Good morning grid connections listeners.
Welcome back to grid connections, the podcast where we explore the intersection of clean energy, electric vehicles, and the infrastructure powering our future.
We're also excited to announce the launch of grid connections consulting,
where we're helping government agencies, utilities, and developers simplify EV education and electrification strategy.
You can learn more at gridconnections.co.
In today's episode, I'm joined by Joseph Nagel.
He's the head of corporate strategy at Pando Electric.
We go on a deep dive into how their outlet-based electric vehicle charging approach is transforming multifamily housing.
We explore why simplicity, reliability, and cost-effective installation are the keys to unlocking mass EV adoption in apartment communities.
We also break down how vehicle-to-home and eventually vehicle-to-grade capabilities could turn parked EVs into grid assets and why multifamily owners have a massive untapped
opportunity to turn their buildings into distributed energy hubs.
Plus, Joseph shares what he saw at the EV Charging Summit.
why smart building energy management is the next frontier and why tap and charge may finally make EV charging more convenient than a gas station.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with a friend or colleague who's curious about electrification and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts.
Don't forget to sign up for our new newsletter at gridconnections.fm slash newsletter.
You can also use the link in the show notes today to stay in the loop with the latest trends and insights from grid connections and our consulting practice.
With that, enjoy.
Joe, thank you so much for coming back on.
know before we went live, we had quite a few different topics we wanted to cover today, but thanks for coming back and I'm excited to get into it today.
Likewise, and thanks for having me again.
So just in case anyone is not familiar with what you and the team do at Pando Electric Joe, can you just kind of give a just high overview of what your company and team does and
then kind of your role at the company?
Yeah, so I'm the head of corporate strategy here at Pando Electric and we make electric vehicle charging outlets that are specifically designed for multifamily facilities.
And the reason we went with an EV charging outlet rather than a traditional EV charging system really boils down to one thing and that's costs.
Not so much costs to the EV driver, but costs to the property owner themselves.
So the upfront cost for a lot of owners
is reduced by about 50 to 70 % when you go with Pando Electric.
That's because in the National Electric Code, because they're outlets, we're allowed to daisy chain our outlets together.
And because of that, paired with our adaptive load management technology, we're able to cut down a lot on the infrastructure costs, not only on the infrastructure costs, but the
install time.
So a lot less money being paid to the electrician because they're on site a lot fewer hours.
And then on top of that, because they're outlets, they actually carry no ongoing maintenance.
So they never really break.
So it's actually a huge benefit to the EV driver themselves that the station is always ready and available.
One of the biggest things that faces our industry right now is like cable theft or just general wear and tear and the damage and the cable and the station doesn't work.
So it's really not useful for multifamily property.
If you put in a traditional system and then every one to three years, you're going to be down for four weeks.
because that cable was broken or someone stole it.
So rather than doing that, we went with an outlet where there's nothing to really steal or break.
It's just an outlet that hangs out on the wall and it's ready to be used whenever you need it.
Yeah, and I think there's a lot of really clean and just really elegant ways of how your team goes about this.
in some ways, what's really interesting, I think for some of our listeners here in North America is obviously there's a lot more behind the outlet and what your team does, but
it's much more similar to what you see actually in Europe, where it's kind of a B, Y, O, C, bring home charger sort of thing that really does can help with that ongoing
maintenance and preventative for vandalism and stuff like that.
But
Yeah, I think you kind of did just talk about some of that's really fascinating.
think that's underappreciated and that's kind of what that energy management side of it.
And I think, I know there's a few different areas we wanted to talk about that today, but let's, let's kind of just kick it off.
maybe share an example that you have, or some of the things that you think that Pano is doing around that.
That's really cool.
And that could be a great starting point for the listeners and then us to kind of get into this deeper conversation.
Yeah, I think one of the bigger things that Pando specifically is doing around energy management is we are actively driving forward into the vehicle to grid space.
We recently did a calculation for the city of Los Angeles.
They have enough EVs on the car on the road today that equates to about two gigawatts of energy.
Now, if you were to break that out, that's a couple of nuclear power plants of power generation that's just hanging out and batteries driving around on the road.
And when you factor in the idea that most vehicles are parked for 90 % of their life, you can see that there's a really big opportunity here to reinvent the grid in a way by using
batteries as sort of a de facto backup storage and grid stabilizing force.
There's going to be a lot of things that need to happen there, right?
Like your car might have a V2G capable charger at home, or you might have one at your apartment, or you might have one at work.
But the idea that you have one at all three is highly unlikely.
And so we have to still bridge that gap.
But when you start to think about the fact that even in Los Angeles, like that's nowhere near 100 % EV charge, EV coverage.
We're like...
did a very quick chat GPT search and it says just in LA County, it's at 7.3 % penetration for electric vehicles.
yeah.
Right, right, right.
And we're talking about two nuclear power plants of energy.
So you can see as we start to like go up and up and up, that's a lot of energy that you can play around with.
And the fact, the reality is a lot of people at first were hesitant about V2G because, you know, range anxiety was a thing.
It's still kind of there, but it's really rapidly going away.
And I think once it's fully gone, you'll have no issue giving 5 % of your battery out, you know, in the time of, you know, high energy prices or maybe the potential rolling
blackout.
if it does stabilize the grid or if it does lower your energy costs.
Or even better, the utility is going to pay you for that energy, you're making money.
So it's one of those things where I think a lot of people are going to start to really embrace this idea.
And we're really at the very beginning stages of looking at a completely new world that we're walking into because of electric vehicles.
Yeah.
And I think you had, there's a couple of things there.
I can want to focus on that.
You called out that you're right.
When people first, I think there's like kind of a lot of the Evie and charging nerds like us like, VDG, this sounds great.
And then how is position maybe to the wider public?
Like, the, the power grid is just going to pull power from your battery at any time.
People are like, wait, what?
And now it's kind of become clear just with these pilots that obviously it's more of an opt in thing.
And when you start talking about that scale, it is wild that
it's only five to like 10 % could make actually a big difference with just how many EVs we're talking about.
