here's the thing. 708 00:40:05,355 --> 00:40:06,295 Here's a concept car. 709 00:40:06,295 --> 00:40:07,395 Let's see how it does. 710 00:40:07,395 --> 00:40:09,785 Like those cars are terrible and I would not buy them. 711 00:40:09,785 --> 00:40:12,035 I think like Kia is good. 712 00:40:12,035 --> 00:40:13,115 Rivian is great. 713 00:40:13,115 --> 00:40:13,685 Fantastic. 714 00:40:13,685 --> 00:40:13,995 Really. 715 00:40:13,995 --> 00:40:14,935 I love their cars. 716 00:40:14,935 --> 00:40:16,915 I think Tesla sells incredible cars. 717 00:40:16,915 --> 00:40:18,415 There's others as well. 718 00:40:18,415 --> 00:40:20,495 Then there's a lot that are not good. 719 00:40:21,011 --> 00:40:24,071 The ones that are good are incredible. 720 00:40:24,311 --> 00:40:26,811 EVs are just so freaking sweet. 721 00:40:26,811 --> 00:40:30,311 It's basically the difference between a flip phone and an iPhone. 722 00:40:30,351 --> 00:40:34,491 It's the difference between a horse and buggy and a car, an ICE car. 723 00:40:34,491 --> 00:40:36,891 It's a quantum step improvement. 724 00:40:36,970 --> 00:40:42,851 You are in a rocket ship that accelerates extremely fast, that has extremely low 725 00:40:42,851 --> 00:40:46,391 energy and maintenance costs, that drives you everywhere. 726 00:40:46,911 --> 00:40:49,591 It's just a quantum leap forward. 727 00:40:51,283 --> 00:40:55,883 And there's nothing really worth focusing on than that in the EV adoption sector. 728 00:40:55,883 --> 00:40:59,703 Like we should just be talking about how the product is better because it is a 729 00:40:59,703 --> 00:41:02,043 fundamentally superior automotive experience. 730 00:41:02,123 --> 00:41:07,703 And yeah, if anybody else is, if anybody in the audience is interested in driving 731 00:41:07,703 --> 00:41:11,743 one, yeah, go get in it, go get your butts in your seats as Chase mentioned and go 732 00:41:11,743 --> 00:41:12,673 experience it for yourself. 733 00:41:12,673 --> 00:41:15,343 Cause once you sit in the car and you press the accelerator, you'll know exactly 734 00:41:15,343 --> 00:41:16,603 what I'm talking about. 735 00:41:17,246 --> 00:41:18,706 No, I think you're spot on. 736 00:41:18,706 --> 00:41:22,266 I mean, it's interesting you mentioned Kenaki and Hyundai, because I think of the 737 00:41:22,266 --> 00:41:26,606 traditional automakers, they have been the best at making that transition with their 738 00:41:26,606 --> 00:41:30,316 product portfolio for making compelling EVs. 739 00:41:30,316 --> 00:41:34,446 And then otherwise it's kind of been the completely new startups that really go 740 00:41:34,446 --> 00:41:38,606 back to that focus and kind of love on product that have really been able to get 741 00:41:38,606 --> 00:41:42,906 people passionate about cars who either haven't been or even convince people who 742 00:41:42,906 --> 00:41:44,862 have been traditional car enthusiasts. 743 00:41:44,862 --> 00:41:47,901 to kind of get out and board the EV bandwagon as well. 744 00:41:47,901 --> 00:41:52,101 Yeah, they have like a classic, some of the traditional legacy companies, they 745 00:41:52,101 --> 00:41:53,971 have a classic innovators deliver problem. 746 00:41:53,971 --> 00:41:59,061 They don't want to have one product line cannibalized their other product line. 747 00:41:59,321 --> 00:42:05,288 So it kind of expects corporate strategies to reflect that constraint. 748 00:42:05,288 --> 00:42:09,328 there's definitely some, there's definitely been proven to be the clean 749 00:42:09,328 --> 00:42:13,068 sheet design versus kind of these platforms from the traditional auto OEMs 750 00:42:13,068 --> 00:42:15,548 that are trying to serve a bunch of different platforms. 751 00:42:15,908 --> 00:42:19,308 I think they've done better than I thought they would, but it's also still a clear 752 00:42:19,308 --> 00:42:23,388 difference in a clean sheet design for an electric vehicle versus some of these ones 753 00:42:23,388 --> 00:42:28,198 that have to do is hybrid all of the above and kind of don't do any of them. 754 00:42:28,198 --> 00:42:32,478 Well, or not even that it's just like, they're not inspiring when you drive one, 755 00:42:32,478 --> 00:42:33,768 but, 756 00:42:33,768 --> 00:42:35,558 I realized we're kind of coming up on our time. 757 00:42:35,558 --> 00:42:40,468 And so I, one thing I wanted to ask you about is around, we definitely see like a 758 00:42:40,468 --> 00:42:42,228 lot of different. 