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Good morning Grid Connections listeners.

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Welcome back to Grid Connections, the podcast where we explore all things transportation,
clean energy, and our power grid connecting all of these systems together.

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Today we find out what's really behind the EV charger downtime that too many of us have
been experiencing and how do we more importantly fix it.

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In this episode of Grid Connections, we sit down with Kameale Terry, CEO and co-founder of
ChargerHelp.

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for a powerful look at the real world challenges plaguing EV charging reliability,
especially in fleet and public charging infrastructure.

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Kameale

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unpacks the hidden software interoperability issues that drive 90 % of charger failures,
the limitations of OCPP 1.6, and why early EV infrastructure business models

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unintentionally left reliability behind.

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She also reveals how ChargerHelp is using field service data to proactively solve these
problems, delivering performance guarantees for the nation's most complex charging

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networks.

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You'll hear about how poor contract structures and bundled software costs

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broke early charge reliability, why fleets, not public stations, are driving innovation in
uptime and service, what standards and accountability the industry urgently needs in 2025,

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along with the huge opportunity for parking operators and rideshare platforms to fill
reliability gaps.

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If you're interested in fleet electrification, EV infrastructure, or the business model
shaping our clean transportation future, this episode is a must listen.

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Don't forget to share this episode with at least one colleague or friend who's curious
about the future of electric vehicle charging.

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If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a five star review on your favorite podcast
platform.

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It really does help others discover grid connections and help us continue to bring on more
guests like you will be listening to today and sign up for our new newsletter using the

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link in the show notes to stay ahead of the curve on electric vehicle trends and insights

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As a reminder, this week kicks off the Electric Vehicle Charging Summit and Expo in Las
Vegas, which I will be at along with many others in the space.

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Please reach out to us either on our social media or you can even send me an email at
chase at connectingthegrid.com.

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Plus our new consultant website just went live, which we'll have much more about in the
coming weeks, but you can check that out at Gridconnections.co.

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with that.

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Enjoy.

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Kameale, thank you so much for coming on today.

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I've heard a lot about what you and your program is doing, and so really excited to be
speaking with you today.

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But for anyone that might not be familiar, you can just share a little bit about yourself,
how you got involved with the space, and what ChargerHelp is aiming to do.

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Sure, well one, thanks for having me.

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So I mean, know, at Charger Hope, I tell folks we fix charging stations because they
break, it's a thing.

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And then the part that's, you know, they say about 30 % of the current infrastructure can
be found broken at any given time.

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We see about 90 % of those issues being like software interoperability issues.

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And so I kind of like cut my teeth in this industry about 10 years ago at a company that
was making software for charging stations.

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and I was EV driver support.

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And so how I was introduced really to the EV charging space was through that driver's
experience where oftentimes, you know, it could have been met with confusion or not

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clarity.

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And, you know, I would be looking at log data and not being able to actually essentially
verify what drivers were experiencing in the field.

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And so,

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Peaked my interest.

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come from a household of an entrepreneur that used to build out server rooms here in Los
Angeles.

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And so it's been really nerdy my entire life.

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And so, yeah, that's like, kind of like the foundation of who I am and, and, you know, a
little bit about charger help, which I know we're going to get into right now.

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That well, that's great.

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And that, is kind of like the perfect background, honestly, having that, because that is,
I mean, I've been playing around driving, building EVs for over two decades now, which

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sounds just crazy to me.

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Every time I say it, just even most people think EVs are only a couple of years old, but I
go back, you go back like a decade or a little more in that first round of.

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They always have these massive touchscreens and all these other kinds of chargers and they
looked great when they went in.

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And then maybe there were some, wouldn't even last a month.

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I know.

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And then that screen would be down, unfortunately.

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And it's one of those things that, it's still obviously an issue with chargers, making
sure they're reliable, but was really a big issue back then.

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So I would kind of love to hear since your time about like that experience, like maybe
some of those learnings.

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And then we can kind of go into like what you saw, what you learned from that and how that
was maybe the Genesis for charger help.

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Sure, I think the biggest, you know.

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I think the biggest learning is around business models, which is very interesting, right?

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So you think early on, most of the funding that was being used to deploy infrastructure
was coming through utility programs, get a little bit of federal funding, but it was a lot

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of like utility and state programs.

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And when the utility folks were put in for these programs, one, they would have
installation and O &M all on the same line item.

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Also, most companies were bundling software fees with hardware.

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So you could bundle 10 years, five years of software fees into the cost of the hardware.

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And so when, know, and on top of that, wasn't, no one was really making money off of, you
know, charging people to use the station.

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A lot of folks were deploying the stations for free, you know, and wasn't charging
drivers.

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And so, sure.

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we actually expand on that a little bit?

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Because those are like the three things you just said are huge, especially around the O
&M.

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Can you just give a little detail of why that's so important and what those impacts were
for drivers?

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absolutely.

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I mean, this the biggest reason was that one when there was an issue with the charging
station, there wasn't usually any funding left for O right?

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Or there was only a parts warranty.

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The other piece is that if a site host and this is a person that got this asset for free,
if they wanted to stop

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the software payments or whatever happened to the software, it didn't matter because
everybody was paid for five years of software fees.

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So there was a misalignment from the structure of how these agreements were put forth.

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And so with that, right, you ended up with drivers, lot of early adopters that, you know,
they were the ones that took the brunt of it.

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And then on my end, you know, I would talk about like, this driver's having this
experience.

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lot of people are like, well, no, that's a driver user error.

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But I was always just so curious to just like, man, like there's something, there's
something up here.

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So I think like that is kind of like the, that was the biggest problem.

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It's like, it was the business model.

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It was how funding was put forth.

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It was also the structure of these contracts that was not in alignment with reliability.

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And then on top of that, this is an early market with a, you know, early adopters.

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So all of that compounded on itself to not create the bet it the best.

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right, consumer experience because it was not aligned with the consumer, right?

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It wasn't aligned with the consumer.

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No, thank you.

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That's, that's, that's a great kind of breakdown of that.

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Um, but yeah, if you can kind of keep just going from there and then jumping into the
charge rail.

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Yeah, sure.

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and so that's why, you know, that's why the problem existed.

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And so for me, being at my prior, that prior company, I did a lot of deployment, got super
interested in what we call open charge plane protocol.

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It's open standard.

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Um, was actually created by the open charge Alliance out of Europe.

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Interestingly enough though, in the U S there were companies that had already deployed
software before OCP even existed.

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And so some of the things that we started to see in regards to like interoperability
issues, software issues more, more than likely was due to the fact that people tried to,

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you know, bandaid a protocol on top of a proprietary protocol.

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And so you kind of just keep building on top of things that, you know,

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break or aren't working well.

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And so that's why today when we talk about 30 % of the infrastructure being inoperable or
when we talk about the software saying that it's available when it's actually not usable,

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a lot of it goes back into the architecture of the software, right?

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And then also the implementation of the open charge point protocol.

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So nonetheless, at Charger Health, you what I was really interested in is that we used to
get so much information from field service technicians, but no one ever...

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wrote it down, right?

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Like people would text you information back or email you information back.

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But you think about, sometimes nobody had been to this site before, but you have this
human in front of a site, you know, testing a car, they're seeing the behavior of the car,

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the behavior of the station.

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And then you're tracking that against your log data set.

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And sometimes these things didn't align up.

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And so was so fascinating to me.

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So in 2020, I essentially kind of stood up a field service organization.

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And so, you know, every time a software provider couldn't figure something out, they would
dispatch my technicians.

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But what we did is we created a field service app.

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And so I was just downloading all of the just stuff that we understood and discovered.

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We had structured texts, know, free form texts.

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So much so that last year we had 19 million unique data points from just troubleshooting
software issues.

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in the field.

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And so at Charger, we utilize that data set, you know, to essentially offer, we're moving
into performance guarantees.

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So I can look at a software hardware and I can tell you a breakage rate off of it more
than likely.

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And I can also price, give you a fixed fee, three years, including labor.

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And then, you know, we're starting to move into this place where I actually have teeth
against that product.

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And I say, if I don't hit this performance, you can, you know, you can bill me, right?

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So yeah, that's one.

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is so fascinating because I think especially from the consumer side or like the EV driver
side, we always talk about the software in the vehicle.

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Why isn't this working?

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like you only kind of see if you actually get to a site to charge, especially if it's
level two, I mean, you just take it out and plug it in, right?

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Maybe there's like a QR code side of it.

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Maybe you start getting into all the kind of the funkiness with having to have an app for
level two.

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But especially once you start to get like DC fast charging, there will be these touch
screens and all this stuff.

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And that unto itself is its own kind of like, as you're talking about, like, it seems like
it can be easy to blame the user for the error versus the actual hardware design and

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implementation of how the software plays into it.

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But what most of you drivers, so they might go in and I'll just throw one out there.

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You go out there, you plug in, it shows that it's derated.

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Well, as an EV driver, that's a terrible experience and you don't really know why.

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But when you have so much of this data on the back, mean, that's why I so excited to talk
to you.

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It's like finding out this other side of it and the area where these improvements can be
made.

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And at the end of the day, the driver doesn't really care why it's derated.

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They don't need to know.

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They just want it to work.

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And I think a service with what you guys are providing is so crucial to kind of put in
that serious link to really remove that friction.

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Yeah.

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And I'm kind of curious like with what your team works on like what are Okay, I've got
like a thousand questions But I'm kind of curious of like the breakdown what you see

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between like level two If there's any unique things you see between like level two charger
breakdown rates and issues versus like DC fast charge

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Yeah, I would say,

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One, you know, a lot of the level twos today are modular units, right?

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So a lot of folks are kind of like, if it stops working, they swap it and put another one
in there.

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But, you know, but, that's more of a, I think we've seen more modular units probably in
the last four years, but there's a lot of level twos that are deployed that are not

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modular, right?

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That you do have to go in and change out specific components and that modems and all of
that, right?

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So there is a level of complexity there.

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And then other thing is whether it's a level two or a DC fast charger, it's all operating
on OCPP, right?

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So open charge point protocol.