And once again, if you're getting paid to do it, it becomes one of these things like, yeah, why wouldn't I do that?
And as charging becomes more prevalent at like people's homes and at work locations, it really makes it like almost a why wouldn't you sort of thing.
I think it, I still think VDG is a little on the early side for a lot of this stuff, but it's like, and some of that it's a lot of it's just the actual infrastructure.
There's not like some, we don't have to solve fusion.
It's a very clear hardware way to get there.
We just have to start implementing it.
So I think it is on the horizon.
There's a lot of cool things that this can unlock and especially what Panda is kind of helping to make this more, these charging locations more prevalent and making this kind of
back and forth and that VDG, the VDG fantasy, more reality and more practical for everyone.
Definitely.
think what's going to happen first isn't V2G really.
It's actually going to be the V2H and that's going to look different for single family homes versus multifamily homes.
But you can imagine, you know, when you start to hit seven, eight, nine, 10 % EV market penetration in a multifamily facility specifically, we're talking about enough energy that
you could pull about 10%, 20%, 30%, 40 % of those batteries.
And I know when you start getting up into that number,
sounds scary but from Pando's perspective look if I were to dump 40 % of your battery back into the into the building at you know 6-7 p.m.
when the energy prices are really high I'm gonna cut your actual cost of electricity you know down by half or more
And they're not even paying you to do that, right?
You're just gonna do it because you wanna lower your energy costs in general.
It's not gonna take me that much time to fill your battery back up, right?
Like I can get a battery from 20 to 80 % in four hours.
So if I dumped all that energy down there, you know, at the beginning of the session, I've got, you know, a data that shows most people come home and park for 12 to 15 hours.
So if you push that energy in from seven to like 10 p.m., so the three hour window,
me you know almost nine to ten hours on the low end of time for me to fill your battery back up which I can do easily and I think that's what's going to start that's the what's
going to start that conversation rolling along it's not really the vehicle to grid so much just yet there's a lot of additional pieces that need to be involved there but
specifically the chargers and the vehicles and the grid all need to be talking to each other because there's that use case of well I opted in but I forgot to charge today and I
actually
only at 20 % and if you take 10 % from me, I'm now you know, now I'm like really Oh shoot, like this is not good So they all need to be talking to each other so that they say, okay
Well, don't take any from that car because it's only at 20 % But this car is at 100 % we can definitely take you know, 10 % there and that guy's not gonna notice or care
And so it's one of those things where that's probably, you're right, that's probably about a decade away.
But on the lower end, like vehicle to home, that's here now.
And it's really just about getting things to scale and getting things to pencil out from a cost perspective.
Yeah.
And I think what is really interesting is just, uh, and yeah, I completely agree with you.
The vehicle to home.
mean, obviously I think like people kind of heard of like the Tesla power walls and a lot of these home battery backup systems.
And we're starting to kind of see that still grow, but there, there is still a decent price Delta.
So depending where you live in the country, maybe it's not a hundred percent, uh, cost effective yet, or traditionally you've just needed so many batteries that just like, okay,
that's such a big hurdle.
now that you kind of get an EV involved.
you can kind of get to that price delta where especially on like a home basis, it really makes a lot of sense.
And I think what was kind of interesting before this was we were kind of talking about taking that up a step and then you go to like the multifamily.
And so I think it'd be really interesting to of discuss that a little bit about like getting to these kind of larger commercial scale projects and how you can actually
leverage whether it be plugged in electric vehicles or just like an actual commercial battery at the site.
Yeah, I I've said this a lot in the recent past about the opportunity that exists for multifamily property owners today is pretty massive if they make their bets in the right
places.
A lot of multifamily properties are getting, I mean, they're getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
A lot of the properties that the newer bids that we're working on are like 900, a thousand unit properties.
Like that's a small town.
of people moving in a single location.
So that's a lot of energy just being consumed in one location.
And when you're looking at something like that, the V to G stuff's really interesting.
What's even more interesting to me is the fact that, you know, because you're a property owner, you own that land.
You can put solar on the roof, a battery in the garage.
Um, and then you can really start to do a lot of very interesting things.
Even if you just put the battery, right?
You don't have the solar.
I can buy energy from the grid when it's cheap during the middle of the day, when it's not being used very much and the prices are lower.
So it's off peak.
Fill up my battery.
and then turn around and then dump that power.
at night when it's on peak and I've saved 20 cents a kilowatt hour.
That's like the lowest end.
And you can do that every single night, night after night, endlessly.
And because of that, you could, in a sense, if you just did this the smart way, I'm buying up the energy when it's cheap and I'm selling it back to my consumers for their energy
rates that they're already used to paying.
So they're not gonna notice a difference.
Every tenant in that building is like, well, this is the rate that I'm paying anyway.
But I'm making 20 cents a kilowatt hour because I've done that.
And if I'm doing that over and over and over again, every single night, you can start to see that money just starts piling up.
And that's really like at the core of what I've been preaching to property owners today is like, look.
It's not quite there yet.
The battery costs need to come down just a little bit.
Unless you're in like a certain location, there are some like government grants that you can get still to do this and you can do it fairly affordably.
But I think as we start to progress into this new future of battery tech, we are going to see a lot more property owners take advantage of this.
And why not?
Like you can, you can do a lot of things.
You can either make a ton of money or you can entice your residents to live there longer because you're going to offer them a rate.
that's cheaper than the utility rate that they're used to pay.
So I could just pass those savings on to my tenants if I wanted to because I'm going to be a noble landlord.
I'm not here to just make money.
So I'm going to help you guys out, cut the energy costs.
There's a lot of things that you could do.
so I think property owners, especially large property owners like multifamily housing have a tremendous opportunity in front of them to really reshape how our grid and utility
system works.
And I think it's
kind of well overdue out here in Northern California.
PG &E is, I don't mean to bad mouth PG &E, they have a lot of stuff that they have to work through.
get the challenges that they face, but this is only a net positive for them.
It will help reduce a lot of the issues that they are facing and that they can focus on cleaning up some of the challenges that they've had specifically around power generation
or down power line and all that.
