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Good morning, Grid Connections listeners.

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Today we're joined by Bill Ferro the CTO and co-founder of Paren.

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Bill brings decades of experience in software and EV innovation, and he's here to share
insights into how Paren is revolutionizing EV charging reliability, making EV road

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tripping easier, increasing the reliability and transparency of EV infrastructure, and the
data connecting all of these systems together.

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If the company sounds familiar, you may have seen in the news that Paren recently acquired
frequent guests, Loren McDonald's company, EV adoption.

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Bill shares with us everything from his early career at IBM, where he worked on
transitioning critical systems to becoming an early EV adopter and advocate.

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Bill has a wealth of knowledge about the future of electric vehicles and the challenges
that come with scaling up charging infrastructure.

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In this episode, we'll dive deep into Paren cutting edge API that aims to ensure EV
drivers are always routed to a working, reliable charger, taking into account safety

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amenities and much more.

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You won't want to miss this conversation about what's next in EV technology and how data
can accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles.

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If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with at least one other person who you
think will appreciate the content as well.

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And don't forget to leave us a positive review in our podcast page.

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Your feedback helps us grow and bring you more conversations like this.

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With that, enjoy.

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I'm really excited to be speaking with you about the technology that you guys are
offering.

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Cause I think it's definitely a much needed service, not just for drivers, but a lot of
the people in the space trying to build the front end and, infrastructure and the hardware

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and the software side of it.

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So I think this is a really great way to bring all these different areas that need
improvement together.

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But, Bill, guess before we get started first, I guess, could you just share a little bit
about yourself and kind of your background and we can kind of then.

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dive deep into it from there.

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to and thanks Chase for having me on.

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And yet recently, as I think you know, Loren McDonald joined our company and it's
fantastic, even in the first couple of weeks, just to have him kind of side by side to

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chat with every day.

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But we can get to that more in a bit.

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But yeah, so I started my software career in the Boston area in 1985, really shortly after
the first PCs became popular and I had

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senior leadership positions at several companies throughout the years, ending up at IBM
through an acquisition of a marketing software company I worked at called Unica.

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And at IBM, I led the team that successfully transitioned the Federal Reserve Bank's ACH
system from this old cobalt-based behemoth to this modern software architecture.

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And that's notable for a couple of reasons.

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One is that that system was so old and fragile, and I can kind of talk about this now, I
couldn't then, but it was actually a national security issue that ended up on the

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president's desk.

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Not because the talent had retired, but the talent was dying.

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And it really became a problem.

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We were the third or fourth team that actually tried to attempt this replacement.

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I this system is monstrous.

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Your paycheck, your parents' Social Security check, all those COVID payments we got, all
flow through this system every day.

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It moves over $5 trillion a month when I last checked.

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So it's the kind of system that if it ever goes down, it's front page news and it has
major market implications.

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So no pressure at all.

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That's kind of how I sort of ended my career at IBM after that went live and after about a
year of successfully supporting that.

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And then along the way, I developed this hobby in 2012.

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That's when I received this postcard in the mail.

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And it was from BMW and it said come and drive this all-new electric car for two years
closed-end lease it was called the active E and there were only 700 of them that were made

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and available in the US and two years unlimited miles be a guinea pig in the EV revolution
and I was hooked and I got one and I've been driving EVs ever since so so when I left the

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corporate world in after 37 years I

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wanted to do something in the EV space to kind of build on my passion and this hobby, but
I had absolutely no idea what would be next.

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Yeah, I think what's really funny is, mean, not to go down a completely different rabbit
hole, but cobalt itself.

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mean, what has that been around since the fifties?

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I think it's a, is truly an ancient, software and it is funny how dependent a lot of.

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Core, American infrastructure and kind of things that people take for granted and assume
that have been updated have been running on that for so long.

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Yeah, there's a ton of stories.

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There's a book in the making, I'm sure, on that project.

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was four years of 20-hour days for a long time to making that happen.

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And it was actually a great team effort.

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It was a project that won awards internally at IBM for me and my team, as well as has had
major market implications.

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The Fed has been able to expand.

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They've been able to add new features and products based on actually having modern
software to work with.

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Well, I mean that unto itself, like you said, it be its own book, but, that's really
interesting.

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didn't realize he had been one of the early users of the activity either.

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because that's about the time I think it was probably around 2011, maybe 2012 in San
Francisco.

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I had been hanging out and they, I was actually just watching her down, kind of trying
remember where it was, but it was somewhere along the waterfront and.

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There were just a bunch of these BMWs and a little Mini Coopers out and there were just
some people and I was like, what, what's going on?

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And they literally were just letting people just get into the car and do a drive around
the city.

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And it just seemed like, this is really cool.

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This is the, this makes so much sense.

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Even though I think the BMW, I think both of them were probably 150 miles range, but,

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100 on a good day.

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In the Northeast, in the Boston area where I was, I had a 60 mile commute and there were
days where I had 55 miles of range.

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So we got creative.

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Yeah.

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Well, like I said, I, what they say, I completely understand that.

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think they said a hundred, maybe it was like one 25 and that was in the Bay area.

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So you add any temp or anything up or down from there.

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And yeah, I'm sure it probably would have been closer to that number easily.

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That car was a blast to drive.

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I literally got pulled over the first day I got the car.

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And it actually was so fast that BMW had to actually bring them in and break them down and
fix this spline thing that was part of the rear axle because the force and pressure was so

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much on the motor driving the rear axle that it was actually too much for the equipment
they built.

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It was a test car.

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It was made to be driven hard and broken.

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Yeah, that bill from the, when I got back after they made that change, it was a $30,000
bill to make that fix in the car.

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Of course, I paid nothing, it was, they had to show me what it cost.

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That's wild.

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No, and I mean, that's that was what was so interesting me at that time.

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I was like, Okay, there's definitely room for improvement.

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But it was such a fun car to drive.

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And so like, this is just going to happen that this because it was based on the one I had
driven was the one based on the I guess at the time, I think was called the one series.

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And yeah, and it had kind of the bulge in the front.

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I mean, it looked like the version of a one series or something.

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such a cool looking vehicles like, yeah, this isn't for everyone.

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But like, clearly, this is the future and they're going to start selling these and it'll
take off and

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That'll be the end of it.

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And that wasn't it.

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had people in traffic jams that would roll down their window and say, well, what is that?

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And we'd have a chat as we're inching up to the robot.

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Well, so that that's really interesting because yeah, we, had a couple other people on
previously who had said they had been test drivers of it.

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I believe Tom Malogny was one kind of in the Northeast as well.

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And so you drive this, you seem to love it.

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even with it's kind of challenges, what, were your thoughts when it kind of came to an
end?

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Did you expect, there'd be another one I could lease or would be available or something or

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We got first dibs on the BMW i3 and Tom Malogny was kind of our East Coast leader.

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So we all knew Tom.

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I actually saw him a few weeks ago.

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it was one of those things where, you

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I didn't want an engine and BMW was coming out, I didn't want a gas powered motor, right?

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And BMW was coming out with two versions of that i3.

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So I actually got an early i3 because I wanted the Bev-only.

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It made absolutely more sense to get a Bev-only in the Northeast, but I did it anyways.