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And a lot of the infrastructure that's deployed today is on OCPP 1.6J, or I've even seen
some stuff on 1.5.

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And so you still find the issues.

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I think that the difference between the level 2s and the DC fast chargers ends up coming
to be the complexity of the components.

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So DC fast chargers typically have way more components.

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And once again, we're getting more DC fast chargers today that are also modular, but you
still have a whole suite of things out there in the field.

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that are not modular.

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You know, there was one DC fast charger provider where there was about 15 screws of going
around the top of the station.

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And I have to have a tech out there to come apart all those things.

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And then the inside unit of all those parts are so compacted and you think you're
switching on one thing and then that's not the thing.

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So there is definitely a desire to design improvement, which I think we're starting to
see, but the other stuff still exists.

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But what I wanted to tell you too, is like,

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Interestingly enough, know, public stuff is interesting.

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And of course it's frustrating for the EV driver, but most of my customers are fleet
operators.

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And so you have these people where, you know, they're investing in electric vehicles
because they're banking on, you know, this reduction in the total cost of ownership from a

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gas petroleum vehicle, but then come to find out they can't roll their truck or whatever
have you, because they have a software interoperability issue.

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And then you couple load management software on top of that.

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It gets real funky, real fast.

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And so.

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That's really where, you know, I think that's really where we've sat more.

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Cause I tried to do so much stuff with the public charging, but nobody wants to pay,
right?

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There's no funding for it.

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And usually a site host would just rip out the station before they would try to put a
warranty on it.

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That, it pains me to hear that, that is unfortunately the world we still live in is so
true.

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yeah, you just brought a lot more, really interesting things to cover, but I guess kind of
just to follow up on that, like, let's say if someone's listening and they want to be a

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site host or w what if, cause I want to get into the fleet stuff, but what if they are
looking to have a charger spiral?

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Like what, what are recommendations you have for those kinds of people to make sure to
avoid?

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Or to best guarantee the most successful and like longest, best chance for these level two
chargers or even a DC fast charger to go in if they're like a business or something.

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Absolutely.

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I mean, the first thing, we have, we, last year I put out a, a report called the EV
charging reliability report.

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So I anonymize all my data, all my data against the recommendation of my investors, but I
did it.

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So I would actually start with that report just so you could get an understanding what has
been the lay of the land, because that will allow you to ask the right questions when

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you're chatting with software providers and hardware providers.

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Right.

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So that's one.

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The other piece that I would make sure that you really understand is your master's service
agreement and what type of warranty you're actually getting.

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So oftentimes with a lot of the programs, they'll give you parts warranty, right?

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But we see that so much of the issues is not necessarily directly related to parts, it's
more software comms issue.

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So I would really ask that software provider, whoever is the reseller, whoever you're
buying the infrastructure from.

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You know, how do you deal when there's a software problem?

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Do you software provider have a service level agreement with the hardware provider?

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Cause what a lot of folks may not know is that most of this infrastructure is not
vertically integrated, right?

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The person you're buying the station from could by chance not make the software that your
customers are interacting with or even the hardware.

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And recently, recently I've actually found out that there's hardware people out there that
don't make their own firmware.

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So you have like

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three lines of people that technically have to like properly work together in order to
ensure reliability.

194
00:15:56,724 --> 00:15:59,604
So I would just get very clear on that.

195
00:15:59,684 --> 00:16:07,144
And then the last piece is really having, I've been telling like industry and folks too,
like I think we need teeth.

196
00:16:07,144 --> 00:16:11,564
Like, okay, you're going to promise me 97 % of time if you don't hit it, then what?

197
00:16:11,564 --> 00:16:19,132
Put some penalties in those master service agreements because you're putting up capital in
order to deploy this infrastructure and folks need to start, you

198
00:16:19,190 --> 00:16:22,402
acting accordingly and really putting the consumer first.

199
00:16:22,574 --> 00:16:23,454
No, that's great.

200
00:16:23,454 --> 00:16:28,427
And I think that, that's, I think that's a great way to look at it.

201
00:16:28,427 --> 00:16:31,149
Cause I've seen this, not just in the electric vehicle space.

202
00:16:31,149 --> 00:16:36,522
There's a truth to this also like in, solar where people are just so excited to have the
technology.

203
00:16:36,522 --> 00:16:38,082
They're just like, okay, whatever.

204
00:16:38,203 --> 00:16:39,584
They just want it in.

205
00:16:39,584 --> 00:16:49,739
And then you kind of run into these unfortunate, like long-term kind of long tail problems
that could have been solved upfront with like a strong MSA to make sure you have not only

206
00:16:49,739 --> 00:16:51,652
the technology one, but it.

207
00:16:51,652 --> 00:16:54,243
insurers that I'll be successful for a long time.

208
00:16:54,424 --> 00:17:00,709
So let's, let's kind of flip over to the fleet side of stuff and the TCO around that.

209
00:17:00,709 --> 00:17:07,334
So what, let's say I'm a fleet operator and I'm coming to you, Kameale, and I'm just like,
okay, I'm going to do it.

210
00:17:07,575 --> 00:17:11,638
I have a mandate from my boss or whatever, whether the person's bought in or not.

211
00:17:11,638 --> 00:17:13,419
need to flip over to EVs.

212
00:17:13,790 --> 00:17:20,805
I guess maybe one part would be just, I think probably most of our listeners know already,
but maybe we should just start with,

213
00:17:21,274 --> 00:17:28,862
the advantages of going to an electrified fleet and then kind of step into like what that
ideal process looks like to implement.

214
00:17:30,564 --> 00:17:33,715
diversification of like energy sources is very hopeful.

215
00:17:33,715 --> 00:17:37,887
I look, I mean, that I don't think we're ever gonna get to a day where everything is easy.

216
00:17:37,887 --> 00:17:39,668
And I don't think we have to write.

217
00:17:39,708 --> 00:17:47,241
But I do think like right there, need more advancement in petroleum, like we can't
continue to operate petroleum that we are today with the level of emissions and

218
00:17:47,241 --> 00:17:50,793
efficiencies there, like, we're gonna die from pollution.

219
00:17:50,793 --> 00:17:55,935
So there has to be a I think that we have to start looking at a balance.

220
00:17:55,935 --> 00:17:57,388
So I think like that's one.

221
00:17:57,388 --> 00:17:57,638
Right?

222
00:17:57,638 --> 00:18:07,218
Like whether you believe in climate change or whatever, it's very clear that this type of,
you know, this type of energy source causes emissions.

223
00:18:07,218 --> 00:18:09,380
So why not find one that doesn't?

224
00:18:09,380 --> 00:18:09,611
Right?

225
00:18:09,611 --> 00:18:10,622
And you can balance it out.

226
00:18:10,622 --> 00:18:11,793
So I think that that's one thing.

227
00:18:11,793 --> 00:18:20,748
I think the other piece too, is that we find time and time again, that electric vehicles
are just a superior experience, point blank period, you know, like from

228
00:18:20,748 --> 00:18:29,595
whether it is the technology that you're able to integrate in now into this like vehicle,
whether it is switching over to autonomous, you know, at some point and just overall total

229
00:18:29,595 --> 00:18:31,076
cost of ownership.

230
00:18:31,337 --> 00:18:36,310
It's just a better experience, especially as battery, you know, pricing and things like
that come down and make cheaper.

231
00:18:36,310 --> 00:18:40,014
So that's my, you know, that's that.

232
00:18:40,014 --> 00:18:40,795
No, totally.

233
00:18:40,795 --> 00:18:49,900
I think like, there's even like a dark side to it where I'm just like, even if you don't
want to believe about the climate change or the environmental thing, let's say hell, they

234
00:18:49,900 --> 00:18:52,201
even polluted more for some reason.

235
00:18:52,301 --> 00:18:57,984
The total cost of ownership and the financials of it are so hard to ignore that it does.

236
00:18:57,984 --> 00:18:58,715
And I agree with you.

237
00:18:58,715 --> 00:19:04,528
I think there's probably some extreme cases where some things may still be like even
natural run on natural gas or something.

238
00:19:04,588 --> 00:19:08,110
But yeah, that TCO just is so

239
00:19:08,240 --> 00:19:10,391
hard to ignore that it just seems like long-term.

240
00:19:10,391 --> 00:19:15,695
And I think that's where we're seeing just the largest and most consistent adoption is
around fleet operators.

241
00:19:15,695 --> 00:19:20,764
But let's get into that part now and like talk about what that ideal implementation looks
like.

242
00:19:20,764 --> 00:19:25,730
And maybe someone who's trying to do a fleet change or what they really need to be
thinking about.

243
00:19:25,730 --> 00:19:26,160
Absolutely.

244
00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:29,932
Yeah, look, there's so many companies out there now that's hoping on the fleet side.

245
00:19:29,932 --> 00:19:35,034
So usually when we come in is that you've already deployed, you have a whole bunch of
different hardware manufacturers.

246
00:19:35,034 --> 00:19:35,955
It's very chaotic.

247
00:19:35,955 --> 00:19:37,386
We're your friends, right?

248
00:19:37,386 --> 00:19:46,230
If not, if you're looking to start, you know, there's people like Volterra, there's people
like Electraera, Terrawatt, you know, they have different solutions, you know, for fleets

249
00:19:46,230 --> 00:19:47,981
and they'll manage the whole thing for you.

250
00:19:47,981 --> 00:19:50,832
So I advocate for either, you know, either or.

251
00:19:51,377 --> 00:19:57,056
My customer is typically the one that, know, they don't want a Volterra, Terrawatt,
whatever, right?

252
00:19:57,056 --> 00:20:02,716
They want to have somebody that's managing an all-site, whatever, you know, but they still
need a single plane, a glass.

253
00:20:02,716 --> 00:20:05,439
And so that we would be your people where we would say,

254
00:20:05,656 --> 00:20:08,188
You have multiple hardware providers, multiple software providers.

255
00:20:08,188 --> 00:20:09,940
You have a load management system.

256
00:20:09,940 --> 00:20:12,863
You don't have to operate in all of those different systems.