So this can actually really help.
Yeah, you know, one of the things we actually talk about, especially around EV charging is demand charges and kind of those other things that people might not be aware of when you
get to the commercial scale.
Is that something that can kind of come into those conversations to help pencil it out for the kind of battery backup system?
Or is it just these entities when they're being built, it's such a much more kind of planned out that you don't run into that as much.
No, it's definitely like it's one of those things that you can talk about now.
I think the issue that we're currently facing is all these tariffs that has caused such a chaotic market that that's probably what's going to prevent it for the foreseeable future
until they go away or until there's some consistency that exists.
So that's actually what's holding it back right now is that, you they don't know what their building costs are going to be because, hey, the steel that I import or
concrete that I need or lumber, all that stuff is gonna cost extra or it's just different and now I need to redo an entire calculation and that might blow up my budget.
And so it's one of those things where we're probably gonna see a pullback.
The thing is, is like a lot of the properties that already exist, the retrofits could take advantage of this.
And it will take a few people to kind of get over the fear.
There's always the fear of, what happens if there's, you know, a thermal runaway?
You know, I think testing.
to ask you maybe some of the pushback or things you're getting.
Obviously price is probably the main one, but just other things you might be hearing.
Price is definitely number one, but then number two is safety.
There is that fear of, you I don't want to burn my property down.
I understand that completely.
Tesla definitely solved, I think, this problem with their megapacks.
And then there's other companies too that make like shipping containers that are have full fire suppression systems within them.
So, you know, there's the risk there is so minimal, it's just going to take people some time to get some comfort around it.
And then it's more just the idea itself is a little bit beyond sort of what they're used to what's normal, right?
You're talking to a bunch of people who are mostly focused on vacancy rates, like that's what they look at.
Vacancy rates, so that's like, okay,
well, I don't care so much about the energy in the building and all that stuff.
I just want to make sure that that works so that I don't lose any tenants.
And when you have such a hyper focus on one thing, when you bring an idea like this, sometimes it just flies right past them because they just don't have the time to think it
over.
They're like, yeah, that's not really my concern right this moment.
But I do think that we are starting to see a few of the larger companies toy around with these ideas.
I'm seeing more and more
multifamily properties looking at solar as a way to sort of offset their energy costs.
I think you're gonna see some more start to be like, maybe we should put in a few batteries, maybe not huge ones, let's do some small deployments first.
Yeah, and then I think it's gonna slowly sort of edge up to that, yeah, let's just put a commercial grade battery in the garage, we'll just lose one parking space, dump in a huge
battery right there and be done with it.
Interesting.
And I guess for those listening, how, let's say you're a property owner or a commercial kind of tenant and how does one kind of reach out to Panda and what does that kind of look
like in that process and what elements of it?
Do you, does your team kind of work with and help them with.
Yeah, getting a hold of Pando is pretty easy.
Just go to our website, pandoelectric.com.
There's a phone number on there that you can call us directly or you can fill out the form if you're not a phone person.
I know it's always a big split between, know, it's like Boomers and Gen X always get on the phone and then Millennials and Gen Z are always filling out the form.
But we pretty much do everything from start to finish.
We try to take all of this off your plate because we know you, again, you have other things you want to worry about and EV charging is probably way, way, way down on the
bottom of your list.
That's also the reason why we designed the product the way that we did, is to reduce the amount of time you're spending thinking about EV charging.
So we just integrated tap and charge technology into our outlets.
That eliminates a really big failure point, to be perfectly honest with our Gen 1 model.
which was it required our EV drivers to have internet connectivity or cellular connectivity to scan the QR code to initiate a charge session.
Well, in some of our locations, you're in an underground parking garage, you have great service.
And trying to start a charge session when you don't have internet connectivity is impossible.
So by integrating this, now you just tap your phone with Apple Pay or Google Pay, tap it against the charger, that starts the charge session.
So it's eliminating that failure point.
So really we're...
constantly on the lookout for things to reduce the friction for everybody in this process, not just the property owners, but the EV drivers as well.
And why does the tap and charge functionality to work?
Is it essentially the Apple pay or Google pay has the track of the, the cost?
Cause I am, I am hearing this from a couple other charging providers as well.
Cause completely agree with you.
This has just been an issue in general.
I even had a pretty bad experience recently.
Fortunately, I didn't need to charge, but I was trying to test it.
And this to clarify was not Pando.
This was a, pretty well documented,
Charging provider I have issues with, but I'll leave it at that.
And unfortunately, unfortunately my phone had the app on it, but I have a setting.
like if I don't use an app for a while, it just deletes it.
So here I'm at this charger, the tap and pay doesn't work.
None of the credit card reader functionality works.
And then where I'm at has like no cell service.
So I try to download the app and I can do it.
I mean, it sets you up to really be, and this,
It's not like it was in a parking garage.
This is just in a really rural remote area where in a lot of ways it's even more critical.
But yeah, I guess I'm kind of going down a tangent there, but I'm kind of curious.
Is it essentially Apple Pay and Google Pay store a record of the transaction?
And then once it connects to the internet again, it makes the transaction of the charge session go through or what is kind of allowing tap and pay to be much more dynamic in that
regard?
Yeah, so that's actually an excellent question.
It's a, in a weird way, we're coming like full circle.
I don't know if you remember this, but about 10 years ago, NFC cards were typically the thing and that, and people were getting annoyed by that.
because every single company issued you a little plastic NFC card and you'd use that to tap that against the charger and that would unlock it.
And people are like, well, not like 10 cards in my car driving around using different charging stations, it was a pain.
And that's when everybody shifted over to the apps and that created a new problem.
So what we ended up doing was merging these two things together.
So what you would end up doing the first time is you would scan the QR code, download the app.
And then you basically can take a virtual NFC card and put it on your phone and your wallet.
And then you just come up to the charger and tap it against the charger.
That unlocks the session.
We know that the charger that you've tapped, you have access to because of the card ID that has been issued.
So we know who is allowed to use that charger.