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And that had about 120 mile range.

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But it was, again, an absolute blast to drive.

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I took that one on a track near me.

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people just kind of lining up to ride with me as I was going around the track just to see
what it was like.

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So I stuck with that for a bit.

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Couldn't afford a Model S at that time.

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So I kept up with the BMW line for a bit.

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No, those I threes were a lot of fun.

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And I think, people understandably would kind of see this little crossover thing and just
think, it's kind of a city car, which it was, but at the same time it could still

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accelerate pretty, it was quite torquey.

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And just with kind of like the wheels and everything on it, it was such a fun little car
to drive, especially on some twisty turns.

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So you get the I three and obviously now at this point, you're pretty sold on electric
vehicles and that whole kind of experience, but

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What, what leads you to kind of continue following it and getting into actually maybe not
so much a hobby, but now actually wanting to be a part of it and have influence over kind

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of electric vehicles success professionally.

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Yeah, so like I said, I left IBM after that project was done.

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Didn't think there was much more to do there.

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And just sort of started with a blank sheet of paper.

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And I started doing research on fleet electrification.

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It's still a passion of mine.

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How are we going to electrify all of the, especially small fleets that are floating around
either for...

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HVAC and roofing companies and lawn care companies.

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That eventually has got to get electrified.

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How's that going to work?

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During that research in early 2022, when I was studying the EV charging infrastructure at
the time, reliability became a big problem.

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Twitter was a...

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bursting with people saying chargers were broken and they had bad charging experiences.

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The network, two years ago, it's come a long way in the last two years.

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every two years it makes these incremental leaps.

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Two years ago, it was not good.

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And there was a nonprofit called Cool the Earth in San Francisco.

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And they came out with a report along with a team at UC Berkeley.

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They basically went out and tested 600 DC fast chargers.

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by hand and said that 25 % didn't work.

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And then they released this report.

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They didn't expect anything to happen with it, but it blew up and it became something is
still actually coded today.

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So I've been doing this research on charger reliability.

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And so I called Carlene Cullen, who heads School of the Earth.

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And we began kind of a year long conversation about, you I asked her the question, what if
I, instead of going and manually collecting all your data, what if we could collect that

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data automatically and report on an automatic

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And along that way is I developed this algorithm for measuring charger reliability in what
I consider to be a unique way.

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the algorithm has been proven in a couple of different ways.

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But that's kind of how I got started.

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Once I figured out that the reliability algorithm actually worked, what actually happened
is

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the Cool the Earth team gave me their data, their manual data.

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They put it in a spreadsheet and they gave me their data.

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I ran it through my algorithm and it was 92 % accurate, meaning my algorithm found the
cases where charging was successful and it found the cases where charging failed.

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And so once I knew that algorithm worked, that's when I decided I had something I needed,
I wanted to focus on that.

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And so this charger reliability thing became

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A focus for me, it's different.

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It's a driver-focused metric.

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It's different from charger uptime, which I consider to be a CPO-focused metric.

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And so that's kind of where the data trove that we've built over the last couple of years.

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And now under Paren, which is a merger acquisition that we did earlier in the year, we're
expanding upon this original idea for charger reliability to work on an API that assists

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route planners.

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in guiding drivers to not just any EV charger pin on a map, but to a working EV charger
pin on a map.

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But it also meets their other criteria around pricing amenities and safety and some other
data sets that we're adding to the mix.

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it's kind of a long answer to kind of the question, but it was just sort of this idea that
became something that I was able to validate and then

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use that validation to reach out to other folks in the industry and continue on the
journey.

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No, that's really fascinating.

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Cause yeah, you're right.

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That Berkeley study is one that's been quoted by all sorts of different kinds of outlets
about the effectiveness of chargers.

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But I think what's really interesting is especially someone like yourself who's been
driving an EV since around 2012.

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mean, I feel like there's been so many different waves of like charger and charge
reliability.

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mean, back then it was great to find like 2012 through 2015, even just like find a level
two charger.

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So, my God, there's a charger here.

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And that was even seen as like such a great thing.

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And then I feel like pretty quickly after that, you started seeing this wave of even just
simple level two chargers, just failing pretty consistently.

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And then there would be a wave of like the blink chargers of the world that got acquired
and kind of went away and became something else.

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And then it was really like you were talking about a few years ago, we have this there'd
been Tesla, but then there really was the electrify Americas and this kind of second big

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wave.

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But I guess first of the DC fast chargers, and then those start going to the ground
finally.

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And then you started seeing, unfortunately,

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those failing as well.

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I, I think unfortunately, so much of the discussion, like you're saying is really around
the CPO side of it, which kind of makes sense logically, because they're the ones that are

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responsible for a lot of these.

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But at the end of the day, now that especially like Nevi funding and all this stuff, it's
really about what's the driver experience.

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And so many of these times you see kind of in the data, or what I guess maybe the data
that's presented to us by ChargePoint operators that

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They're having so many successful charging experiences.

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Everyone's driving.

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There's no issues, but then it's an EV driver or you really don't have to go too far to
say like, well, that's not exactly what I'd consider a success or just because the station

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was up.

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It doesn't mean all the ports and everything else were, delivering the experience that you
would want for someone who's either an EV driver, especially if someone's new, like coming

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from a gas vehicle.

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So for sure, for sure.

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Even in a perfect market.

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And you can use, on the East Coast, you can use the last month worth of storms as an
example.

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West Coast, you've got fires, right?

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But with the hurricane that came through last week in Florida, Electrify America did a
decent job of notifying folks which of their stations were offline.

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No problem with that.

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You're not going to survive a hurricane on day one.

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But then they did a decent job of showing you when the stations came back online.

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I'm not sure that other...

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CPOs were doing the same thing, but again, that's just one piece of the puzzle.

201
00:16:26,727 --> 00:16:36,791
I've been driving down the street on a road trip and in my Tesla, and the Tesla pops up a
message that says, your destination charger is offline.

202
00:16:37,191 --> 00:16:39,092
I assumed it was a power outage or something.

203
00:16:39,092 --> 00:16:42,810
It rerouted me to another place, which was fantastic.

204
00:16:42,810 --> 00:16:43,325
Right.

205
00:16:43,325 --> 00:16:45,826
Tesla can do that because they have a closed loop system.

206
00:16:45,826 --> 00:16:47,436
They could do that yesterday.

207
00:16:47,436 --> 00:16:53,828
Today, it becomes a lot harder now that their network is open up, and they don't know
actually who's coming to the stations.

208
00:16:53,828 --> 00:16:59,390
And so they can't really control the experience the way they could up until last year.

209
00:16:59,390 --> 00:17:12,301
So there's a need for this sort of neutral central API capability that can feed all the
route planning groups in the country to let them know that

210
00:17:12,301 --> 00:17:14,783
charging stations are working or not.

211
00:17:15,445 --> 00:17:16,805
Accidents happen.

212
00:17:17,107 --> 00:17:28,508
The devastation, unfortunately, that happened in the mountains where I live in North
Carolina is, it's gonna be years before some of those stations come back online because

213
00:17:28,508 --> 00:17:30,541
the roads and infrastructure are just gone.