759 00:42:42,248 --> 00:42:45,438 Evie charging some like peak and then kind of take off and tamper off. 760 00:42:45,438 --> 00:42:48,568 Others kind of might not go to the highest peak number, but we'll hold there for 761 00:42:48,568 --> 00:42:51,048 quite a while with electric era chargers. 762 00:42:51,048 --> 00:42:55,488 Are there like specific, is it going to be a three 50 kilowatt system station? 763 00:42:55,488 --> 00:43:00,288 So if I roll up with a Hummer, Evie or whatever I have, or what, what are kind of 764 00:43:00,288 --> 00:43:01,128 like, what should I expect? 765 00:43:01,128 --> 00:43:02,696 It's kind of like the base. 766 00:43:02,696 --> 00:43:07,416 minimum usually charge rate and kind of expect for a charging experience for those 767 00:43:07,416 --> 00:43:09,134 kinds of road trips. 768 00:43:09,373 --> 00:43:15,033 Yeah, so currently everything that we have in market right now is 200 KW peak. 769 00:43:16,013 --> 00:43:20,493 Without sharing too many details, we're going to be a lot higher than that for our 770 00:43:20,493 --> 00:43:25,813 V3 product, which people should expect to see next year. 771 00:43:25,813 --> 00:43:34,213 We'll do an announcement probably early 2025 timeframe, if all things are nominal. 772 00:43:34,653 --> 00:43:38,913 So peak power capabilities are going to go up quite a bit. 773 00:43:39,144 --> 00:43:43,984 On the kind of rollback question that you talked about, like the way that our 774 00:43:43,984 --> 00:43:47,484 software works is we will give as much power as the car can accept. 775 00:43:47,484 --> 00:43:54,384 And so we're always car limiting the charging station power flows as opposed to 776 00:43:54,384 --> 00:43:56,044 holding back. 777 00:43:56,044 --> 00:44:00,954 Unless there's extreme high utilization and we expect like a large surge coming, 778 00:44:00,954 --> 00:44:05,604 then we'll start to kind of... 779 00:44:05,924 --> 00:44:11,544 peak shave here and there and split power and more intelligently allocate power to 780 00:44:11,544 --> 00:44:14,984 cars so that we have enough energy and reserve for the forecasted demand. 781 00:44:14,984 --> 00:44:17,944 We don't really do that at all that often. 782 00:44:19,244 --> 00:44:25,644 But so that's kind of our current... 783 00:44:25,644 --> 00:44:29,724 But rather it is something that might happen in the event that there is extreme 784 00:44:29,724 --> 00:44:31,124 usage at the station. 785 00:44:31,604 --> 00:44:36,048 So outside of that though, we just give as much power to the car as it can take. 786 00:44:36,655 --> 00:44:37,435 No, that's great. 787 00:44:37,435 --> 00:44:39,835 I mean, even 200 kilowatts is great. 788 00:44:39,835 --> 00:44:44,035 So many of these are, I'm seeing you in like 50 to a hundred kilowatts. 789 00:44:44,035 --> 00:44:46,935 And I just don't think that's like really a number that's truly like future 790 00:44:46,935 --> 00:44:48,375 -proofed. 791 00:44:48,375 --> 00:44:50,885 So to, and then there's still so many EVs that can't even hit that. 792 00:44:50,885 --> 00:44:53,715 So I think that's, that's definitely great to see. 793 00:44:53,715 --> 00:44:57,295 And then to hear you're doing even more down the future, I think it's going to be 794 00:44:57,295 --> 00:44:58,786 great for a lot of drivers. 795 00:44:58,786 --> 00:45:03,286 Yeah, one thing I noticed briefly is just like this trend line, which is peak power 796 00:45:03,286 --> 00:45:05,186 rate over time. 797 00:45:05,186 --> 00:45:10,026 In 2008, the Roadster, I think, had only a 27 kW peak charging rate. 798 00:45:10,026 --> 00:45:16,266 And over time, the leading power charge rate has increased to about, I think, a 17 799 00:45:16,266 --> 00:45:17,556 % annualized growth rate. 800 00:45:17,556 --> 00:45:20,686 This is like the Moore's law for fast charging. 