When you access that charger, your phone's not actually doing anything but passing some very simple data to the charging station, which is the source of truth.
So the charging station knows that okay, this user is allowed to use me.
I'll unlock the device I'll start accruing charges on that user's account and then it'll be billing them in the back end So it's it has nothing to do with the user's phone at all
It's all on our system and our system is a completely localized system.
So it's actually, you know on site There's only one charger that needs a signal out and then the rest will all share that same signal if for whatever reason that signal fails the
next best one picks it up and sends it out.
Like in total, we're talking about in a total month about five minutes of uptime is actually needed to send the data back and forth.
So it's not really like a pressing issue for these things to be connected all the time.
And so when we recognize that it was like, okay, well then all we need to do is allow people to unlock the charger.
The chargers will keep the knowledge themselves until they can send it back out because it's really not that much data.
It's just a bunch of numbers.
That's it.
And that's how that's working.
Interesting.
So your Pando site still does need an internet connection, but should something happen or even if it's kind of not the strongest connection, it really only needs to have that
happen a few times a month to the user.
They really never notice until maybe there's a delay in the charge or something maybe on their card.
But other than that, the main thing is actually just making sure the charge goes through and happens.
Yeah, that's really all you need.
again, it's like just a string of numbers.
It's really such, it's such data.
It's not hard to get it out.
Yeah.
Well, that one is great to hear.
And I know with kind of the tap and charge functionality, is there, if you're listening to this, is there something maybe the listeners should be kind of aware of and like what this
is unlocking other than just ease of use, but kind of making it much more functional and kind of creating a frictionless experience.
there, are there any other kind of, I guess advantages to the end user with this addition other than just
you tap and it works.
I think that is the main thing, right?
It's just trying to create a, we want an experience that is A, better than a gas station, right?
So it's something that, know, gas stations figured this out, you know, put the credit card in, now I don't have to go in and talk to the clerk and tell them how much gas I want and
all that other stuff.
I just swipe my cards, fill it up, and it charges me.
That's kind of the same thing we're trying to get to here.
We recognize also that people have their phones with them all the time.
So just tap your phone against the charger.
It'll unlock.
and you can walk off and do whatever you need to.
The whole idea in general around Pando is we want you to kind of forget about EV charging at all.
I want you to show up to your building and just have this mindless activity for a few seconds where you plug in each end, you tap the thing and you walk off and you're really
not actively thinking about it.
And there was actually someone who made a really great point about this that I'll steal, which is someone asked them with their level two
at home, like, well, how long does it take you to fill up your, you know, fill up your car?
And they said, I don't know, about five seconds.
I just plug it in and I walk off.
And then when I want to use it again, it's full, right?
Like that's the actuality of the time spec.
It has nothing to do with how long it's sitting there.
The car is going to sit in your garage or in its parking space for a very long time.
So really what you're trying to do is just get somebody to where they actually want to be faster.
And so this is one of those methods that we're trying to do that.
Now I realize this may be a roadmap thing, but this is also another technology we get a lot of questions asked about is like auto charge and plug-in charge.
Is that something that your team can support or is it because that there is an outlet kind of in between that it makes it kind of hard to have that communication level with the
actual EV?
It does make it hard, but not impossible.
This is one of the things I think I bring up a lot.
It's like, these are all just engineering problems.
They're not like impossible.
It's like, you know, we just have to solve for it, which we have.
You know, our chargers are working with the OEMs to get API access to the cars themselves so that our chargers in the car can actually just sit there when they're, you know, two
feet away from each other and talk.
That's how we're able to overcome that.
So we're just at that point where it's, and again, it's, we're at that early stage where it's one of those things that's being talked about and it sounds great and everybody wants
it.
It's just, it's not ready yet and it's just a little bit of time.
yeah.
And, and I mean, I don't want to sound like we're talking.
mean, the fact that reliable tap and charge, like I said, that is such a huge step forward.
And it's unfortunate that that hasn't become more common in the industry.
So, really kudos to you guys.
And I realized with the plugin charge thing, you have to realize, I think a lot of people get kind of hung up and they think it's on the charger side, but so much of it too is
actually on the automaker and the OEM and even within that specific, models.
And so, I mean, I, I agree with it.
Even just getting to a better than gas station tap and charge thing is going to be huge and having that functionality is great.
But when we're kind of looking at where the product is now and just kind of Pando as a company, I know we were actually supposed to meet at the EV charging summit and expo and
just, calendars kind of kept moving there, but I'm curious.
we've had other people on from the EV charging summit already, and I would just love to hear maybe some of the trends or other things coming out of that.
maybe even going in and then coming out of the event that really stood out to you.
I think, man, that's a great question.
One of the things that really caught my eye was we're going back around, this is more of a negative take, so I apologize to any listeners here, but we're going back and creating
overly complicated systems that don't need to be that way.
I'm not gonna call out who was doing this, I mean, there was a cabinet there that was like 10 feet tall and had all these, it was like a multi-charger, and I'm like, there's no
point to this.
You can just install one in every space.
You don't need this like monstrosity that you're going to install somewhere and have all these multiple cables hanging off of it.
It just doesn't make a lot of sense.
And I saw like a few other things there that were just like, they're going back into like this complex system that doesn't need to exist, right?
It should be simple.
Like Europe solved this pretty easily.
Just type two chargers work really well.
They require the user to do a minimal amount of effort of plugging in your own cable.
As long as it locks to each end.
I don't know too many people who are willing to cut an active cable like that.
That would be
you know, in that sentence, so you're pretty safe in that scenario.
Nobody's gonna steal that thing.
And then on top of that, you just put in, you know, strategically placed DC fast chargers and you basically solve the problem.
There are some things that are being worked on that I was really happy to see, especially from some of the larger players.
looking at full building energy management.
This is something that Ever Charge worked on way back.
And again, it really fell to the properties not being ready.
I think we're getting into a space of them being ready and that full building energy management stuff is really, really impressive.
I will call out that the savings that you get from the full building energy management system with a traditional solution are similar to the savings you get from a Pando
solution.