214
00:17:31,299 --> 00:17:39,053
Is there any, I mean, it, since you brought up, I'm just kind of curious with the recent
hurricane, obviously in your area, but just with the ones we've seen kind of just all

215
00:17:39,053 --> 00:17:47,968
along the East coast, back to back there, were there any interesting like trends or things
that kind of stood out to you from your team that maybe you were seeing that you're able

216
00:17:47,968 --> 00:17:49,328
to share about?

217
00:17:49,804 --> 00:17:58,334
I mean, I think that's a great example of like electrify America and Tesla being the ones
that are usually pretty good at trying to communicate and being able to kind of get back

218
00:17:58,334 --> 00:17:59,314
up in time.

219
00:17:59,314 --> 00:18:01,125
And obviously let's just say it.

220
00:18:01,125 --> 00:18:02,970
There's a lot of gas stations that were also down.

221
00:18:02,970 --> 00:18:11,309
this isn't just a electric vehicle problem, but yeah, I'm curious if there's any other
kinds of things that maybe you saw that stood out to you and the team.

222
00:18:11,313 --> 00:18:12,053
A couple of things.

223
00:18:12,053 --> 00:18:14,613
I mentioned Electify America being very proactive.

224
00:18:14,613 --> 00:18:16,113
I thought that was good.

225
00:18:16,113 --> 00:18:18,613
I think everybody should be doing that.

226
00:18:18,993 --> 00:18:20,813
I was curious.

227
00:18:20,813 --> 00:18:27,133
So I have family that lives in southern Georgia, and they were impacted by the first
hurricane and lost power for a while.

228
00:18:27,133 --> 00:18:30,133
And so I know there's a supercharger down in that area.

229
00:18:30,133 --> 00:18:35,523
So I was kind of following it to see how long it was going to be offline for and
whether...

230
00:18:35,523 --> 00:18:40,077
my sister who lives about a mile away, was she going to get power first or were they?

231
00:18:40,077 --> 00:18:42,519
And so it became a little game, right?

232
00:18:42,519 --> 00:18:49,505
And of course the supercharger got power first, but it's in the industrial area, so it
makes the most sense.

233
00:18:49,505 --> 00:18:54,569
But you could tell that there was a focus on getting the infrastructure back up.

234
00:18:54,853 --> 00:19:07,928
And even in North Carolina, similarly, there were some posts that were done on the state
of charging in the mountain region, well as posts on LinkedIn, as well as some of the data

235
00:19:07,928 --> 00:19:08,838
that we were tracking.

236
00:19:08,838 --> 00:19:12,659
Most charging stations, most of them came back online relatively quickly.

237
00:19:12,659 --> 00:19:14,780
So I was surprised at that.

238
00:19:14,780 --> 00:19:18,401
I was expecting that some of them would be down for a longer period of time.

239
00:19:18,683 --> 00:19:20,324
Well, that's great to hear.

240
00:19:20,324 --> 00:19:25,549
guess, obviously again, that through your API, and I know that's something you wanted to
talk about today.

241
00:19:25,549 --> 00:19:34,196
And I think something that would be, definitely interesting to talk to you about,
especially in that comparison to how Tesla leverages their kind of information messaging.

242
00:19:34,196 --> 00:19:43,714
It seems like there's so much potential with what you guys are working on, but yeah,
let's, let's, let's just start and kind of talk with about, Paren API and what, are some

243
00:19:43,714 --> 00:19:47,187
of the things that your team's really excited about with this new launch.

244
00:19:47,439 --> 00:19:52,650
So we're excited about bringing that capability, that Tesla capability to the rest of the
market.

245
00:19:52,650 --> 00:20:00,743
And I would argue as well that Tesla is already potentially having the problem.

246
00:20:00,743 --> 00:20:03,033
Now it's only going to get bigger.

247
00:20:03,033 --> 00:20:07,805
They obviously are the best when it comes to reliability.

248
00:20:07,805 --> 00:20:15,196
A lot of it has to do with just the pure number of stations that they have and stalls that
they have at those stations.

249
00:20:16,933 --> 00:20:20,320
they also do a very good job of maintaining and keeping them active.

250
00:20:20,320 --> 00:20:27,826
But they are losing the grip on who is coming to their charging stations and when are they
going to be there, right?

251
00:20:27,826 --> 00:20:28,556
So.

252
00:20:29,027 --> 00:20:36,679
anybody on a road trip, you've got two Fords, two Rivians, and six Teslas all headed for
that same supercharger.

253
00:20:36,799 --> 00:20:39,980
Tesla would have rerouted some of them in the past, and now they won't.

254
00:20:39,980 --> 00:20:47,542
So it's as much about availability as it is about reliability as well.

255
00:20:47,542 --> 00:20:48,582
And stuff happens, right?

256
00:20:48,582 --> 00:20:52,624
Power outages happen in the middle of road trips.

257
00:20:52,624 --> 00:20:54,144
It can't be stopped.

258
00:20:54,464 --> 00:20:56,425
And it doesn't happen to just superchargers.

259
00:20:56,425 --> 00:20:58,415
It happens on an IV network.

260
00:20:58,415 --> 00:21:04,870
We've seen, especially in the West, we've seen cable cutting being an issue.

261
00:21:06,552 --> 00:21:10,816
Again, it's not the CPO's fault necessarily that the cables are being cut.

262
00:21:10,816 --> 00:21:19,754
But if I'm on a road trip and I'm heading to that thing and somebody comes out with some
wire cutters 30 minutes before I get there, I'm on the road.

263
00:21:19,754 --> 00:21:22,026
I've already got that mapped into my navigation.

264
00:21:22,026 --> 00:21:24,458
How do I actually, now what do I do?

265
00:21:24,458 --> 00:21:26,329
I'm going to bring up PlugShare.

266
00:21:26,329 --> 00:21:39,169
on my phone while I'm driving and I'm looking at my phone and unless I've got Blue Cruise
or whatever other feature is out there that's self-driving or helping to drive, then it's

267
00:21:39,169 --> 00:21:39,700
dangerous.

268
00:21:39,700 --> 00:21:52,330
So we want to feed that data into the route planning, into the routing applications that
are already in the vehicle and guide folks in the way that Tesla was able to in the past,

269
00:21:52,330 --> 00:21:55,833
guide folks to working charging stations.

270
00:21:56,527 --> 00:21:58,211
That's really interesting.

271
00:21:58,211 --> 00:21:59,412
no, continue.

272
00:21:59,414 --> 00:22:00,138
Yeah.

273
00:22:00,138 --> 00:22:10,541
sort of a switch in Loren and I were having this conversation recently, which is when he
goes on his road trips in California, he bases his charging on what he feels like eating,

274
00:22:10,541 --> 00:22:11,421
right?

275
00:22:11,701 --> 00:22:14,982
And so you can do that in California because of the density.

276
00:22:15,442 --> 00:22:18,663
You can't do that in most of the rest of the country.

277
00:22:18,663 --> 00:22:22,104
And so, but we feel that over time that is also going to change.

278
00:22:22,104 --> 00:22:25,845
So being able to route based on other preferences.

279
00:22:26,129 --> 00:22:27,191
whether it's pricing.

280
00:22:27,191 --> 00:22:27,791
I'm cheap.