257
00:20:12,863 --> 00:20:14,344
We'll give you a single plane of gas.

258
00:20:14,344 --> 00:20:16,496
And then we're also offering this performance guarantee.

259
00:20:16,496 --> 00:20:17,607
So that's where we would come in.

260
00:20:17,607 --> 00:20:25,165
But I think it is important for people to know there are these alternatives out there
where there's like charging as a service or fleet as a service where they'll just bring

261
00:20:25,165 --> 00:20:26,826
the whole thing in, which I think is helpful.

262
00:20:26,826 --> 00:20:28,078
It's a helpful solution.

263
00:20:28,078 --> 00:20:31,020
We have to have multiple solutions in this industry.

264
00:20:31,032 --> 00:20:34,313
And we can't think that just one thing is gonna rule all things, you know?

265
00:20:34,313 --> 00:20:35,792
Like people should have choice.

266
00:20:35,792 --> 00:20:36,272
For sure.

267
00:20:36,272 --> 00:20:45,276
And I think that's a great call out because there are some industries that a capex versus
op ex have different kinds of business models in that place into their balancing the own

268
00:20:45,276 --> 00:20:45,446
way.

269
00:20:45,446 --> 00:20:46,867
So I think that's a great call out.

270
00:20:46,867 --> 00:20:51,148
Having these different models is beneficial to get to the same end goal.

271
00:20:52,029 --> 00:21:03,504
With would you say kind of the ideal like it sounds like from what you're saying versus
like a large company going to one of those companies you mentioned.

272
00:21:03,504 --> 00:21:04,655
Versus like charger help.

273
00:21:04,655 --> 00:21:10,318
you seeing like majority of the businesses and fleets you're kind of working with are kind
of like smaller to medium.

274
00:21:10,318 --> 00:21:19,423
And so you're a good service that they can kind of, since they don't maybe have the
ability or they don't want to have all of this internally, they might have like one

275
00:21:19,423 --> 00:21:22,504
maintenance or some sort of like fleet person.

276
00:21:22,504 --> 00:21:32,270
And then you're kind of the level of having that glass, having that visibility into it to
kind of help support them and give them the tools and knowledge they need to execute and

277
00:21:32,270 --> 00:21:33,400
make the decisions.

278
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:43,276
Or for those listening, how would you think, how should they think of how charger help
kind of fits into their day to day at these fleets?

279
00:21:43,277 --> 00:21:52,189
Yeah, so we've seen more like medium and larger businesses where they don't want to put
all their eggs in one basket, right?

280
00:21:52,189 --> 00:22:00,571
And so yeah, they put out an RFP for multiple hard, you know, I don't know if we have any
customers, small fleets, but I'll take them.

281
00:22:00,571 --> 00:22:02,852
But not today, huh?

282
00:22:02,852 --> 00:22:03,610
Yeah.

283
00:22:03,610 --> 00:22:11,249
I know you had a right, a wide range and I didn't mean it like that was, but it sounds,
it's an interesting model to what you're talking about where it's like, maybe they're

284
00:22:11,249 --> 00:22:14,443
starting at a pilot program level or something.

285
00:22:14,443 --> 00:22:17,467
It doesn't, do you see many of they're just like, we're going all in.

286
00:22:17,467 --> 00:22:20,280
It seems like they're probably going to phase it in at least.

287
00:22:20,280 --> 00:22:24,962
Well, so I mean, like for our customer base, they're usually folks that went all in early.

288
00:22:25,340 --> 00:22:27,654
And now it's pain, right?

289
00:22:27,654 --> 00:22:40,690
So we have one customer where they have 110 charging stations, DC fast charger charging
stations and about a crazy amount of buses, because they move workers around about three

290
00:22:40,690 --> 00:22:43,671
different very large campuses in Sunnyvale.

291
00:22:43,751 --> 00:22:45,156
And so, but they had...

292
00:22:45,156 --> 00:22:51,476
three different hardware manufacturers, like two different software providers, and then on
top of that, a load management system on top of all of it.

293
00:22:51,476 --> 00:22:57,656
And they were getting over a hundred alerts a day from all those different platforms and
nothing really talked with it.

294
00:22:57,656 --> 00:22:59,336
It was, was chaos.

295
00:22:59,396 --> 00:23:00,657
so, yeah.

296
00:23:00,657 --> 00:23:01,386
not, not to cut you off.

297
00:23:01,386 --> 00:23:13,332
That's super fascinating because sometimes I find the more fascinating case studies are
sometimes the ones that are not going well or are like the, the, absolutely wrong way.

298
00:23:13,332 --> 00:23:17,454
And then how do you kind of untangle that to kind of like fix it?

299
00:23:17,454 --> 00:23:21,936
So, I don't know if that's the count one example, but could you kind of share a little bit
about that?

300
00:23:21,936 --> 00:23:26,924
If like, this is, for those listening, like this is what you really shouldn't do.

301
00:23:26,924 --> 00:23:27,964
Yeah.

302
00:23:29,285 --> 00:23:30,366
Mm hmm.

303
00:23:30,366 --> 00:23:34,917
Yeah, I mean, I think the problem here is like a lot of folks just didn't think the
stations will break.

304
00:23:34,917 --> 00:23:44,822
So I think you had a lot of and then when folks are selling you stuff, you know, they're
not really selling like, there's a lot of things we're trying, we're trying, industry is

305
00:23:44,822 --> 00:23:45,292
trying.

306
00:23:45,292 --> 00:23:47,973
We're doing the best we can.

307
00:23:47,973 --> 00:23:54,242
But I mean, if you end up in this spot where it's just like, you know, this level of
chaos.

308
00:23:54,242 --> 00:24:00,026
we could come in, can plug into all of those systems, bring it into one place and then get
filter all of that, right?

309
00:24:00,026 --> 00:24:10,493
So, but I think it is hard to, I don't know how beneficial it is to have so many different
hardware folks and so many different software.

310
00:24:10,493 --> 00:24:16,928
And I know a lot of companies go that route because like, they're like, well, if we go
with one and it fails, then, you we're in trouble.

311
00:24:16,928 --> 00:24:23,091
But then it's kind of like, okay, but if you go with three and they all fail, what do you
do?

312
00:24:24,998 --> 00:24:27,520
I mean, have you seen that where all three fail?

313
00:24:29,723 --> 00:24:32,005
And what caused them to fail?

314
00:24:32,005 --> 00:24:36,269
Was it different reasons or was it the inability to communicate together?

315
00:24:36,269 --> 00:24:37,269
All the above.

316
00:24:37,269 --> 00:24:41,623
yes, I mean, it was definitely different reasons because every hardware operates a little
different.

317
00:24:41,623 --> 00:24:45,907
We don't have a ton of standardization in regards to even like the physical units of the
hardware, right?

318
00:24:45,907 --> 00:24:48,991
Which is something that I've been really trying to work on with industry.

319
00:24:48,991 --> 00:24:53,785
It's like, how do we standardize even the components or when you source components
post-warranty?

320
00:24:53,785 --> 00:24:56,918
Because that's something that has not been standardized in our industry.

321
00:24:57,294 --> 00:24:58,045
so that's one thing.

322
00:24:58,045 --> 00:25:06,191
The other thing is, is that sometimes they fail to connect and talk with one another,
because especially if you're doing load management, you're managing the load of all of

323
00:25:06,191 --> 00:25:08,364
those assets, no matter the hardware.

324
00:25:08,364 --> 00:25:14,247
And the idea of OCPP is that it is an open standard, right?

325
00:25:14,247 --> 00:25:17,480
And protocol that you should be able to.

326
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:23,244
But I think because we're still a little early in the industry, you're seeing that that
doesn't really exist yet.

327
00:25:23,352 --> 00:25:24,623
But the industry is improving.

328
00:25:24,623 --> 00:25:28,356
guess that's the other thing I just want to say is like, everything doesn't suck, right?

329
00:25:28,356 --> 00:25:40,244
But in order for us to get to a place of like high impact and to really allow these fleet
operators to take advantage of total TCO reduction, because you save money on the total

330
00:25:40,244 --> 00:25:45,067
cost until you have to roll a truck 1500 times because the station doesn't work.

331
00:25:45,708 --> 00:25:49,150
Well, we have, know, we have, it's not horrible.

332
00:25:49,150 --> 00:25:52,572
And I know that the industry is doing its best to try to get it together.

333
00:25:53,516 --> 00:25:56,735
Um, but we, we, we do, we do have problems.

334
00:25:56,735 --> 00:25:59,510
We do have problems that we need to fix with, you know, all industries.

335
00:25:59,510 --> 00:26:03,610
and I think what's really fascinating to add to that is also the EVs themselves.

336
00:26:03,610 --> 00:26:10,330
Cause you're talking about like in 2017, 2018, well back then the only options would have
been pretty much sedans.

337
00:26:10,330 --> 00:26:15,830
And now we've got vans and now we've actually got trucks and now semis are becoming a
thing.

338
00:26:15,830 --> 00:26:27,152
So it's really interesting to think about how, especially if you have a system that's five
to six years old, lot of this alone with the software side hadn't been designed or set up.

339
00:26:27,152 --> 00:26:29,652
potentially to be covering such a wide range of vehicles.

340
00:26:29,652 --> 00:26:30,602
No, not at all.

341
00:26:30,602 --> 00:26:38,785
And we're starting to see that now some manufacturers are going all the way to like
actually rip out old stations and put in new ones just because there's so many different

342
00:26:38,785 --> 00:26:48,077
types of vehicles out there now and the stations, you know, there's software on the
stations wasn't made for it, you know, so we're like, I always tell people the good thing

343
00:26:48,077 --> 00:26:53,269
to look at is like the transition between the horse and buggy and cars and automobiles.

344
00:26:53,269 --> 00:26:55,729
And there's like this time period where you have both on the roads.

345
00:26:55,729 --> 00:26:56,619
There's all these pictures.

346
00:26:56,619 --> 00:26:58,916
I think Henry Ford Museum has it where it's like,

347
00:26:58,916 --> 00:27:03,556
people literally typing their car through like horse manure.