So it's one of those things where we've solved the same problem of cost through simplicity, not through complexity.
The thing that I like about the full building energy system is that it unlocks a lot more potential for adding EV chargers and doing just more intelligent things with the building
power in general, because
The thing that is weird about our electric code is that you have to account for all of the electrical appliances all the time.
So it basically assumes that everything is on all the time and we know that that's not true.
And now that we have systems that are able to tell when things are not being used, you can move that power around in all sorts of fun ways, not just for EV charging, but like HVAC
systems.
or the you know whatever right so I really think that that is something that a lot of the EV charging companies especially the ones that are focusing on multifamily should really
drive hard into because it's a huge huge huge potential.
Yeah, I think that's an interesting call out and it's kind of funny to say that because my own takeaway from the V Charging Summit was kind of similar.
I don't know if you were able to attend many of the workshops.
found it really fast.
Sometimes the presentations at the workshops, they were fun and they were good, but it's like, as someone who's kind been in this industry for while, there's nothing new.
To me, what was really fascinating was hearing the questions being asked by these people who are in the industry or who are curious about them.
And a lot of the questions were kind of the same questions that
I've heard for like the last decade and there's nothing wrong with that because it's clear like there's just more and more people coming into the space that are now like ready to do
it.
But it also just reminded me that there's any it kind of goes to your simplicity thing too that there's just so many things that are kind of being taken too far instead of just
being able to have the right messaging and approach people with what the questions are and kind of overcome some of these misperceptions or making sure that they're
comfortable with the technology first before trying to give them the top of line version of it and kind of going through like that crawl walk run approach.
I think there's a lot of the run sprint, like high end solutions being positioned and these people, the people are coming in well intentioned, but they just don't know.
And there needs to be a better messaging of like trying to get to that.
And a lot of the time the best answer is a simple one, not just from an educational standpoint, but also in the physical implementation.
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more on that fact.
I think the thing that you kind of pointed something else out and my biggest takeaway actually was this, was just how big that conference is getting.
I went at the very first one and it was really tiny.
It was in a single ballroom at the Mirage, which actually no longer exists anymore.
And we were in there and I remember thinking, I was like, man, this is a little tiny for a...
Charging conference and now it's like it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger and I think that kind of just points to Something else that a lot of people are asking.
well like with this new administration Are you worried about the industry and I'm like, no I look how big that was like how much excitement there is around all this stuff Like we've
already passed the point of no return, you know when you have seven percent of the vehicles in Los Angeles are EV it's game over like people know
once again, that's including the ones that have been on the roads for 20 years and stuff.
It's not just like, the new vehicle sales are even higher, but I'm sorry, continue.
like way, way high.
And so we're looking at like, people know that they're better cars, like they're just better.
It's not, this is not a political thing.
It's not me because I'm in the industry.
Like if you don't believe that they're better cars, like just go out and drive one.
Like you're basically getting, if you drive a Kia Iconic or whatever, Hyundai Iconic or a Kona, whatever.
those cars basically have the performance of a sports vehicle.
Like something that you would have to pay like 80, $90,000, you know, back.
Yeah.
way more acceleration performance and then none of the maintenance that a high end performance vehicle usually does.
Right, so it's like just on that level, you're like, wow, that's a way better car, I that car, right?
So it's like, okay, we're reaching into this space where it's like, you get performance of vehicle specs and no maintenance from a car that's gonna cost you, know, it's starting to
get down there, but it's like, you know, 30 to $40,000.
That's not bad.
As long as we can work it back down that 25K, we're on track.
When I think something I like to remind people, and I'm not saying this is right either.
The average new car price electric or not is like $48,000.
so it's, it's not like new cars have ever been cheap.
And I think that is like, there's, I just like following this industry, there's always been like this pushback and what's like, well, the battery's gotta get down to a hundred
kilowatt hour or they're not going to make sense.
Well, they got to get under a hundred thousand.
Well, they got to get under 50,000.
And I agree with you having like a $25,000.
entry car is great.
Would love to see that.
But so many people actually buy used cars and we're finally seeing those start to have a greater inventory.
But I do agree with you.
Like I think and maybe I'm just overly optimistic about stuff.
I definitely got a sense from other people in the industry.
They were kind of like.
I don't know.
I don't want to say depressed, but maybe a little pessimistic going into the event.
And then coming out of the event, everyone did have kind of a renewed source of optimism.
And I think it's totally what you're saying.
Like just how large the event is, how many people are there.
And that's a big part of the reason we weren't even able to meet is like I was in so many of these workshops and other meetings.
could, I wanted to spend more time on the floor, but I'd even get a chance to do that.
And I think that's what makes it so cool.
I mean, it don't even wrong.
It was like an exhausting three days, but there was so much going on.
could almost be like a four or even five day thing, which is wild to see.
Yeah, and you know, I'll touch on one more point that you hit on, which like if you are feeling depressed about, you know, the EV industry right now, I wouldn't, I've been here
long enough.
I was here when the first Trump administration tried to kill it and he failed then.
And that was a much better time to kill the industry.
So we're now at a point where it's like, it's much harder to kill off.
Like there's too many plans in place.
There's too many companies that are doing this.
There's too many, all EV companies that are successful.
Like look at Rivian's
right now in a down market, they are doing really well.
So we're looking at an industry that is not suffering in any way.
And to your point about the used vehicles, there's a ton of really good value to get out of the used vehicles right now because what we have in, say, Porsche, you could get a 2023
Porsche Taycan for $53,000.
It's so cheap now.
I was looking at it, was like, gosh,
I kind of really want that car.
I don't have anywhere to park it right now.
man, that's a great.
there's there's kind of a pro and con, but I think overall a good or long term is like for a long time, EVs were not depreciating as fast as traditional vehicles.
And now there's kind of been unfortunately for buyers a flip where they've been depreciating faster.
But for the used car market and like greater exposure of EVs, you're totally right.