281
00:22:27,791 --> 00:22:33,738
I want to go to the cheapest price option that I have in charging.

282
00:22:33,738 --> 00:22:35,861
My wife might care more about safety.

283
00:22:35,861 --> 00:22:37,913
So we bring all this data together.

284
00:22:37,913 --> 00:22:45,732
Now you've got options as a route planner to say, me pull in whoever's driving, let me
pull in their options.

285
00:22:45,732 --> 00:22:47,113
Maybe they're a...

286
00:22:48,687 --> 00:23:02,613
name any food places, maybe they want fast food versus sit-down dining, and they can base
their route options on that and potentially reroute, right?

287
00:23:02,613 --> 00:23:08,777
So if the stations are busy when they're going to be there or on their way there or if
something happens when they go down.

288
00:23:09,859 --> 00:23:12,190
Yeah, I think that makes so much sense.

289
00:23:12,190 --> 00:23:23,016
mean, one of the things that I kind of talk about a lot on this podcast is for, and this
is true of any technology, but for a new technology to kind of supplant the existing way,

290
00:23:23,016 --> 00:23:24,137
it doesn't have to be just as good.

291
00:23:24,137 --> 00:23:25,487
It has to be better.

292
00:23:25,708 --> 00:23:34,072
And I think with gas stations, we're kind of spoiled with just choice and options for the
most part, we can just kind of go wherever without too much of a hassle.

293
00:23:34,072 --> 00:23:36,063
And then obviously swipe a card and it works.

294
00:23:36,063 --> 00:23:38,975
And then we fill it with gas pretty quickly.

295
00:23:39,123 --> 00:23:46,855
And I think one of the really cool things, obviously kind of in that whole experience,
especially on the Tesla side, and now you're seeing this with more odd makers, you kind of

296
00:23:46,855 --> 00:23:50,486
that plug and charge, you just can't plug it in, walk away, don't have to think about it.

297
00:23:50,486 --> 00:23:54,567
But the bigger thing is kind of moving from, I need gas.

298
00:23:54,567 --> 00:23:59,729
I'll just go to a gas station versus like being more proactive about it on your road trip.

299
00:23:59,729 --> 00:24:02,929
Or like you're talking about like being routed to a supercharger.

300
00:24:02,929 --> 00:24:09,111
mean, I've used that all the time where I can now see how many people are at a
supercharging station on my way there.

301
00:24:09,293 --> 00:24:12,125
And how many it says are going that way.

302
00:24:12,125 --> 00:24:13,285
And while, yeah, you're right.

303
00:24:13,285 --> 00:24:17,127
That's really just pulling, Tesla's that are going to that one.

304
00:24:17,127 --> 00:24:28,504
And that's obviously changing, but being able to give that experience for more EV drivers,
let alone, let's say I'm in my Tesla now, Tesla's able to kind of pull that information to

305
00:24:28,504 --> 00:24:35,488
say, Hey, now that there's not just seven Tesla's going, there's actually seven Tesla's
and eight non-Tesla's and it's a eight stall station.

306
00:24:35,488 --> 00:24:37,058
Maybe you should keep going.

307
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:37,819
And

308
00:24:37,819 --> 00:24:40,119
That really creates that better experience for everyone.

309
00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:46,269
So I've had, I mean, and the other thing, I think there's a lot of talk about like waiting
in lines for EVs and yes, that does happen.

310
00:24:46,269 --> 00:24:52,729
That's really unfortunate, having this kind of technology and data while you're driving
really makes it a lot easier to avoid those things.

311
00:24:52,729 --> 00:25:03,359
And I was able to do something similar, over the recent, guess it wasn't that recent, but
over Labor Day weekend, I was trying, I was driving a few hours and saw one of the ones I

312
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:04,499
planned to was just load it.

313
00:25:04,499 --> 00:25:06,195
So I went to the next one.

314
00:25:06,219 --> 00:25:08,551
And was able to kind of dodge all of this weight.

315
00:25:08,551 --> 00:25:16,889
And at the same time in my gas car, I think it's interesting you bring up the cost part of
it too, because I would go to Costco and that was the cheapest.

316
00:25:16,889 --> 00:25:22,573
And I never really complained about waiting 20 minutes in this massive line to even just
get gas.

317
00:25:23,395 --> 00:25:32,881
And now you can kind of actively find a cheaper one or quicker one, or try and do both
with this present to the driver, which I think such a great opportunity.

318
00:25:32,881 --> 00:25:39,441
And we envision sort of in the future, I envision when I pull up to the stoplight in my
neighborhood, right?

319
00:25:39,441 --> 00:25:43,741
And I look left and I look right and I see two different gas stations.

320
00:25:43,781 --> 00:25:46,741
And I see the prices on the sign.

321
00:25:46,741 --> 00:25:48,241
I'm envisioning that.

322
00:25:48,241 --> 00:25:52,541
And we see this in Europe already that you're going to see some kilowatt price.

323
00:25:52,541 --> 00:25:54,541
Hopefully it's still under a dollar.

324
00:25:56,753 --> 00:26:03,057
you'd be able to kind of look left or right based on both utilization, is it busy, as well
as price.

325
00:26:03,057 --> 00:26:05,579
And so that kind of thing is coming in the future.

326
00:26:05,579 --> 00:26:12,283
We're nowhere near there yet, but that's kind of the vision that we have about ways to use
this data.

327
00:26:12,283 --> 00:26:14,544
again, it's not just for...

328
00:26:15,237 --> 00:26:20,260
know, casual drivers going on road trips, we see the same for fleets, right?

329
00:26:20,260 --> 00:26:21,681
You look at ride shares.

330
00:26:21,681 --> 00:26:35,999
And I think Uber recently was talking about how they, you know, they have technology that
will potentially not give an EV driver an option to take a ride because they know their

331
00:26:35,999 --> 00:26:41,602
state of charge and they know they can't make it there without stopping the charge or make
it back, right?

332
00:26:41,602 --> 00:26:43,579
So if we can add

333
00:26:43,579 --> 00:26:55,683
capability to that kind of route planning that basically says, you can drop off that
person at the airport and then turn around and go and charge two miles away at this

334
00:26:55,683 --> 00:27:07,807
station because it's not busy at that time and it has good reliability, then that's an
option for them to potentially give more options for ride share drivers.

335
00:27:08,411 --> 00:27:13,753
Well, I hope that information's also available to ride share writers.

336
00:27:14,063 --> 00:27:17,495
I bring that up because I, I guess that's a little antidote.

337
00:27:18,075 --> 00:27:21,357
A couple of months ago, I was a speaker at the electrify expo in San Francisco.

338
00:27:21,357 --> 00:27:22,837
So I get off the airplane.

339
00:27:22,837 --> 00:27:28,580
It was kind of in the evening and I decided to go with Uber and I choose the Uber green
option.

340
00:27:28,580 --> 00:27:30,921
like, I'll just see what there is.

341
00:27:31,041 --> 00:27:35,889
I get in, the guy was really nice, but I get in the car, we drive and he's like, Hey, can
I stop and charge?

342
00:27:35,889 --> 00:27:36,547
you

343
00:27:36,547 --> 00:27:42,782
And as an EV driver, kind of like understood that, but I was also kind of like surprised
as an Uber rider.