348
00:27:04,316 --> 00:27:06,196
so we're kind of there.

349
00:27:06,196 --> 00:27:07,216
Like that's where we're at right now.

350
00:27:07,216 --> 00:27:12,762
We're like driving our electric vehicle charging stations through horse manure and we're
gonna figure it out.

351
00:27:12,762 --> 00:27:14,262
that's something I like to remind people.

352
00:27:14,262 --> 00:27:23,782
like, it is kind of crazy to think about where that is such a, um, I was going to say
beautiful, but maybe not beautiful analogy, but, um, accurate analogy.

353
00:27:23,822 --> 00:27:29,562
Cause if you look at all these transformations of disruptive technologies, especially for
transportation, takes decades.

354
00:27:29,722 --> 00:27:38,202
And even then the fact that we can talk about how much this industry has already changed
between like 2018, 2019 and now shows that it's going to take a while, but it's happening

355
00:27:38,202 --> 00:27:40,152
at a very impressive rate.

356
00:27:40,152 --> 00:27:40,832
absolutely.

357
00:27:40,832 --> 00:27:41,373
Yeah.

358
00:27:41,373 --> 00:27:50,677
And I think the part that I've been like so proud to see is like the car OEMs and US based
car OEMs commitment to building beautiful products.

359
00:27:50,677 --> 00:27:50,987
Right?

360
00:27:50,987 --> 00:27:57,300
Like I chatted with the guy the other day, he was like talking about how like he hated
electric vehicles and he just thought it was so annoying.

361
00:27:57,300 --> 00:27:59,682
And so but he like works at this car company.

362
00:27:59,682 --> 00:28:01,683
So he's like, I went and like got an electric vehicle.

363
00:28:01,683 --> 00:28:02,833
He's like, I've had it for two weeks.

364
00:28:02,833 --> 00:28:04,028
And it's the greatest experience.

365
00:28:04,028 --> 00:28:04,964
I was like,

366
00:28:05,136 --> 00:28:05,528
Yeah.

367
00:28:05,528 --> 00:28:07,622
like at the end of the day, people like a great experience.

368
00:28:07,622 --> 00:28:15,940
If you remove the politics, if you remove the noise, a lot of these electric vehicles are
just like delightful experiences.

369
00:28:15,940 --> 00:28:24,265
Well, no, and I, hundred percent agree with you and it's such a weird time and I really
don't want to go on a political side of it, but I feel like a lot of early EV adopters

370
00:28:24,265 --> 00:28:26,136
like, know, this is all about is like butts in seats.

371
00:28:26,136 --> 00:28:27,056
We gotta get butts in seats.

372
00:28:27,056 --> 00:28:31,928
And I think that still remain, but a lot of people start thinking, well, now the vehicles
are sold.

373
00:28:31,928 --> 00:28:32,540
can be figured out.

374
00:28:32,540 --> 00:28:34,420
The dealerships will figure this out.

375
00:28:34,661 --> 00:28:42,775
And this will be like the one political thing I'll say is like, now you have like Sean
Hannity who just bought a test and he's telling all these people who's been telling for

376
00:28:42,775 --> 00:28:43,994
like decades.

377
00:28:43,994 --> 00:28:46,305
how terrible EVs are like, this thing's really fat.

378
00:28:46,305 --> 00:28:50,186
It's like, he's saying all the things we've known and I'm more and more convinced.

379
00:28:50,186 --> 00:28:52,417
It's like, yeah, you just need butts in seats.

380
00:28:52,417 --> 00:29:03,891
just, it doesn't matter how like the only way that my perception changes, especially in
any sort of left or right echo chamber, just get a butt in a seat and then they're going

381
00:29:03,891 --> 00:29:06,282
to be the biggest advocates for just exactly that.

382
00:29:06,282 --> 00:29:07,862
Just like, this thing's awesome.

383
00:29:07,873 --> 00:29:10,473
which is, mean, goes back to all this stuff with consumer choice.

384
00:29:10,473 --> 00:29:10,764
Fine.

385
00:29:10,764 --> 00:29:12,295
Let the consumer choose.

386
00:29:12,935 --> 00:29:18,498
And when they do, like a better experience and Americans love spending money.

387
00:29:18,498 --> 00:29:20,319
That's one thing we are really good at.

388
00:29:20,319 --> 00:29:21,279
So.

389
00:29:21,889 --> 00:29:23,466
That is unfortunately true.

390
00:29:23,466 --> 00:29:24,730
But no, totally.

391
00:29:25,091 --> 00:29:34,285
But yeah, I guess let's take a little bit step back and go to, I guess that example you
were talking about where like, okay, all these these three different systems weren't

392
00:29:34,285 --> 00:29:35,056
working.

393
00:29:35,056 --> 00:29:40,958
And then how did you guys kind of come in and like, what was the recommendation to clean
and fix all that up?

394
00:29:41,380 --> 00:29:49,800
Yeah, so one of the things that was really interesting to us was that there wasn't really
anyone on site to watch the behavior of the stations as they were pushing off these

395
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:50,680
alerts.

396
00:29:50,680 --> 00:30:00,240
And so we found that about maybe, I want to say at least 60 % of the alerts actually did
not have any issues with deploying electricity.

397
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:03,240
And so what we ended up finding out was that like the integrations were off.

398
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:07,920
And so technically what was happening is that every time for a subset of those alerts,

399
00:30:08,004 --> 00:30:12,664
It was misfiring that there was a problem, but it was actually that the charge was just
complete.

400
00:30:13,004 --> 00:30:14,364
And so it's just stuff like that.

401
00:30:14,364 --> 00:30:17,584
But then you learn the system, but it's just because it's an integration.

402
00:30:17,584 --> 00:30:21,064
And you think about these people are integrating with so many different hardware, so many
different softwares.

403
00:30:21,064 --> 00:30:30,784
And maybe you threw a firmware update for whatever reason, maybe fat fingers that threw
something off, but it becomes so confusing if you're only listening to what is coming off

404
00:30:30,784 --> 00:30:33,422
of the station and you don't have human eyes there.

405
00:30:33,422 --> 00:30:43,161
So for us, we usually do about three months of having a technician that is going out every
time, every time and validating the actual visibility, the behavior, collecting a data.

406
00:30:43,161 --> 00:30:50,988
And we're getting, we have a proxy service so we can get the data from the station in real
time, but we are mirroring it against what is actually happening.

407
00:30:50,988 --> 00:30:56,232
What are the actual behaviors against what is the log data stating?

408
00:30:56,324 --> 00:31:00,924
Most of the time what we'll do is we'll end up finding a pattern of when things are
misbehaving.

409
00:31:00,924 --> 00:31:04,164
And then we can validate, is this a true issue or not?

410
00:31:04,164 --> 00:31:10,204
If it's not, now that pattern will no longer be recognized as an issue because we know
it's not an issue, right?

411
00:31:10,204 --> 00:31:12,284
Or yes, this is a true issue.

412
00:31:12,284 --> 00:31:14,024
Let's figure out how to solve it.

413
00:31:14,024 --> 00:31:18,464
And then now you have a pattern like, okay, every time I see this pattern, this is the
solution.

414
00:31:18,464 --> 00:31:20,944
And so we pull that into our backend system.

415
00:31:20,944 --> 00:31:24,452
And so the next time what ends up happening, we don't have to roll trucks anymore.

416
00:31:24,452 --> 00:31:31,392
because you've been able to essentially add a bigger viewpoint to the data set that's
coming off of that station.

417
00:31:32,412 --> 00:31:39,532
So yeah, so with them, we were with them for, know, spent a lot of capital the first three
months of having a human on site.

418
00:31:39,532 --> 00:31:46,292
But since then, that site is up 98%, and that's 100 or something stations with buses.

419
00:31:46,292 --> 00:31:47,492
It's very impressive.

420
00:31:47,492 --> 00:31:49,852
And it's not that the stations don't break anymore, right?

421
00:31:49,852 --> 00:31:52,760
But it's more things that we can do over the air and solve.

422
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:54,664
than having to roll a truck out.

423
00:31:54,664 --> 00:32:02,721
But I think that that's how, you know, if you bring software into the built environment
that has multiple different, like, software connections, we have to figure out a way to

424
00:32:02,721 --> 00:32:04,384
consistently learn.

425
00:32:04,474 --> 00:32:09,120
that like if you start the more variables you put into it, you're inherently going to just
have more issues.

426
00:32:10,001 --> 00:32:11,343
I guess you mentioned it.

427
00:32:11,343 --> 00:32:17,302
So I'm curious, like, with that implementation, cause it is a buses, are they doing like a
vehicle to grid thing at all?

428
00:32:17,302 --> 00:32:20,856
Or is that kind of, that's a little too early for that or.

429
00:32:20,994 --> 00:32:28,399
I don't think they're doing anything with, don't, I'm not, look, I, cause, I don't even
know if that utility is doing or anything like that yet.

430
00:32:28,399 --> 00:32:31,114
I mean, it's so many buses, which I'm just like.

431
00:32:32,351 --> 00:32:34,773
There's potential for it at least someday.

432
00:32:35,213 --> 00:32:38,095
So, that that's, that's really cool.

433
00:32:38,095 --> 00:32:43,129
So when you go through, in that example, you're, you're making these changes.

434
00:32:43,129 --> 00:32:44,659
You're seeing the updates.

435
00:32:44,900 --> 00:32:53,466
One of the things we kind of talk about in the more general automotive space is like
software defined vehicles and making that difference and how electric vehicles are kind of

436
00:32:53,466 --> 00:32:56,147
naturally just easier for that transformation.

437
00:32:56,368 --> 00:32:59,990
And when it comes to fleets, you kind of have the conversation about like.

438
00:33:00,068 --> 00:33:10,041
with this level of software in the vehicles themselves and now obviously the chargers,
you're going from what traditionally was more reactive maintenance and that kind of stuff

439
00:33:10,041 --> 00:33:12,482
to being more proactive.