And especially, I mean, once again, you're talking about what was originally a hundred thousand dollar, pretty limited car as it was, but insane performance.
not just driving, but like the charging and all these different things that at that $50,000 price point makes extremely competitive, even with a brand new car and makes you
really think is that really what you want to go with?
Well, I think it's also the other side of that where I think people don't appreciate the fact that these cars are gonna last a really long time.
I see a lot of comments online about, I buy this car?
it bad?
Like the battery's bad or whatever.
And I'm like, no, the battery's probably fine.
Those batteries are designed to last.
If you take care of your battery, they'll basically...
Yeah.
know.
So it's like, I wouldn't worry about any of that stuff.
And it's like one of those things where I think the used market is gonna see a shift around too, just because of the nature of these cars.
They're gonna hang around for way, way longer.
It almost equates to my mom owns a 2002 Honda Civic and that thing will not die.
it's beat to hell.
Like it's been through me as a teenager driving that thing around.
It still works really well.
And she gets offers occasionally for people to buy it from her for like four brand.
This is, you know, a 20 year old car.
And so it's like, I think if you get a car that has that kind of longevity, all of a sudden people are like, I want that car because I know it's not going to break.
like it's just a really great vehicle.
That's EVs in general, is like that level of just longevity.
Now to say that all them on the used market are gonna be good, that's not true.
I've definitely driven some that damage battery packs that are terrible.
So you do need to be like on the lookout and you do need to make sure you're protecting yourself.
But overall, like most of the used vehicles, especially like I'll go back to that 2023 Taycan, like that car, you know, is under warranty still that battery, even if it broke
tomorrow, hey, you get a free battery, like brand new battery in your vehicle.
And now you basically got like a brand new car.
Well, and I think it's you're totally right with like the Honda and you can say actually pretty similar to a lot of the Japanese car brands that they are known for that kind of
resiliency.
And part of that, too, is they've been around for a century of kind of getting that fine tuning and a lot of them.
But there's also a lot of combustion cars that don't have that kind.
And I think people always think like, well, this Honda or like these cars that last for hours, like, well, that's still actually a pretty small percentage of the combustion.
I mean, we had a grown up, we had a super outback that eventually died at like 350,000 miles and could have been saved.
But at that point, like what you need to do was more than what the car was worth.
And that's that's great.
But like when you start going to the electric vehicle thing, I think some of it too was like, OK, they've only really been in mass production now.
And even mass production is like a stretch because that's pretty much the Nissan Leaf and the Model S for a little over a decade.
You start getting more and more of these brands that have actually been around.
for, uh, and I mean the brands, but the products like kind of get beyond this five year life cycle and just how much better car companies are now at figuring out points of
failure and like doing QC testing in advance for a lot of like exactly to what you're saying.
And then at the same time, if you're looking, I mean, don't worry, I love the Porsche icon.
If you're looking at that specifically, the pro and con of that is the instant there's a new version out of it, it loses so much money.
And if you're looking to buy when use, mean, that's also a big part of the reason it's appreciated.
Now there's a newer version that
honestly outside of it charging faster, which is cool.
The old one charged so fast as it was that it's like for the car you're getting if you're even if you're not, that's only like an advantage if you're road tripping every other
weekend.
And even if you're only road tripping once a month, it's still such a great car for that.
That like, why wouldn't you look at it?
So there's, I guess where I'm going with all this, there's a lot to be optimistic about and kind of looking forward to see what has already happened and kind of go into your
comment about like
If it was going to die, I would have died like five to 10 years ago.
And now there's just this kind of critical mass of it might not be growing as fast as many people want, but it's still growing.
I think the people, the thing people don't see in a lot of the headlines is the actual auto industry has been shrinking and actually doing terribly.
So anything that is actually growing in that industry right now is actually kind of a miracle and should be honestly celebrated more than what the headlines might have you
think.
Yeah, well, that actually leads me into my next point about that is like, we're actually getting pretty close to where you're not going to drive your own car anymore anyway.
Like I live in San Francisco, Waymo in the last two years has absolutely taken over.
Uber has slashed their prices to like the bare minimum just to stay competitive because people would rather...
get in a car with absolutely no driver and take them somewhere.
Then have to deal with like the mixed bag of what you're going to get out of Uber.
And so I think Uber's days are now like numbered.
And I think what we'll end up seeing evolving out of that.
And this is some quote that I can't remember which Ford CEO was, wasn't Jim Farley, but they said, basically, if you can get the cost per mile down to a dollar.
on an electric vehicle, if it's autonomous, you're basically on par with the ownership of a vehicle.
So it's like, why not just, you at some point people are just gonna say, you know what, I don't need it.
I'll just, when I wanna use a car, I'll just call, you know, whatever driverless taxi is around, hop in that and take me wherever I wanna go.
And I don't need to own the car at all anymore.
And honestly, I'll be perfectly honest, I haven't owned a car in over a decade.
I love it.
And anytime I think about buying a car, kind of like, I don't want to deal with all of the headaches that come with the car, even an EV that's really simplistic.
You have to pay insurance, and I have to worry about people and all this other stuff.
If I don't have it, it's just not a thing.
And my life goes on as normal.
I can get out of town.
I can rent a car if I need to to get out of town.
It's not a big deal.
No, I think that's a great call out.
it's been really wild to see the advances in the autonomous space.
And that's definitely something we've talked about on here quite a bit too, where, yeah, I took away Mo, this past Thanksgiving when I was down in Phoenix with my in-laws and I
thought it was overall impressive.
They did not like kind of, and I've talked, I actually haven't had been in one in a few months now.
And it sounds like there's been obviously another one that's made a little less jerky, but obviously seeing the steering wheel and all that stuff.
It just the way that Waymo drove I thought was safe and great, but it just felt robotic.
It didn't feel like a human in a lot of ways.
And there's pros and cons to that obviously.
But what was funny was recently we have a model three that has like the newer hardware for the self-driving.
And obviously those are kind of in different realms as to like, obviously Waymo is actually doing it and Tesla says they're going to do it.
But it's gone just wickedly impressive that I pretty much
I turn it on without telling them.