344
00:27:42,782 --> 00:27:44,874
That's really not a great experience.

345
00:27:44,874 --> 00:27:54,702
And then I, I look on his screen and he has 5 % on his battery and it says we'd get to the
hotel with 2 % and part of me was just like, no, I just want to go to my hotel.

346
00:27:54,702 --> 00:27:56,574
But I decided to just say, yeah, sure.

347
00:27:56,574 --> 00:27:56,904
Why not?

348
00:27:56,904 --> 00:27:58,736
Cause I just thought it was such a surreal experience.

349
00:27:58,736 --> 00:27:59,896
And of course I was texting my wives.

350
00:27:59,896 --> 00:28:01,828
You won't believe what's happening to me right now.

351
00:28:02,418 --> 00:28:03,850
but no, that, that, that's great to hear.

352
00:28:03,850 --> 00:28:05,645
And that's kind of the thing that.

353
00:28:05,645 --> 00:28:12,929
especially if you are a newber or electric company, you want to create that premium
experience and kind of avoid those issues proactively.

354
00:28:15,257 --> 00:28:25,596
So with kind of what your team's working on and like how you're looking to, I mean, can
you share with what the company's kind of looking to expand into, even maybe what your

355
00:28:25,596 --> 00:28:28,481
company is looking for right now to kind of help grow.

356
00:28:29,402 --> 00:28:33,854
Well, the growth is, well, it's around a couple of different areas, right?

357
00:28:33,854 --> 00:28:47,408
We think we're, we know that data is helping the market and we have, especially with the
acquisition of EV adoption, we have a ton of data that really covers what I would say is

358
00:28:47,408 --> 00:28:51,219
the full life cycle from RFP, from an idea, right?

359
00:28:51,219 --> 00:28:56,361
From an RFP through the build out, through, you know,

360
00:28:56,845 --> 00:29:00,087
essentially post-deployment utilization and reliability.

361
00:29:00,087 --> 00:29:02,989
So it's kind of this loop that we've created.

362
00:29:02,989 --> 00:29:09,914
And we see data being a really important factor into the growth in EP charging.

363
00:29:09,914 --> 00:29:21,611
So the kind of thing that we're looking to do is expand upon our data sets as well as
expand upon our customers using that data while we build out the APIs and add to those

364
00:29:21,611 --> 00:29:25,564
data sets so that we can improve the driving experience.

365
00:29:25,829 --> 00:29:39,333
But we know that I think some of the growth that we've seen in EV charging, there's
stations now that are at or approaching profitability because they were cited well.

366
00:29:39,333 --> 00:29:40,353
And why were they cited?

367
00:29:40,353 --> 00:29:44,454
Well, really good data was used to cite them.

368
00:29:44,494 --> 00:29:54,197
so that raises up the profitability, which raises up everyone's hopes that, we can build
up these systems and make money off of them.

369
00:29:54,845 --> 00:29:57,408
And so it takes data to do that.

370
00:29:57,408 --> 00:30:02,472
And I really think that that's one of the key things that's been helping here.

371
00:30:02,472 --> 00:30:07,217
And we were talking earlier about there's range anxiety.

372
00:30:07,217 --> 00:30:09,109
There was range anxiety, I would say.

373
00:30:09,109 --> 00:30:12,031
And now there's charger anxiety.

374
00:30:12,031 --> 00:30:15,164
And I would say the OEMs have built

375
00:30:16,549 --> 00:30:19,952
better cars to help eliminate range anxiety.

376
00:30:19,952 --> 00:30:21,173
It's not completely out of the picture.

377
00:30:21,173 --> 00:30:23,035
There are use cases that don't work.

378
00:30:23,536 --> 00:30:29,521
But they've done a fantastic job both with new vehicles and improvements on existing ones.

379
00:30:29,561 --> 00:30:31,904
We want to eliminate that charger anxiety.

380
00:30:31,904 --> 00:30:35,227
So that's kind of the tool set that we're building out.

381
00:30:35,227 --> 00:30:41,432
that's any fleet routing application.

382
00:30:41,492 --> 00:30:42,295
And there are our

383
00:30:42,295 --> 00:30:45,019
dozens of them out there that are looking to improve that experience.

384
00:30:45,019 --> 00:30:50,597
So those are the kinds of folks that we're either talking to or looking to talk to, but
how we can improve their driver experience.

385
00:30:51,355 --> 00:30:55,515
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of really cool and that's part of the reason I'm so
excited to talk with you guys today.

386
00:30:55,515 --> 00:30:58,355
But I think what's really interesting is

387
00:31:00,007 --> 00:31:09,364
I think the way your team is going about it is definitely probably one of the more
advanced ones, but there are others that have kind been the space approaching the data and

388
00:31:09,364 --> 00:31:10,355
charge of reliability.

389
00:31:10,355 --> 00:31:15,608
But what's really interesting, I think that you're providing is now with kind of the API
side of it too.

390
00:31:15,608 --> 00:31:17,280
It's kind of the full life cycle.

391
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:25,656
So you have a really good understanding of what makes really effective sites to put the
chargers at to hopefully increase that uptime to increase that profitability.

392
00:31:25,656 --> 00:31:27,951
So they stay open and they stay reliable.

393
00:31:27,951 --> 00:31:31,573
but then also kind of working on, I'm sorry.

394
00:31:32,434 --> 00:31:33,295
Yeah, exactly.

395
00:31:33,295 --> 00:31:34,056
Exactly.

396
00:31:34,056 --> 00:31:35,757
And then you have the charge point operator.

397
00:31:35,757 --> 00:31:45,194
So there's kind of the charge point operator side for the hardware, the planning, and then
also the software to making sure that they stay reliable and they have kind of accurate

398
00:31:45,194 --> 00:31:47,065
planning looking forward.

399
00:31:47,285 --> 00:31:55,351
but then there's also the driver's side and having that kind of information when it comes
to what their experiences going on in EV road trip and kind of planning what that's like.

400
00:31:55,407 --> 00:32:00,788
I'm curious, talking about kind of site planning, are there any interesting trends?

401
00:32:00,788 --> 00:32:09,411
mean, I feel like probably the obvious ones would be for ones that are effective are on
interstates really close to, the highway or something.

402
00:32:09,411 --> 00:32:17,893
So they have, they're easy and active for drivers to kind of get off and on the highway
and have probably a higher usage than having to drive further off the interstate.

403
00:32:17,893 --> 00:32:24,449
But I'm just kind of curious if there's anything that your team has noticed that you can
kind of share of what makes an effective.

404
00:32:24,449 --> 00:32:26,634
site for fast charging.

405
00:32:27,173 --> 00:32:43,017
Yeah, there's certainly having them placed in the Neve corridors of well populated areas
is going to instantly make for a good charging experience, right?

406
00:32:43,017 --> 00:32:45,689
And a decent station to own and operate.

407
00:32:46,250 --> 00:32:54,677
There's more than that though, because there's been a lot of chat recently about just the
effect of

408
00:32:55,043 --> 00:32:57,575
ride share drivers on the overall charging aspect.

409
00:32:57,575 --> 00:33:03,379
EVgo has said 25 % of their charges are now from ride share drivers.