440
00:33:12,742 --> 00:33:15,913
And that's kind like the crawl walk run when you do these fleet electrification.

441
00:33:15,913 --> 00:33:24,855
So I'm kind of curious what you could share to give that perspective to our listeners as
like, okay, a lot of like traditional fleet operators are doing like, okay, we have to do,

442
00:33:24,855 --> 00:33:26,948
they're used to more the reactive set.

443
00:33:26,948 --> 00:33:33,344
And now with electrification, what does a proactive with especially the software layer
unlock for a fleet?

444
00:33:33,848 --> 00:33:41,474
I mean, at least from like a preventative maintenance perspective, it's really, it's a
couple of things that are really cool.

445
00:33:41,474 --> 00:33:44,017
Like one, because a lot of stuff is starting to have sensors.

446
00:33:44,017 --> 00:33:48,751
And so you can really start knowing what your maintenance cost is going to be for the
year.

447
00:33:48,751 --> 00:33:53,465
And like, what's kind of like, they kind of like a whisper before it breaks, right?

448
00:33:53,465 --> 00:33:59,049
So you can study things enough to know like, okay, I'm going to have to, you know, swap
this thing out at this time period.

449
00:33:59,049 --> 00:34:01,341
And there's some things that we've gotten really, really good at.

450
00:34:01,341 --> 00:34:02,468
So I think like,

451
00:34:02,468 --> 00:34:04,108
That's like really helpful.

452
00:34:04,108 --> 00:34:12,048
And then the other part, the same thing too, in regards to like behavioral issues, you can
start picking up like, oh, I think there's something going on with the station.

453
00:34:12,048 --> 00:34:14,348
Most of the time it's like post a firmware update.

454
00:34:14,348 --> 00:34:20,928
You can get a little, you know, a little bit preventative there, but I think there's more
data to be collected from the field.

455
00:34:20,928 --> 00:34:31,528
But I think that the sensors and even OCPP 2.0 is gonna be very helpful to that, where you
have these assets that are connected to a computer and you can learn so much from them and

456
00:34:31,528 --> 00:34:32,500
plan better.

457
00:34:32,500 --> 00:34:38,465
I think that's the other part about that being proactive is being able to plan your cost.

458
00:34:38,724 --> 00:34:38,974
Right.

459
00:34:38,974 --> 00:34:45,440
I think that's a great call up because like that is what it's unlocking is like, like
you're saying, well, if you know, there's this upcoming maintenance.

460
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:51,765
Now you can bring that system down proactively work on it versus like it's supposed to be
doing its thing.

461
00:34:51,765 --> 00:34:58,491
And now it's actually, bringing down more resources or at least not allowing them to do
what they need to do during the work time.

462
00:34:58,491 --> 00:35:03,536
And that has the additional cost overruns and unexpected costs associated with that.

463
00:35:03,536 --> 00:35:06,564
So I think that into itself is a pretty cool.

464
00:35:06,564 --> 00:35:13,988
layer and one of the things that I try to talk to you with a lot of fleets like this is
like, know it's probably going to be some short term pain, but this is the end goal.

465
00:35:13,988 --> 00:35:16,339
And this is actually a pretty realistic end goal.

466
00:35:16,380 --> 00:35:24,949
And, and I think, I don't want to like poo poo on vehicle to grid and stuff, but I think
sometimes people get like really, they sell the vision of like, you can have all this

467
00:35:24,949 --> 00:35:25,139
stuff.

468
00:35:25,139 --> 00:35:28,136
And I think that's really cool, but that's such a far advanced thing.

469
00:35:28,136 --> 00:35:35,370
And there's so many of these like lower, more immediate wins that you can unlock with
fleet electrification to really focus on.

470
00:35:35,742 --> 00:35:37,123
that are pretty easy to accomplish.

471
00:35:37,123 --> 00:35:39,454
I think is really what a lot of people are interested in.

472
00:35:39,454 --> 00:35:46,488
I want to go back to a couple of things you said though, just around the industry and
things that could be improved.

473
00:35:46,488 --> 00:35:48,139
So one was like standard.

474
00:35:48,139 --> 00:35:56,443
So I'd love to hear what you kind of think about that, but just in general, what, are some
of the things, especially maybe I'm more on the charger hardware side that you would like

475
00:35:56,443 --> 00:36:01,316
to kind of just see become more, common or like.

476
00:36:01,516 --> 00:36:05,388
Be more universal and then maybe we can get into the standard specifically.

477
00:36:05,494 --> 00:36:11,118
Yeah, mean, look, at the end, I'm tread lightly here because I understand everybody's
running their own business.

478
00:36:11,118 --> 00:36:15,102
And a lot of these guys that run these companies, I know them, they're good friends of
mine.

479
00:36:15,102 --> 00:36:25,960
But the thing that I wonder, like, do we ever get to a place where there's just like a,
you know, a standard store that we can get like parts from.

480
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:31,444
And today, like I was saying earlier, it gets so frustrating with DC fast charges, we're
like,

481
00:36:31,448 --> 00:36:37,811
We have some of our customers that have four or five different DC fast chargers that are
out of warranty, out of parts warranty.

482
00:36:37,811 --> 00:36:39,621
And these units are so expensive.

483
00:36:39,621 --> 00:36:41,412
So are we supposed to swap all of them out?

484
00:36:41,412 --> 00:36:47,534
But there's nowhere you can go to get like a transmission or a brake pad, right?

485
00:36:47,534 --> 00:36:51,737
Like these things do not exist in the EV charging space.

486
00:36:51,737 --> 00:36:56,499
And I wonder, the question to the industry is like, can we scale like that?

487
00:36:56,499 --> 00:36:57,379
Right?

488
00:36:58,916 --> 00:37:03,296
And help me to understand how we scale like that, because if you show me the way, I will
be bought in.

489
00:37:03,296 --> 00:37:05,216
But my thought is that we can't.

490
00:37:05,216 --> 00:37:14,376
And so with that, you know, what are we going to do right now in regards to the
components, the hardware components in order to allow for scalability, right?

491
00:37:14,376 --> 00:37:16,056
And then that opens up a whole business opportunity.

492
00:37:16,056 --> 00:37:19,596
Then who sells those, you know, aftermarket components?

493
00:37:19,596 --> 00:37:20,776
That's one.

494
00:37:21,076 --> 00:37:22,416
The other part is certification.

495
00:37:22,416 --> 00:37:27,950
Like today, you know, I spend so much, I have, you know, have 17 W2 technicians and then
we

496
00:37:27,950 --> 00:37:38,083
partner with OWL and SPACCO, and we have to pay to get their technicians and our
technicians certified on every different hardware.

497
00:37:38,763 --> 00:37:40,984
You know, like how is that scalable, right?

498
00:37:40,984 --> 00:37:46,185
Like every time you do something new to the hardware, I'm paying a fee for every different
hardware.

499
00:37:46,185 --> 00:37:51,777
I just ask again, like, you think it's scalable, then explain to me how, right?

500
00:37:51,777 --> 00:37:53,627
But I don't think it is.

501
00:37:53,948 --> 00:37:54,928
So.

502
00:37:55,042 --> 00:37:55,662
Those things.

503
00:37:55,662 --> 00:38:04,416
then the last piece, we've seen this a lot with OCPP 1.6 right now with, know, shell
recharge and now it's like their disinvestment in some areas.

504
00:38:04,416 --> 00:38:08,958
had NLX fail the other day or get bought or whatever have you.

505
00:38:08,998 --> 00:38:12,509
And you can't actually switch things over the air, right?

506
00:38:12,509 --> 00:38:14,376
Like it's very hard.

507
00:38:14,376 --> 00:38:15,921
It is not easy, right?

508
00:38:15,921 --> 00:38:23,904
Because of either the implementation of OCPP or because the hardware provider won't allow
you to do it on your own, whatever it is, like.

509
00:38:24,590 --> 00:38:28,244
how do we wanna approach this as an industry?

510
00:38:28,244 --> 00:38:32,197
Or if you think that the way that we're doing it is fine, explain to me how.

511
00:38:32,197 --> 00:38:34,349
Like, all of these people.

512
00:38:34,349 --> 00:38:35,530
Yeah, right.

513
00:38:35,530 --> 00:38:44,018
I mean, just like, so those are kinda like the things that have been really, really big to
me because here, like at Charge Your Hope, we sit at the end of this essentially

514
00:38:44,018 --> 00:38:45,359
connection of rivers.

515
00:38:45,359 --> 00:38:50,724
And so all the junk, you know, ends up on us and other companies like us.

516
00:38:50,762 --> 00:38:57,960
And so I'm saying like, okay, let me take this junk and help you to understand because it
doesn't, I don't think it has to be like this.

517
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:01,883
And I think the reason why this is important is it's the customers that feel the pain.

518
00:39:01,883 --> 00:39:03,225
It's not charger.

519
00:39:03,225 --> 00:39:04,516
It's the customers that's annoyed.

520
00:39:04,516 --> 00:39:06,628
They're annoyed with me and they're annoyed with you too.

521
00:39:06,628 --> 00:39:09,752
So like, how do we, how do we fix this?

522
00:39:09,752 --> 00:39:10,395
Yeah.

523
00:39:10,395 --> 00:39:11,356
it's just those kinds of things.

524
00:39:11,356 --> 00:39:20,279
I mean, I think NLX that example is a great point where it's just like, kind of takes the
industry a step back because then there's all these negative headlines about it.

525
00:39:20,279 --> 00:39:23,931
And it just creates a really bad experience for those who have made that investment.

526
00:39:24,421 --> 00:39:32,855
but that's really interesting about the parts too, because I think you're totally right
that it's not like you can go to a plant electric and just get a spare CCS handle or

527
00:39:32,855 --> 00:39:34,945
something to just like swap it in like that.

528
00:39:34,945 --> 00:39:36,747
And that's really what it needs to get to.

529
00:39:36,747 --> 00:39:41,970
Yeah, or a, I'm talking about like those core components and stuff that breaks like all
the time.

530
00:39:41,970 --> 00:39:42,630
true.