And then we got to our destination and like, I didn't drive the whole time and they had no, no clue.
And even going down as, as much fun as going to the EV charging summit was, I just was kind of also blown away because it been, I used to live in the Bay area.
used to travel in Europe.
used to take Uber's multiple ones a daily.
Now I've been kind living more in a more rural area.
And so it's kind of been a while since, especially post COVID, like being in an Uber.
and taking the Ubers to Vegas and everything.
I was just like, wow, this is such this I wouldn't say is more stressful or stress related, but just like the driving experience, the Tesla in some extent in the way mode,
but especially the Tesla was so much smoother than your average Uber driver trying to cut through traffic and do all these other things.
And it's just like when you think about it as a passenger, where we are at in that and how that impacts
charging and all these different things for the end consumer.
It's kind of a well done.
Yeah, I if you really want to get in a time machine that, know, I always take cabs from the airport because it's so much simpler to just walk down and grab one and pull off.
But like, I can see why that model doesn't work anymore.
Whereas with an Uber, I can call the Uber, if you time it right, you can kind walk straight up and get in one, but it's really difficult.
But outside of that, when you're at your destination, you just hop out and leave.
With the cab, I have to sit there and wait for them to run my card and all this other stuff.
it's like, cars are usually beat to hell.
Yeah, the other one I took definitely was.
Yeah, and so we're slowly evolving into this, into an actually like pretty, honestly, pretty bright and better future for at least some of these systems.
So I'm looking forward to like how we start to evolve.
It's like the thing I always tell people who are a little bit like negative towards autonomous and EVs is like, look, like these, to your point, like it's really only been
about at best 15-ish years.
Like if you really want to stretch it that far.
Like, you know, really it's been about 10 and we're at the very beginning of a long, long journey.
And if you want to go back a hundred years and look at what, how the automobile evolved.
like over time, you'll see a similar pattern start to emerge.
You know, like with the charging stations, people, they're not safe.
know, batteries aren't safe.
Same thing was said about gas that people would, they would protest about putting gas stations on in neighborhoods because people were afraid that they would blow up.
Right?
Like, like this is, these arguments and conversations are not new.
All you do need to do is just go back in time a little bit.
You can see that this is exactly the same thing that people were talking about back
Well, And I think it's funny you say the decade thing because you, cause you're right.
But it's like, was living in Palo Alto and it's like, there's a difference between being like in the R and D phase and like an actual commercial service.
And in some ways Waymo has just barely left that.
and so it's really only been a couple of years that way most kind of like left fully R and D has become more of a commercial service.
So when you even think about it that way, it really is truly wild how quickly that as a service or even an option has evolved.
And now obviously we could talk about autonomy and all this all probably for its own podcast.
And before we go down that, I think we should probably get a little bit focused just given our time back on.
I know we've talked a lot about multifamily and kind of Pando and how that helps with it, but I think looking forward and for any topic or any parts of it we haven't covered yet.
I know a lot of our listeners are always really interested in multifamily and some of how that plays into charging and owning an EV.
I just kind of like to hear your thoughts a little bit about.
some of the things to think about how Panda really does help with that and how if you're in that position to really kind of work with you guys to make that happen.
Yeah, I think we touched on all of it, right?
So it's the upfront cost savings, the zero ongoing maintenance, and the full service and support once you do contact Pando.
And the reality of all of those things was just to eliminate hassle and headache for the property owner.
That was the actual thing holding this industry back, specifically EV charging and multifamily, because they were just tired of like, EV chargers were a hassle.
There was a company and they still exist.
And I'm sure it was the same company that you couldn't get a charge at in the middle of nowhere because of way they set up the system.
That's done a huge disservice to the industry.
They've, you know, they've built these things up in a haphazard way.
and it caused a lot of problems and it damaged the reputation of EV charging.
And so in a lot of these properties, we end up going in and removing that particular competitor out and putting in our chargers in.
And that's mostly down to the fact that they just can't stand that those chargers are always broken.
And when they're broken or they don't work, they then get the complaint from the tenants and that those tenants complain quite a lot because that's their main charging conveyance.
It's the same thing as like, I tell people is like, if your gas station that you use all the time is closed for four weeks, you're going to start to get pissed and it's not going
to take very long.
And it's the same situation with, you know, at your multifamily house, you're going to be working with somebody who wants to use the charger and they can't, it's a problem.
And it's going to be a problem if you have to share the charger too.
That was the other issue.
They're like, well, let's just have two chargers for a community of 200.
Like that worked 10 years ago.
work today, you need to put in probably 20 % if not more depending on where you're at.
Because the other thing that we know is that the number of EV, the cars on site, once you start providing charging, start doubling every year.
And so you're looking at more and more people go and either buy an EV because they know now I can get charging at home so I'm going to buy the EV that I want.
or you're going to have a lot of people who live in a community that doesn't provide charging or doesn't provide it.
provide enough charging move into that community because they do.
And the big takeaway that I had, you know, there's a big conference, the National Multifamily Housing Council does a tech conference every year.
The biggest takeaway from the last one that I went to was that the shift in the last 10 years went from EVs or EV charging is nice to have, they're a luxury item, maybe put in
one or two if you have a luxury property, and then otherwise don't bother to you need to have EV charging or
you're gonna lose tenants.
And so to bring this conversation full circle, the thing that they're focusing in on is vacancy rates, when they hear you're gonna lose tenants, if you don't have EV charging,
they'll open up their pocketbook and they'll start putting in the EV charger because they know if they don't, the vacancy rate is gonna go up and that's what they care about the
most.
Yeah, I think that actually does kind of go back to that theme we were talking about from the EV charging.
So one of the big things to me was visibility.
And so that visibility of when someone sees there's actually chargers at where they're renting, they're like, I can get one now.
And so here in that stat that it starts doubling makes so much sense because EV charging visibility, I think is one big part of it.
And then the second part was just like so many of these groups I was talking to, it's just like, and I've been working with, with our consultancy is just like,
You just have to get butts in seats still.