410
00:33:03,379 --> 00:33:10,994
So the ride share drivers don't need the stations in the highways, in the highway
corridors.

411
00:33:10,994 --> 00:33:20,972
They need them in generally either where they live or generally where they're driving a
lot around.

412
00:33:20,972 --> 00:33:22,893
typically, that's

413
00:33:23,161 --> 00:33:25,462
in the outskirts of cities or inside the cities.

414
00:33:25,462 --> 00:33:27,933
And so we did a couple of things, studies recently.

415
00:33:27,933 --> 00:33:34,385
One is we were looking at Texas and we saw the utilization rate in the state of Texas went
up.

416
00:33:34,646 --> 00:33:43,331
And so we narrowed it down to three of four, four well-placed EV charging stations that
like...

417
00:33:43,331 --> 00:33:45,703
immediately went from zero to 60.

418
00:33:45,703 --> 00:33:59,953
They just went, they just became really busy, really fast, and they rose the whole state
from a usability standard, reliability and usability standpoint.

419
00:34:00,073 --> 00:34:08,869
And they were well placed around the outskirts of Dallas, the outskirts of, I think
Houston, San Antonio, and I think Houston may have had too.

420
00:34:08,869 --> 00:34:10,200
So.

421
00:34:11,887 --> 00:34:17,442
And that, believe, those were data-based deployments.

422
00:34:17,442 --> 00:34:19,404
Put them where you know they're going to be.

423
00:34:19,404 --> 00:34:21,005
And those stations are in use.

424
00:34:21,005 --> 00:34:24,518
They're not in use 24 hours a day, all the time.

425
00:34:24,518 --> 00:34:30,533
But if you go there at 2 3 o'clock in the morning, they're very heavily used.

426
00:34:30,533 --> 00:34:39,671
And just like there very heavily used stations in LA and San Francisco areas, where, of
course, EV rideshare drivers are more popular.

427
00:34:39,725 --> 00:34:46,149
But as that becomes an avenue for building more profitable stations.

428
00:34:46,149 --> 00:34:55,194
I think there was something recently with, what's it, Revel in New York is opening up one
of their stations to ride share drivers.

429
00:34:56,335 --> 00:35:01,187
And so it just makes sense to put them where the drivers are going to be.

430
00:35:02,459 --> 00:35:13,059
Yeah, that's kind of an interesting topic around ride share drivers who use EVs too,
because one of the things obviously there's kind of some news and media about it in the

431
00:35:13,059 --> 00:35:17,639
past winter where it turned out a lot of these stations are kind of being overrun work.

432
00:35:17,639 --> 00:35:22,459
Just mostly a lot of the time it was kind of ride share drivers using the stations.

433
00:35:22,459 --> 00:35:27,899
But one of the things I've kind of proposed is you look at actually combustion vehicles.

434
00:35:27,899 --> 00:35:33,639
And for a lot of large fleet operators and stuff, there are, there's kind of like, what is
it?

435
00:35:33,639 --> 00:35:39,939
A Pacific gas or the, there are commercial specific, gas station operators.

436
00:35:39,939 --> 00:35:52,439
whether you're anything from a police car to a taxi to even, a large semi would pull into
this specifically refuel versus like using one of the gas stations that, most regular

437
00:35:52,439 --> 00:35:52,959
people would use.

438
00:35:52,959 --> 00:35:54,441
And I'm, kind of curious.

439
00:35:55,435 --> 00:36:03,387
you, it to me, it seems like there's a pretty large business opportunity for you guys at
least to go to the Ubers of the world and these other kind of commercial companies that

440
00:36:03,387 --> 00:36:10,841
would have these fleet needs and kind of propose a commercial specific charging station
charging station location.

441
00:36:10,841 --> 00:36:18,073
It sounds like maybe that is already happening like with this case in Texas, but I'm
curious if that's something that you're seeing more of.

442
00:36:18,681 --> 00:36:25,445
It's not something that we're necessarily seeing more of, but there are definitely some
ideas that we've had in this space, right?

443
00:36:25,445 --> 00:36:36,602
And certainly if the public charging infrastructure is overused to the point where your
business can't be satisfied, then it may make sense to put private infrastructure in

444
00:36:36,602 --> 00:36:37,432
place.

445
00:36:38,153 --> 00:36:40,264
There's one location in San Francisco.

446
00:36:40,264 --> 00:36:45,056
It's near the Transamerica Tower, and I've got that right.

447
00:36:45,539 --> 00:36:47,770
And it's a Waymo charging station.

448
00:36:47,770 --> 00:36:56,095
It's interesting because there are, think, eight chargers behind the fence and three
chargers, three or four chargers in front of the fence.

449
00:36:56,095 --> 00:37:01,058
And behind the fence is for the self-driving vehicles to drive up and charge.

450
00:37:01,158 --> 00:37:05,381
And in front of the fence is for the public.

451
00:37:05,737 --> 00:37:07,987
And it's interesting because a couple of things.

452
00:37:07,987 --> 00:37:10,299
One is there's a human there at all times.

453
00:37:10,299 --> 00:37:14,561
So it's the human feeding the machines because somebody has to currently plug them in.

454
00:37:14,561 --> 00:37:15,732
They don't have wireless charging.

455
00:37:15,732 --> 00:37:17,942
They don't have auto plug-in devices.

456
00:37:17,943 --> 00:37:19,734
So we were chatting with that guy recently.

457
00:37:19,734 --> 00:37:22,855
It was interesting to learn what his job is.

458
00:37:22,855 --> 00:37:31,569
It's both security to prevent people from going beyond, but they have a dedicated private
space for their EV self-driving vehicles to charge.

459
00:37:31,589 --> 00:37:33,820
That makes sense in their cases.

460
00:37:33,820 --> 00:37:35,891
And it may make sense in our city as well.

461
00:37:35,891 --> 00:37:40,916
for a lot of these rideshare companies to set up shop, something similar to that.

462
00:37:40,916 --> 00:37:45,090
If they're using them already, rely on them to help pay for the infrastructure.

463
00:37:45,090 --> 00:37:52,806
So I think that kind of idea is going to become more and more, but again, it's more
infrastructure.

464
00:37:53,287 --> 00:37:55,609
Finding a place to do this becomes challenging.

465
00:37:57,115 --> 00:38:03,605
Well, I think, I mean, the whole conversation around autonomy, obviously, Tesla just had
their big thing recently.

466
00:38:03,605 --> 00:38:06,615
But yeah, it does seem like there's so much opportunity.

467
00:38:06,615 --> 00:38:15,275
And then the charging needs of what that looks like and where that would be is a whole
different experience and kind of commercial layout.

468
00:38:15,275 --> 00:38:21,051
I guess to maybe keep it focused more on drivers right now.

469
00:38:21,051 --> 00:38:30,911
What, do you think are some of the things that you're most excited by with kind of what
you guys are working on right now that you think it sounds like a big part is reliability,

470
00:38:30,911 --> 00:38:39,991
but I'm just kind of curious to hear what are some of the things you're most excited that
your technology will kind of help improve for the average EV driver that might be

471
00:38:39,991 --> 00:38:41,391
listening to this today.

472
00:38:41,391 --> 00:38:50,367
Yeah, so I think that our mission is to further accelerate the adoption of EVs.