531
00:39:42,630 --> 00:39:44,290
Yeah, the actual you're right.

532
00:39:44,290 --> 00:39:55,970
The actual things that break but no totally and I think I want to get a little bit more
still into standards, but I mean, who are the industry groups or are there any that you're

533
00:39:55,970 --> 00:40:08,410
seeing as like maybe you charger help and the other manufacturers really need to kind of
work with or get together to kind of help push this to be these kind of more

534
00:40:08,410 --> 00:40:10,906
interchangeable ways to go about building.

535
00:40:10,906 --> 00:40:16,269
or figuring out how this supply chain builds to meet those issues.

536
00:40:16,364 --> 00:40:18,465
No, I think we really need one.

537
00:40:18,465 --> 00:40:23,616
We had one with the ChargxX Consortium that was put on by the joint office.

538
00:40:23,616 --> 00:40:27,228
I know that they, John Smart, I believe ran that.

539
00:40:27,228 --> 00:40:29,549
And I know they did some incredible things there.

540
00:40:29,549 --> 00:40:30,059
They came up.

541
00:40:30,059 --> 00:40:35,491
So one of the biggest issues in our industry, first was that we didn't have
standardization around error codes.

542
00:40:35,491 --> 00:40:38,402
In OCPB, there was only like 10 required error codes.

543
00:40:38,402 --> 00:40:39,832
The others were optional.

544
00:40:39,832 --> 00:40:42,834
But then the industry got together and they came up with additional air calls.

545
00:40:42,834 --> 00:40:48,598
They produced a white paper, but they didn't produce the white paper, but no one agreed
that they were going to implement what was in the white paper.

546
00:40:48,598 --> 00:40:49,999
So we don't really have it.

547
00:40:49,999 --> 00:40:55,713
I I sit on the board with the Alliance for Transportation Electrification and that's led
by Phil Jones.

548
00:40:55,713 --> 00:40:58,035
And I think ATE could be that, right?

549
00:40:58,035 --> 00:41:02,088
And I've been chatting a lot with the Open Charge Alliance if they could be that.

550
00:41:02,088 --> 00:41:08,238
But what would be really cool if we had a private entity that was a

551
00:41:08,238 --> 00:41:11,520
Funding was put together by the private entities, right?

552
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:20,414
That did something that the Charge X Consortium did, which was bringing industry together
to actually underneath the technical house to solve real problems.

553
00:41:20,495 --> 00:41:30,210
I think the next step would be is like, yeah, white paper is great, but like if the
industry is all contributing to this one organization and they put in the capital, could

554
00:41:30,210 --> 00:41:36,003
they then say, all right, we're all the green, we're all implementing this by X state?

555
00:41:36,003 --> 00:41:38,262
I feel like that's what we're missing here.

556
00:41:38,262 --> 00:41:38,472
Yeah.

557
00:41:38,472 --> 00:41:41,113
And the wifi association did stuff like that for themselves.

558
00:41:41,113 --> 00:41:47,486
know computing is that it's like, isn't, I know that it's just our timing.

559
00:41:47,486 --> 00:41:48,856
The timing is now.

560
00:41:48,856 --> 00:41:58,120
And so it's just like finding CEOs that are that feel the conviction that they believe
that, you know, rising tides lift all boats, you know, and that we shouldn't compete on

561
00:41:58,120 --> 00:41:58,841
reliability.

562
00:41:58,841 --> 00:42:01,582
We shouldn't compete on so many things that we're competing on.

563
00:42:01,582 --> 00:42:07,236
We should be competing on cool stuff like vehicle to grid and like, I don't know, doing
cool stuff with software, not

564
00:42:07,236 --> 00:42:10,036
that my station works 100 % of the time.

565
00:42:10,036 --> 00:42:11,496
Like I paid you.

566
00:42:11,496 --> 00:42:12,267
It's shit.

567
00:42:12,267 --> 00:42:13,167
yeah.

568
00:42:13,448 --> 00:42:15,249
These are kind of assumed.

569
00:42:15,830 --> 00:42:16,811
Right.

570
00:42:17,192 --> 00:42:18,613
No, I really appreciate that.

571
00:42:18,613 --> 00:42:20,055
And I, I agree with you.

572
00:42:20,055 --> 00:42:21,807
It's, and it goes to your point.

573
00:42:21,807 --> 00:42:27,276
We're definitely still in the Model T driving through manure days, unfortunately, but it's
changing quickly.

574
00:42:27,276 --> 00:42:29,270
Yeah, no, I think we have to figure it out this year.

575
00:42:29,270 --> 00:42:33,998
There's no way we can go into next year with the problems of today.

576
00:42:33,998 --> 00:42:37,073
It's just Yeah.

577
00:42:39,140 --> 00:42:44,535
With, I guess, following up on that, are there any other kind of standards you'd like to
see that kind of go around this?

578
00:42:44,644 --> 00:42:45,044
Yeah.

579
00:42:45,044 --> 00:42:49,444
I mean, I think I've really been pushing the open charge Alliance.

580
00:42:49,444 --> 00:42:57,504
know that there's like self certification and like, I know they have tools and stuff, but
I just think that we probably need to be a little bit more stringent or even figure out

581
00:42:57,504 --> 00:42:59,424
what are we going to do about 1.6?

582
00:42:59,424 --> 00:43:01,464
Because most RFPs, right?

583
00:43:01,464 --> 00:43:03,864
They say that you have to be 2.0 capable.

584
00:43:03,864 --> 00:43:05,784
There's no requirement of 2.0.

585
00:43:05,784 --> 00:43:10,804
Nobody's forcing people to go to 2.0, but we're feeling pains of 1.6 right now.

586
00:43:10,804 --> 00:43:13,724
And so we're feeling pains of 1.6 right now.

587
00:43:14,388 --> 00:43:15,508
how do we solve that?

588
00:43:15,508 --> 00:43:17,369
Like what is the mechanism?

589
00:43:17,369 --> 00:43:20,730
can't, cause I keep, cause people would just be like, they just need to switch to 2.0.

590
00:43:20,730 --> 00:43:25,831
And I'm just like, the they just in the word of just, it's not happening.

591
00:43:26,031 --> 00:43:26,419
Yeah.

592
00:43:26,419 --> 00:43:27,222
So like how, yeah.

593
00:43:27,222 --> 00:43:28,332
So it's not happening.

594
00:43:28,332 --> 00:43:30,421
So what do we do with what we have right now?

595
00:43:30,421 --> 00:43:36,594
And that's the part that I would love more thought leadership on is like, or are we going
to force everyone to go to 2.0?

596
00:43:36,594 --> 00:43:38,785
People have already paid for these stations.

597
00:43:38,785 --> 00:43:43,268
Some of the stations you would have to swap out, you know, in order to go to 2.0.

598
00:43:43,268 --> 00:43:43,972
like,

599
00:43:43,972 --> 00:43:52,332
how do we solve the problem that we have right now understanding that yes, 2.0 is supposed
to be better, which I don't, you I'm a believer of many things.

600
00:43:52,332 --> 00:43:55,879
I could believe, but it's just like, we're in 1.6 right now.

601
00:43:55,879 --> 00:44:04,055
reality is, yeah, I guess, it is really fascinating this conversation because these are
all things you've seen in other industries, especially like the tech realm where it's like

602
00:44:04,055 --> 00:44:05,987
the API one versus API two.

603
00:44:05,987 --> 00:44:11,351
And you just, at some point you have to kind of like make it uncomfortable people and push
them to go to that version too.

604
00:44:12,162 --> 00:44:21,968
but going, I guess for just in case anyone's listening and they're not, familiar with
obviously the 1.6 versus two, I think we have normally a techie listener group.

605
00:44:21,968 --> 00:44:24,060
but they may not know this tech.

606
00:44:24,060 --> 00:44:31,566
if there's just at a high level, like some of the things as to what the issue is one with
1.6 and then what you're so excited with 2.0 is.

607
00:44:31,566 --> 00:44:31,996
Sure.

608
00:44:31,996 --> 00:44:34,908
And then I guess it levels it, you know, open charge frame protocol.

609
00:44:34,908 --> 00:44:38,120
It's just, it's a messaging, it's a messaging protocol, right?

610
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:41,362
And so it helps it's communication protocol.

611
00:44:42,664 --> 00:44:55,512
And so how I've heard it best explained, and I don't know who to give credit to this, but
I've heard it a lot is that the implementation of 1.6 is kind of like when people say hi

612
00:44:55,512 --> 00:44:58,554
in different parts of the world and parts of the United States.

613
00:44:58,554 --> 00:45:01,033
So like I say, I'm saying hi.

614
00:45:01,033 --> 00:45:02,489
hi versus yeah.

615
00:45:02,489 --> 00:45:05,241
might say howdy, you know, this person might say, what's up?

616
00:45:05,241 --> 00:45:07,233
This person might say, what's going on?

617
00:45:07,233 --> 00:45:13,359
Even though like technically we are all giving a greeting of how all of us do it.

618
00:45:13,359 --> 00:45:16,301
We're not in our industry in 1.6 at least.

619
00:45:16,301 --> 00:45:18,433
No one said that, no, you can't say howdy.

620
00:45:18,433 --> 00:45:19,524
You can't say what's up.

621
00:45:19,524 --> 00:45:21,005
You got to say hi.

622
00:45:21,246 --> 00:45:29,332
and so that's what we've seen that, that, even though there is a protocol and like a
standard per se.

623
00:45:29,550 --> 00:45:31,700
There's not specification.

624
00:45:32,421 --> 00:45:34,141
There's different dialects.

625
00:45:34,141 --> 00:45:45,024
And when we find these problems, you know, stuff failing, it becomes a needle in the
haystack because it's like, technically you are doing a greeting, but the way that you did

626
00:45:45,024 --> 00:45:49,446
that greeting for whatever reason, person over here don't understand it.

627
00:45:49,446 --> 00:45:51,306
Right.

628
00:45:51,866 --> 00:45:52,966
Yes.