I know that's what people were doing like a decade ago and we think we're better on way past that.
No, we're still way too early.
And if you want to like people to get that light bulb moment and see the switch, they have to get behind an EV and like drive it just for five minutes and then quickly they get it.
But you still just have to get butts in seats and have this ability for EV charger.
So they feel comfortable that there's a place to charge versus what used to be.
They have to see a gas station and they don't, so many people don't really get that whole.
part that makes an EV great is the level two and level one even side of it about being able to actually charge more than 80 % of the time that way.
And so having to go to a charger or having to go to a gas station like they normally do.
Yeah, I mean, you kind of bring up something really interesting that, you know, the last time we spoke, I shared with you a project called Woodland Creek, where we outfitted a 90
unit condo with 92 chargers for only $405 a station.
Go back and check that out, by the way, if you really want to hear that story.
I'm not going to.
Yeah.
I won't dive too deep into that.
can go listen to the other podcast for that one, but we're doing a ribbon cutting at the end of May on May 31st at that property.
And the thing that I'll bring up, number one, we are going to do like, you know, some EV showcases so people can sit in them and actually get a feel for them.
What was really, really interesting is that that project has only been installed for about three months.
We've already had two people buy EVs at that property.
Right.
So in three months, two people immediately sold their little car, got in and went and bought.
I think one's a Tesla and one was a Hyundai.
So it's like we are, we already now feel like we've solved that chicken and egg problem.
Like, what do you need to put in first?
Do you need the EV drivers on site first, or do you need the EV chargers?
I think in all honesty, you need the charging
first because now people know especially the where the we're at with this industry that you can you know, Hey, if I put in these EV Chargers, the EV drivers are going to show up
and the people on my property are probably going to start buying cars because they've wanted one for so long.
They just didn't know where to actually charge it.
And now that you have that ability, it's going to change things.
And the really interesting thing about that property is literally like it's not even a full block away.
There's a bank of EV go superchargers, DC fast chargers.
that are there, are right very, very nearby the campus of that property.
And people are still opting to buy more waiting because they're like, I don't wanna park it over there for however, you know, 30, 45 minutes and then have to move it.
That's an inconvenience.
I wanna have to park it in my space, charge it up and walk away and leave.
That's the thing, that is the key to making EVs work, is making it more convenient for people to charge their car at home.
I guess one final thing and that's perfect time because I wanted to get to the ribbon cutting and talk about all that.
but I I've seen with some people who do have, they're staying in apartments.
There's some, apartment complexes where they have EV charging now where it's like, okay, here are the EV charging spots.
charge your EV there.
And then once it's ideally try and move it as soon as you can.
And it's obviously kind of loosely enforced versus some that they're like,
We have parking for 150, like just for example, I'm just pulling these numbers out of nowhere, like regular parking permits 150, but for a EV parking space, it's 175 or
something like that.
Are you seeing, or do you have any recommendations for multifamily and apartment dwellings that are implementing EV charging for the first time, how to kind of think about and kind
of execute that?
Yeah, I do.
The biggest thing that they need to be looking at is the scalability of what their solution is going to be able to do.
So not just thinking about what you need to put in today, but what you're going to need in the near future.
Because at one point, you're probably going to want to at least for the next decade scale it up to maybe 50%.
You know, out here in the Bay Area,
We're already at well over 40 % new vehicle sales are electric.
it's gonna, at some point we're gonna hit 40 % on the roads.
And so you're gonna need 40 % in the parking lot.
You don't need it right now though.
And so one of the things that we did build into our solution is that, you know, that daisy chaining technology is actually really cool because I can drop in one charger and then as
I need more, can branch off multiple from it and the installs and the costs are really, really cheap.
So it's like 500 bucks to add one more charger rather than I have to do another, you know, $5,000 run.
I do that $5,000 run once, which with ours it's actually about 2,500 2,500, but I only had to do that once and now I can branch off five other outlets off of it.
And so we try to build in a way for the system to expand easily within the garage and grow.
And really that's what they need to be thinking about is not just I have 10 EV drivers I need to put in 10 chargers today and now I'm done.
It's like, no, you need to put in 10 now.
You probably need to like actually put in 20 now.
And then you need to start thinking about how do I scale that 15 to 20 to 30 to 40 over the next decade?
And basically look for providers that are going to give you that ability to scale easily and not just, you can scale but it's got costs.
Easily and cost effectively.
Those are the keys and that's why I believe Pando does have the right solution to solve this market problem.
Now that I think is a great place to end it at, but Joe, thank you so much for coming on again.
For those who are listening, I know we'll have some links in today's show notes, but what's the best way to connect with you or kind of learn about Pando and any other
upcoming events your team may have.
Absolutely.
So number one, May 31st at the Woodland Creek HOA in East Palo Alto, we're doing a ribbon cutting for our flagship 100%.
We believe this is the largest 100 % property in the nation, but I'll just say it at minimum is the largest in California.
We know that for sure.
You can find me, follow me on LinkedIn.
I love to have chats and conversations with people there.
Or if you want to reach out to Pando Electric, just jump over to PandoElectric.com.
Give us a phone call or follow our form and we'll be happy to get back to you.
Thanks so much, Joe.
We'll have to have you again on soon.
It's always been great to kind of hear what your team is doing and even just in the few months since you've last been on how much change and how many different things that your
team's been able to implement.
So thanks so much for coming on again.
Absolutely, thanks for having me.
It's always been a fun time with you.
That's a wrap on this episode of Grid Connections.
A big thanks again to Joseph Nagel from Pando Electric for joining us and sharing his insights on how scalable, cost-effective charging infrastructure is reshaping what's
possible for multifamily housing and energy resilience.
If today's conversation got you thinking about EV charging strategy, whether you're a property owner, policymaker, or just EV curious,
Check out Grid Connections Consulting, that's gridconnections.co, where we're helping organizations navigate the shift to electrified transportation.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone in your network, leave us a five star review and subscribe to our newsletter
using the link in the show notes to keep up with the latest from the front lines of the energy
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And this is the grid connections podcast signing off.