473
00:38:50,367 --> 00:38:53,248
So that's kind of our guiding path.

474
00:38:53,449 --> 00:38:55,600
What can we do to make sure that happens?

475
00:38:55,600 --> 00:39:05,016
And when you look at EV sales growth, and regardless of the media spin, there's a great EV
sales growth story going on right now.

476
00:39:05,016 --> 00:39:06,929
And with that, you're seeing

477
00:39:06,929 --> 00:39:12,649
sort of used EVs go down market, and then you're seeing the next set of owners coming up
the adoption curve, right?

478
00:39:12,649 --> 00:39:25,333
So, you know, we're seeing where, you know, I would say initially, you know, the EVs were
driven by, you know, fanboys and early adopter geeks like me, right?

479
00:39:25,377 --> 00:39:33,891
And we're moving into sort of, know, everywhere from the soccer mom to the retired
pickleball player, who's a real guy who I know just showed up to pickleball with a new

480
00:39:33,891 --> 00:39:37,333
blazer, EV, and everyone in between.

481
00:39:37,333 --> 00:39:41,775
And we just have to make that whole process easier.

482
00:39:41,775 --> 00:39:45,847
the good part that I'm seeing is we're moving up that adoption curve.

483
00:39:45,847 --> 00:39:54,651
are getting EV drivers who don't, who wouldn't have bought an EV two or three years ago,
or, when they purchased their last vehicle.

484
00:39:54,931 --> 00:39:56,972
doing, now it's an option for them.

485
00:39:56,972 --> 00:40:01,945
And I think the opportunity there is how do we then improve that process?

486
00:40:01,945 --> 00:40:12,701
How do we improve for them the acquisition process, the learning curve that they have to
go through, and then when they first embark on that first road trip, how would they know

487
00:40:12,701 --> 00:40:13,982
where to charge and when to charge?

488
00:40:13,982 --> 00:40:19,641
So a lot of that comes from education, a lot that comes from sharing, as much as you

489
00:40:19,641 --> 00:40:27,772
stopping people on the pickleball court or starting, you know, having the chat with them
at the dealership or at, you know, when they're out public charging.

490
00:40:27,772 --> 00:40:40,707
So I think that to me is one of the most interesting things is to see the change in
demographics of the people that are driving EVs today and, you know, the continued growth

491
00:40:40,727 --> 00:40:48,689
story, both as a percentage of, you know, just as the EV, just in raw numbers, as well as
just the percentage of vehicles being sold.

492
00:40:49,887 --> 00:41:00,674
Yeah, and I think that that is a story that has got a lot of media hype that Kind of EV
sales have slowed down but in reality they're still growing and I think the bigger story

493
00:41:00,674 --> 00:41:12,012
that's been really fascinating that hasn't been kind of told is just the surprise and how
much the Overall automotive market is actually shrinking this year It was expected to not

494
00:41:12,012 --> 00:41:19,607
be a great year and it's turned out to actually be an even worse year than expected and so
that the EV portion of it's still even growing and

495
00:41:19,821 --> 00:41:25,643
It is actually a pretty impressive thing to see because of how the large automotive
market, how poorly they're doing this year.

496
00:41:25,643 --> 00:41:29,155
I'm kind of curious with that.

497
00:41:29,595 --> 00:41:38,859
We've been talking about like for the person who has the EV, are there things that you're
already seeing as far as potential for like in dealerships or other kinds of things that

498
00:41:38,859 --> 00:41:48,441
OEMs could leverage with what you're kind of seeing and trends to actually make it easier
for someone or to kind of help convince those

499
00:41:48,441 --> 00:41:59,395
Not necessarily skeptical, but maybe curious about EVs as to what, I mean, I think the
probably most famous quote or kind of, data point that everyone always refers to is like

500
00:41:59,395 --> 00:42:02,661
80 % of drives are 40 miles or less a day.

501
00:42:03,382 --> 00:42:12,408
and I'm sure that's probably what you're seeing more of already, but if there's any other
kind of things like that, that, you think would help get people who are curious about EVs

502
00:42:12,408 --> 00:42:16,351
across the line to see how easy it is to kind of get into one.

503
00:42:16,613 --> 00:42:26,644
I think one thing that happened just yesterday, actually, is we study data on a new data
comes in on a regular basis and new things happen.

504
00:42:26,644 --> 00:42:31,299
So we noticed yesterday that Ford Charge put

505
00:42:31,409 --> 00:42:36,389
did a data dump of all their chargers into the government's AFTC database.

506
00:42:36,389 --> 00:42:40,429
And that's really one of the places that we go to get some information.

507
00:42:41,049 --> 00:42:44,949
And so in addition to seeing that, they've been around for a bit.

508
00:42:44,949 --> 00:42:52,789
If you look on PlugShare, you'll see some posts of folks charging in September or even as
early as August and July at some of these stations.

509
00:42:52,789 --> 00:42:59,169
But they just did a data dump and put in 121, 141 charging stations.

510
00:42:59,349 --> 00:43:01,663
So to me, having

511
00:43:01,861 --> 00:43:14,755
that experience at the dealership can help to sell the car because you can literally just
now have the customer walk over and have their first fast charging experience right at the

512
00:43:14,755 --> 00:43:15,725
dealership.

513
00:43:16,125 --> 00:43:18,796
And I think that's a phenomenal thing.

514
00:43:18,796 --> 00:43:25,628
Now, if we can just get the dealers to stop parking their ICE cars in those parking spots,
that would be great.

515
00:43:25,828 --> 00:43:28,037
But talk about

516
00:43:28,037 --> 00:43:29,398
finding the best location.

517
00:43:29,398 --> 00:43:41,783
But to me, having that experience, not, what we see a lot is these little 24 kilowatt
chargers that end up in the back corner.

518
00:43:41,783 --> 00:43:43,934
And technically they're a fast charger, but they don't count.

519
00:43:43,934 --> 00:43:47,165
Or they're small 50 kilowatt system, so there's one of them, right?

520
00:43:47,165 --> 00:43:56,029
To actually have two or four, or I think a couple of many of them are six charging plugs
available to folks at the dealership.

521
00:43:56,789 --> 00:43:59,270
I think is a game changer.

522
00:43:59,431 --> 00:44:02,753
kudos to Ford to rolling out that network and making that happen.

523
00:44:02,753 --> 00:44:10,417
I think that's going to help sell folks on EVs because they don't understand the new way
of charge, the new way of fueling rather.

524
00:44:10,417 --> 00:44:14,299
I know you've had Matt Teske on the podcast before.

525
00:44:14,499 --> 00:44:23,464
He's a big promoter, big fan of the work that he's doing in trying to promote how to make
the change from one fueling system to another.

526
00:44:23,464 --> 00:44:25,785
And to be able to show them, I think is fantastic.

527
00:44:26,363 --> 00:44:33,183
Yeah, that's a really good point about just even if they don't plug into it just to know.

528
00:44:33,183 --> 00:44:41,243
Sometimes I think a lot of people forget that it's such a new space for most people,
especially for the ones that are kind of coming to this that are like you said, the later

529
00:44:41,243 --> 00:44:50,513
adopters in the buying curve that sometimes they don't even know what the charge of DC
fast charging looks like or the difference between a level two or a fast charger.