629
00:45:53,747 --> 00:45:58,532
So apparently OCPP 2.0

630
00:45:58,532 --> 00:46:05,312
This all goes away in this, you know, everything in sunshine, green flowers, but I have
not found in this.

631
00:46:05,312 --> 00:46:07,012
keep telling people I was on a podcast yesterday.

632
00:46:07,012 --> 00:46:12,032
I was like, look, if you have a 2.0 station that's deployed out there right now, let me
know.

633
00:46:12,032 --> 00:46:23,712
will personally go because I personally don't know if any deployed in the ground turned on
energized 2.0 stations today to prove me wrong.

634
00:46:23,712 --> 00:46:25,132
Give me up on the LinkedIn.

635
00:46:25,132 --> 00:46:26,312
Send me the address.

636
00:46:26,312 --> 00:46:27,390
I would love to go.

637
00:46:27,390 --> 00:46:31,912
I know a of people are getting certified, I don't know if anybody's actually having it in
the ground.

638
00:46:31,912 --> 00:46:35,510
People are using it because I want to see is it actually better.

639
00:46:38,266 --> 00:46:38,826
Or do we need 2.1?

640
00:46:38,826 --> 00:46:54,918
that yeah, no, I think that's a great call out because there have been a lot of hopes
around Right, right Yeah I Really appreciate that but I guess Going to all of what you're

641
00:46:54,918 --> 00:47:00,953
talking about and like the charge X consortium I know you're going to EV charging summit
Are there any other events you're kind of going to this year?

642
00:47:00,953 --> 00:47:06,030
Like I know there's the ACT Expo, which is kind of more fleet focused

643
00:47:06,030 --> 00:47:08,962
Obviously it's not just electric vehicles, but I am kind of curious.

644
00:47:08,962 --> 00:47:12,054
was like, where, what is the, cause I think that's a great call out.

645
00:47:12,054 --> 00:47:19,579
It's like, this is something that needs to be solved this year and there obviously needs
to be some sort of consortium, but is there like some sort of place or event we can think

646
00:47:19,579 --> 00:47:24,642
of that we're all going to be at anyway, that maybe can be that helped to be that forcing
function.

647
00:47:25,282 --> 00:47:27,052
You know, I don't know.

648
00:47:27,052 --> 00:47:34,772
I I've been working with, like I said, the Alliance for Transportation and
Electrification, they just had their event and they have like a working committee on OCPP.

649
00:47:34,772 --> 00:47:42,877
And so I've been working with Phil to figure out, you know, maybe we can join up at an
event to have this, you know, initial discussion with some of the C-suite folks.

650
00:47:44,137 --> 00:47:45,798
But I don't really know.

651
00:47:46,158 --> 00:47:49,619
you know, I'm, I don't know.

652
00:47:49,979 --> 00:47:53,482
What I'm doing right now though is I'm doing a meeting.

653
00:47:53,482 --> 00:47:55,162
you're plenty busy as it is.

654
00:47:55,222 --> 00:47:58,022
But I'm curious since I have you on here, I just want to ask.

655
00:47:58,082 --> 00:48:00,022
But right, it is like one of those things that everyone needs.

656
00:48:00,022 --> 00:48:03,082
But it's like, who has the time really to really force it?

657
00:48:03,082 --> 00:48:03,424
Yeah.

658
00:48:03,424 --> 00:48:08,956
the way that I'm going about it right now is like I'm having individual conversation with
CEOs to see like who is very interested.

659
00:48:08,956 --> 00:48:19,979
And then I'm hoping, you know, that maybe whether ATE or someone that, you know, did the
work with the Charged Ex Consortium, if they would be interested in putting together this

660
00:48:19,979 --> 00:48:20,650
group.

661
00:48:20,650 --> 00:48:26,792
But the first thing I'm doing is individually chatting with some CEOs, just being like,
hey, would you be interested in putting capital towards this?

662
00:48:26,792 --> 00:48:28,812
And so that's been like my first step.

663
00:48:29,503 --> 00:48:35,097
but i'm super open that if there's more people out there that want to help with my little
effort, you know,

664
00:48:35,622 --> 00:48:36,462
No, that's great.

665
00:48:36,462 --> 00:48:39,662
And I think we do have a lot of people in the industry who listen to this.

666
00:48:39,662 --> 00:48:42,922
And so your contact info for LinkedIn and everything will be in today's show notes.

667
00:48:42,922 --> 00:48:44,982
So please let's make this happen.

668
00:48:45,082 --> 00:48:55,242
Um, but so we've talked about this a little bit where now a few years ago, uh, EV charging
hardware infrastructure was a lot more basic.

669
00:48:55,242 --> 00:48:59,562
The evening you say that you could charge in a fleet were pretty narrow.

670
00:48:59,562 --> 00:49:01,182
Now that's all expanded.

671
00:49:01,422 --> 00:49:05,854
So like what, mean, this can depend, but let's, let's say we're

672
00:49:05,862 --> 00:49:11,442
a larger corporation that has a mixed fleet of even maybe a few or a couple like electric
semis.

673
00:49:11,442 --> 00:49:15,762
Like what would be like the ideal setup for a depot?

674
00:49:15,762 --> 00:49:23,862
Is it like mostly level two and ones and then like a couple DC fast chargers or what do
you guys see and what do recommend usually?

675
00:49:24,172 --> 00:49:28,492
it's really gonna come down to the business use case, interestingly enough.

676
00:49:28,492 --> 00:49:35,409
I think what some folks are having just as level twos, because they'll have overnight
dwell time makes the most sense, right?

677
00:49:35,409 --> 00:49:38,591
And then you have some folks that that's just not the reality.

678
00:49:38,591 --> 00:49:44,384
Yeah, I'm super interested in a lot of these solutions where people can pay, I think.

679
00:49:45,010 --> 00:49:50,845
I feel like Volterra, Terrawide, what's the other one, Electra, they all kind of blend in
my head a bit.

680
00:49:50,966 --> 00:49:53,758
whatever ones, there's some of these ones where you have a shared depot.

681
00:49:53,758 --> 00:49:56,831
And I thought that was really interesting, like using existing infrastructure.

682
00:49:56,831 --> 00:50:00,786
And if you have a smaller fleet, you can use some of the level twos or the DC fast
chargers.

683
00:50:00,786 --> 00:50:02,235
And it's like a part of their service.

684
00:50:02,235 --> 00:50:03,816
I think that's really cool.

685
00:50:05,038 --> 00:50:08,140
But yeah, I think, yeah, everything's going to come down to business use case.

686
00:50:08,356 --> 00:50:08,697
Gotcha.

687
00:50:08,697 --> 00:50:10,800
So, that, that, that's great though.

688
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:13,876
Can you share like a few examples of like this?

689
00:50:13,876 --> 00:50:22,211
Cause I think the 12 times a great call out, like what makes those differences, but for
those listening, like just give a few examples of what, what those different ones are.

690
00:50:22,211 --> 00:50:25,895
Yeah, I know like, like Highland Fleet, I know they do a ton with school buses, right?

691
00:50:25,895 --> 00:50:28,037
As we electrify a ton of school buses.

692
00:50:28,037 --> 00:50:30,270
And so I think like, of course, like that's level twos.

693
00:50:30,270 --> 00:50:37,198
I don't, I wouldn't really put DC fast charge on that because you have the folks that are
coming in at the end of the day, plug in the buses, they could pick it up and you know,

694
00:50:37,198 --> 00:50:37,848
go.

695
00:50:37,848 --> 00:50:45,601
Then I think about, you know, I know that Uber and some of these other folks are looking
to electrify their fleets, you know, are, are incentivizing their drivers to drive

696
00:50:45,601 --> 00:50:46,312
electric.

697
00:50:46,312 --> 00:50:47,862
Then things like that, like, absolutely.

698
00:50:47,862 --> 00:50:54,035
You're going to want to have like fast, easy, chargers because folks are going to need to
go in between the route or even folks that are doing route planning.

699
00:50:54,035 --> 00:51:01,828
So even if you think about like the Amazon cars or UPS, that's how I think about it's
really just like, comes out to dwell time.

700
00:51:01,828 --> 00:51:06,124
Like, do you have enough time to sit overnight and then battery range, right?

701
00:51:06,124 --> 00:51:12,649
If you're doing a lot of city stuff, probably makes sense to maybe you have, you're doing
a lot of city driving.

702
00:51:12,649 --> 00:51:17,032
Yeah, maybe you could just do some level twos or maybe you do a DC fast charger here and
there.

703
00:51:17,032 --> 00:51:24,438
But that's what I'm so excited for us to just think more strategically about mobility.

704
00:51:25,048 --> 00:51:25,669
period.

705
00:51:25,669 --> 00:51:27,570
think that that's not more strategic.

706
00:51:27,570 --> 00:51:31,083
Like it's like thinking differently about, I'm sure people were very strategic.

707
00:51:31,083 --> 00:51:32,206
So yeah.

708
00:51:32,206 --> 00:51:38,560
and the fact is, is they could have been strategic, but this it's just changing so quickly
that the inputs and those things are changing.

709
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:43,543
But not every, yeah.

710
00:51:43,543 --> 00:51:53,029
mean, let's play the devil's advocate and I'll just say the opposite, but, needless to
say, I've also had my gripes with them, but, you know, one of the things you mentioned,

711
00:51:53,029 --> 00:51:58,872
and this is a common thing we talk about a lot of episodes or something I try to share
with a lot of people is

712
00:51:59,046 --> 00:51:59,857
ride share drivers.

713
00:51:59,857 --> 00:52:08,733
Like if you look at a lot of like the big kind of negative media headlines over the last
year about like how all these chargers are down during storms.

714
00:52:08,733 --> 00:52:18,180
Well, all the time and you're even seeing this from other day from like I believe is EV go
shared like 25 % of their DC fast charging now is ride share drivers.

715
00:52:18,881 --> 00:52:19,852
And that totally makes sense.

716
00:52:19,852 --> 00:52:25,978
And you start getting into some of the dynamics around like, okay, you're having a lot
more people adopt EVs that might not have actually

717
00:52:25,978 --> 00:52:31,201
the easiest access to overnight charging or something where they live if they're
multifamily houses and all that.