801 00:45:20,686 --> 00:45:24,377 I call it the law of the electric era, which is... 802 00:45:24,482 --> 00:45:28,342 which I think will hold true until we get up to cars that can charge at about 1 .2 803 00:45:28,342 --> 00:45:32,202 or 1 .5 megawatts for light duty vehicles, at which point you're basically on parity 804 00:45:32,202 --> 00:45:35,182 with the time that it takes to fill up a gas car. 805 00:45:35,342 --> 00:45:39,902 So I don't know how long that'll take, and if the 19 % annualized year over year 806 00:45:39,902 --> 00:45:42,922 growth rate will continue, but that is certainly an observation that's driving 807 00:45:42,922 --> 00:45:45,748 our product roadmap, and we think about a lot. 808 00:45:45,933 --> 00:45:46,933 That's great. 809 00:45:46,933 --> 00:45:49,313 Well, thank you so much for coming on today, Quincy. 810 00:45:49,313 --> 00:45:52,233 I would be respectful of your time or coming up at the top of the hour. 811 00:45:52,233 --> 00:45:56,173 But for anyone who's listening, what's a great way for them to learn more and kind 812 00:45:56,173 --> 00:46:00,593 of reach out to you to look at possibly installing some electric air chargers at 813 00:46:00,593 --> 00:46:01,544 their facilities. 814 00:46:01,544 --> 00:46:04,624 Yeah, well, I mean, I think if you're an EV driver, I'll answer your second 815 00:46:04,624 --> 00:46:05,104 question first. 816 00:46:05,104 --> 00:46:08,644 But if you're an EV driver, I would just encourage you to follow us on our socials. 817 00:46:08,644 --> 00:46:11,884 So we have a large amount of people that follow us on LinkedIn. 818 00:46:11,884 --> 00:46:13,464 You can find us at Electric Era. 819 00:46:13,464 --> 00:46:15,364 We also have a large following on Twitter. 820 00:46:15,364 --> 00:46:17,984 You can follow us at Electric Era Tech. 821 00:46:17,984 --> 00:46:22,084 You can follow me on Twitter as well at Quincy Edmund Lee. 822 00:46:22,364 --> 00:46:25,864 And then generally, if you're a customer and you're interested in adding the fast 823 00:46:25,864 --> 00:46:29,424 charging, just go to our website, click in the upper right hand corner, request a 824 00:46:29,424 --> 00:46:31,368 demo and schedule time with 825 00:46:31,368 --> 00:46:37,948 one of our amazing team members to just kind of help you figure out how to 826 00:46:37,948 --> 00:46:41,988 navigate this next big transition in car refill. 827 00:46:42,588 --> 00:46:46,588 There's also a great amount of material on our website if you're not yet ready to 828 00:46:46,588 --> 00:46:48,108 take a call with our team. 829 00:46:48,108 --> 00:46:54,088 Just go to our blog under our website and feel free to peruse around and see what 830 00:46:54,088 --> 00:46:56,037 you like and then give us a call when you're ready. 831 00:46:56,037 --> 00:46:56,857 Thanks so much, Quincy. 832 00:46:56,857 --> 00:46:58,317 We'll have to have you on soon. 833 00:46:58,317 --> 00:47:01,817 I've been really excited to follow what Electric Era has been doing and some of 834 00:47:01,817 --> 00:47:03,517 the upcoming announcements as well. 835 00:47:03,517 --> 00:47:04,938 I'm sure we'll have to have you back soon. 836 00:47:04,938 --> 00:47:05,428 Thanks, Chase. 837 00:47:05,428 --> 00:47:06,129 Good to be here. 838 00:47:11,982 --> 00:47:15,882 Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Grid Connections podcast with Quincy 839 00:47:15,882 --> 00:47:18,082 Lee, the founder of Electric Era. 840 00:47:18,082 --> 00:47:21,602 We hope you enjoyed our deep dive into the world of EV charging and learned how 841 00:47:21,602 --> 00:47:25,502 Electric Era is making a mark with its innovative software and customer focused 842 00:47:25,502 --> 00:47:26,622 approach. 843 00:47:26,622 --> 00:47:30,002 If you found this episode insightful, please share it with at least one other 844 00:47:30,002 --> 00:47:32,042 person who would appreciate it as well. 845 00:47:32,042 --> 00:47:35,422 Also, don't forget to leave us a positive review on our podcast page. 846 00:47:35,422 --> 00:47:39,422 It helps us reach more listeners like you and continue bringing top tier content 847 00:47:39,422 --> 00:47:40,546 every week. 848 00:47:40,814 --> 00:47:43,876 Until next week, this is The Great Connections podcast signing