718
00:52:32,342 --> 00:52:38,965
And so one of the things I kind of bring up is like, this isn't an issue for taxis,
traditional combustion taxis.

719
00:52:38,965 --> 00:52:44,148
not, mean, occasionally some of them, they might have a gas car, they might go to like
some gas stations.

720
00:52:44,208 --> 00:52:54,330
And obviously filling up a gas for charging, still a dealt in time, but a lot of the time
you go to like the Pacific, there are specific commercial gas stations.

721
00:52:54,330 --> 00:53:01,794
that they go to majority of the time, whether it's owned by the taxi operator or it's just
like, like I said, think Pacific gas or whatever it's called.

722
00:53:01,794 --> 00:53:04,155
That's purely for commercial vehicles.

723
00:53:04,495 --> 00:53:07,457
And have you seen, are you seeing any conversations?

724
00:53:07,457 --> 00:53:12,019
I know like there's been rumblings about Uber and some of these others about having their
own for ride sure drivers.

725
00:53:12,019 --> 00:53:18,082
Like have you had conversations around that and what that kind of framing of the
conversation has been?

726
00:53:19,178 --> 00:53:22,000
not heard anything about that.

727
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:28,093
it's so funny because I feel like Uber specifically, I feel like they've been peeking into
the industry for a long period of time.

728
00:53:28,293 --> 00:53:34,777
It's been kind of like a, you know, and one of the guys from Uber that I used to, you
know, connect with, he actually went and started his own company now.

729
00:53:34,777 --> 00:53:39,259
So, but you know, I know that they're doing some more.

730
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:44,412
They've been doing some, I know that they've been doing some investments, but I mean,
like, that's really interesting.

731
00:53:44,412 --> 00:53:47,426
The other thing that's kind of tied to that is a little interesting.

732
00:53:47,426 --> 00:53:57,639
that came out the other day was LAZ, the parking folks, believe, announced like 60,000
charging stations with Epic charging.

733
00:53:57,639 --> 00:54:04,131
And so even with these parking stations, it would be interesting to see like, there
collaboration in that, right?

734
00:54:04,131 --> 00:54:10,563
With the Uber and like a parking lot, like could a parking, because Revel was kind of like
that, where I know that they were.

735
00:54:11,364 --> 00:54:11,774
Yeah.

736
00:54:11,774 --> 00:54:22,681
revel and then what's really interesting is the autonomous EV car companies like Waymo do
have their own more or less like part or lots that these cars go back to charge for a

737
00:54:22,681 --> 00:54:23,392
little bit.

738
00:54:23,392 --> 00:54:25,513
And then they go back and do more runs.

739
00:54:25,943 --> 00:54:36,240
so mean, between the, the alleged autonomous vehicles that will be flooding our, roads
over the next couple of years and, traditional rideshare drivers, it just seems like there

740
00:54:36,240 --> 00:54:39,092
is still, and I don't know if that's a

741
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:48,414
who plays into that real estate and capital investment to start making these more
commercial electric charging more common.

742
00:54:48,536 --> 00:54:52,519
think it could be a very interesting play for the parking folks.

743
00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:54,131
You know what I mean?

744
00:54:54,131 --> 00:55:02,267
Like it could be, we're part of the International Parking Association and so much of what
they're doing this year is around O reliability.

745
00:55:02,267 --> 00:55:13,380
And you just think about how much more capital, if we could really get reliability and
charging down and people really adopt, like that's an interesting play for parking folks.

746
00:55:13,380 --> 00:55:16,072
Well, there's, there's actually, I mean, yeah, that is huge.

747
00:55:16,072 --> 00:55:23,196
That could be podcast unto itself because you have some really interesting things that
start happening, especially if you have a good reliable, not just charging infrastructure,

748
00:55:23,196 --> 00:55:24,437
but software layer.

749
00:55:24,437 --> 00:55:34,403
So it's like, I've got parking garage a it's actually max out for the day, but, which is
people come in the city working, but I own parking garage B and it's at like 70%.

750
00:55:34,403 --> 00:55:38,976
And you can send people there to kind of increase that, stay put closer to a hundred.

751
00:55:39,033 --> 00:55:40,773
Look, I've never used it.

752
00:55:40,773 --> 00:55:42,034
So I do like a lot of like date.

753
00:55:42,034 --> 00:55:45,056
I live in LA and I do a lot of like day trips, like SF or whatever.

754
00:55:45,056 --> 00:55:48,844
And I used to like just catch an Uber, but now because the LAX, they have charging.

755
00:55:48,844 --> 00:55:50,718
I don't have charging at my house.

756
00:55:51,039 --> 00:56:00,473
And so now I'm paying and it's kind of crazy because I'm paying for parking at LAX, but
I'm also charging my car, which I appreciate for on a day trip, but I would have never

757
00:56:00,473 --> 00:56:02,982
parked my car in there if they didn't have charging stations.

758
00:56:02,982 --> 00:56:03,768
Yeah.

759
00:56:03,768 --> 00:56:12,039
which is so in those parking spots for charging at LAX, there's like two floors, they're
always full with cars.

760
00:56:12,039 --> 00:56:19,518
And I'm interested to understand like what people have parked their car there, know,
people that are doing these day trips up like if it didn't have charging.

761
00:56:20,378 --> 00:56:20,558
Yeah.

762
00:56:20,558 --> 00:56:24,150
And I, I'm also, no, that, that, is a really interesting point.

763
00:56:24,150 --> 00:56:32,805
Cause, I live up in Oregon, so I'm flying out of PDX quite a bit and they, they don't have
that many chargers yet at least, but they have a good chunk of them, especially in the

764
00:56:32,805 --> 00:56:35,306
short-term, kind of day trip area.

765
00:56:35,306 --> 00:56:43,351
And even then they are always, I've never been able to use it and, majority of the time,
it's not like I need to, but it just, that also kind of goes back to the difference of

766
00:56:43,351 --> 00:56:47,312
like, you know, honestly, in a lot of, even a level one would be something.

767
00:56:47,933 --> 00:56:50,062
especially if you get to like a multi-day thing.

768
00:56:50,062 --> 00:56:50,811
Yeah.

769
00:56:50,811 --> 00:56:58,848
yeah, I think that's a really interesting thing to think about, especially if you are in
the parking space anyway.

770
00:56:58,848 --> 00:57:01,920
mean, your whole business model is just to have people parking.

771
00:57:02,802 --> 00:57:10,649
And the way you can maximize that is sure it'd be an upfront cost, but sometimes it
doesn't even need to be, especially if you can make a deal with like a Waymo or someone

772
00:57:10,649 --> 00:57:12,291
else, you already have the real estate.

773
00:57:12,291 --> 00:57:15,900
Maybe they chip in some of the capex for that upgrade, but.

774
00:57:15,900 --> 00:57:23,360
for the uber drivers like you were saying like is it just like this yeah location is just
for uber chargers drivers to charge like i think that's so smart somebody's gonna come up

775
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:27,176
with that business idea they should you guys should all give chase 10 if you execute

776
00:57:27,176 --> 00:57:27,947
you.

777
00:57:28,728 --> 00:57:31,630
No, I know the more I think about it, was like, maybe I should do this.

778
00:57:33,111 --> 00:57:35,313
but no Kameale, this, this has been great.

779
00:57:35,593 --> 00:57:42,199
I guess for recording on Friday, but you'll be at the EV charging summit and expo this
week for those listening.

780
00:57:42,199 --> 00:57:51,626
So, for anyone that is either at the event or just curious in general, what's the best way
to, get in contact with you and charger help.

781
00:57:52,356 --> 00:57:55,516
Yeah, so we'll have a booth at the EV charging summit.

782
00:57:55,516 --> 00:57:56,736
We're at booth 1701.

783
00:57:56,736 --> 00:58:01,116
And then I'm actually on two panels at the EV charging summit.

784
00:58:01,116 --> 00:58:06,776
So March 26th, I'm doing shop talk, the state of EV charging reliability and
standardization.

785
00:58:06,776 --> 00:58:11,676
And then on the 27th, we're doing the critical role of data with EV charging operators
panel.

786
00:58:11,676 --> 00:58:13,516
So any one of those, you check me out.

787
00:58:13,516 --> 00:58:18,676
And then on LinkedIn, I like to like, you know, give my sporadic thoughts on things from
time to time.

788
00:58:18,676 --> 00:58:21,582
So if you want to just know the random things that are in my head.

789
00:58:21,582 --> 00:58:22,592
Check me out on LinkedIn.

790
00:58:22,592 --> 00:58:24,479
You want well-structured marketing?

791
00:58:24,479 --> 00:58:25,440
Go to Charger House.

792
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:27,886
It's LinkedIn where I'm not allowed to touch.

793
00:58:27,886 --> 00:58:29,147
So yeah.

794
00:58:29,350 --> 00:58:29,940
Well, that's great.

795
00:58:29,940 --> 00:58:31,201
And Kameale, thank you so much.

796
00:58:31,201 --> 00:58:33,712
This has been a really fascinating conversation.

797
00:58:33,712 --> 00:58:34,193
Thank

798
00:58:39,318 --> 00:58:43,901
That's a wrap on today's conversation with Kameale Terry, CEO of ChargerHelp.

799
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Her insights into electric vehicle charger reliability, fleet electrification, and the
urgent need for better software

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and service as standard shine a light on what it'll really take to build a dependable
charging network.

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If you learned something new today or had a few aha moments, help us keep the conversation
going.

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Please share this episode with one person who cares about the future of electric vehicles
and charging infrastructure as well.

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You can also leave a quick review on your favorite podcast platform.

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It helps more listeners discover grid connections.

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And don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter using the link in the show notes to stay
plugged into the latest in clean transportation, energy and EV policy.

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Plus, if you'll be at the electric vehicle charging summit and expo in Las Vegas this
week, please let me know.

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I will be there along with many others in the space and looking forward to the
conversations with everyone there.

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So with that, thanks again.

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And until next week, this is the grid connections podcast signing off.