530
00:44:50,513 --> 00:44:52,635
And so having that kind of example.

531
00:44:52,635 --> 00:45:02,915
to see not only in person, actually be able to use if they need to is a pretty big thing
to have kind of in that full ecosystem of getting into an EV and experiencing it.

532
00:45:03,655 --> 00:45:08,235
I'm kind of curious with what you're seeing.

533
00:45:08,235 --> 00:45:18,675
I mean, it's funny you mentioned those kind of like in between, I don't know, anything
you're right from like 25, really anything, a hundred kilowatts DC or so under a hundred

534
00:45:18,675 --> 00:45:19,977
kilowatts DC.

535
00:45:20,856 --> 00:45:25,039
I feel like whenever I've had to use those, those are usually the most unreliable.

536
00:45:25,039 --> 00:45:29,983
They're the biggest pain in the butt to get started if they do even work.

537
00:45:30,324 --> 00:45:39,430
And it really is the ones that I would say kind of create the most unpleasant charging
experience as an EV driver.

538
00:45:39,651 --> 00:45:50,775
And I can obviously share my antidote, but I'm kind of curious if there's any things that
you've been seeing with that size charger on your side, if they are the most unreliable or

539
00:45:50,775 --> 00:46:01,878
it, cause it does seem like it's a sadly self-fulfilling, issue when now that we have a
lot more higher fast charging things that if you can go to one, if you have to drive

540
00:46:01,878 --> 00:46:06,720
another five to 10 minutes for 150 kilowatts or more, you're probably going to go buy
that.

541
00:46:06,720 --> 00:46:14,452
And it's really only in extreme cases when you're a remote error, which is usually why
I've had to use them, that you get to these smaller ones that have kind of been left

542
00:46:14,452 --> 00:46:14,772
alone.

543
00:46:14,772 --> 00:46:19,533
And so I'm just kind of curious if there's anything around that, that you're seeing, or I
can agree with.

544
00:46:19,533 --> 00:46:21,734
look at those as opportunity charging.

545
00:46:22,834 --> 00:46:34,598
You could put an L2 in or you could put, if you have enough power, you could potentially
put a 50 kilowatt system in or a 125 kilowatt system that's hard wired to be 60 kilowatts

546
00:46:34,598 --> 00:46:37,399
on each side or 62 and a half kilowatts on each side.

547
00:46:37,399 --> 00:46:39,159
So there's options there.

548
00:46:39,159 --> 00:46:41,139
Obviously, it's cheaper to do that.

549
00:46:42,020 --> 00:46:43,480
The hardware is cheaper.

550
00:46:43,820 --> 00:46:46,107
But in the long run, is it the right thing to do?

551
00:46:46,107 --> 00:46:47,798
Well, the answer is it depends.

552
00:46:47,798 --> 00:46:51,369
So Shell recently bought the Volta network.

553
00:46:51,369 --> 00:47:00,982
So the Volta charging network is primarily a bunch of, I think they're 55-inch TV screens
mounted vertically inside of a charging station that are an ad ploy.

554
00:47:00,982 --> 00:47:03,103
And where are they located mostly?

555
00:47:03,223 --> 00:47:06,384
Outside of grocery stores or outside of shopping centers.

556
00:47:10,289 --> 00:47:20,189
it's having a convenience charge at 50 kilowatts is actually better than having a level
two charge, because you're likely, for me at the grocery store, I would rather have that

557
00:47:20,189 --> 00:47:22,589
because I'm only in the grocery store for 20 minutes.

558
00:47:22,589 --> 00:47:25,049
I've got my list and then I'm out.

559
00:47:25,529 --> 00:47:33,320
And so if I want an opportunity to charge on a level two, like my Whole Foods used to have
one, they took them out, but it was really...

560
00:47:33,593 --> 00:47:35,614
It was nice, but it was useless.

561
00:47:35,614 --> 00:47:39,056
I got nothing out of that for those 20 minutes of charge.

562
00:47:39,056 --> 00:47:42,258
Now, at a 50 kilowatt makes a lot more sense, right?

563
00:47:42,578 --> 00:47:47,681
It's not something I'm going to charge some 100 % at, but it's something I'm going to
opportunity charge.

564
00:47:47,681 --> 00:47:54,065
So I think there's room for all of this equipment in various areas where it makes sense.

565
00:47:54,651 --> 00:47:55,231
Well, it's interesting.

566
00:47:55,231 --> 00:48:03,731
You can bring up the Volta ones because yeah, I think what's unique about, maybe not
unique about them, but one of the things that they have fleet focused on was, they're not

567
00:48:03,731 --> 00:48:09,935
going to be always the fastest chargers, but they're in high visibility and, high usage or
high travel there is.

568
00:48:09,935 --> 00:48:12,456
So that's kind of led to them being high usage.

569
00:48:12,456 --> 00:48:13,926
And I completely agree with you.

570
00:48:13,926 --> 00:48:22,048
That makes a lot of sense, especially when you're kind of working on that anywhere from 15
to maybe 45 minute range at the most for like, shopping.

571
00:48:22,048 --> 00:48:24,409
And I think, that's spot on.

572
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:31,944
it's just generally like when you go, at least in my experience, I'm like on my way to a
national park or something that's a lot more in a more of a remote area.

573
00:48:31,944 --> 00:48:36,127
And so you don't always have that kind of consistent, usage.

574
00:48:36,127 --> 00:48:39,899
And so it's more infrequent and kind of leads to that, but no, I, I completely agree with
you.

575
00:48:39,899 --> 00:48:41,610
Those are kind of the perfect use cases.

576
00:48:41,610 --> 00:48:47,094
And I think have a really sec, a large secondary benefit, which is once again, it's in
front of people, people are walking by it.

577
00:48:47,094 --> 00:48:48,755
They're seeing it that these things are out there.

578
00:48:48,755 --> 00:48:50,016
They exist.

579
00:48:50,016 --> 00:48:54,669
And so it has a really positive impact in addition to just being a high usage.

580
00:48:54,993 --> 00:49:06,642
And again, think experience kind of over time has led site hosts to understand now, and
hopefully sales teams, selling the equipment to understand now the better solution, right?

581
00:49:06,642 --> 00:49:10,204
Putting an L2 outside of that Whole Foods was not the best solution.

582
00:49:10,805 --> 00:49:15,388
But putting an L2, and Vivian's done this quite a bit, right?

583
00:49:15,388 --> 00:49:21,312
Putting an L2 at a trailhead, where you're to hiking a trail.

584
00:49:21,312 --> 00:49:23,550
be there for probably an hour or two at least.

585
00:49:23,673 --> 00:49:24,298
Yeah.

586
00:49:24,298 --> 00:49:26,240
makes absolute perfect sense, right?

587
00:49:26,240 --> 00:49:30,443
And so let's put the equipment for the job rather than just sell it, right?

588
00:49:30,443 --> 00:49:35,787
So the government recently had this thing about a year ago that they called the RAA.

589
00:49:36,028 --> 00:49:37,589
I forget exactly what it stood for.

590
00:49:37,589 --> 00:49:47,503
But it was basically giving a billion dollars or more to folks to fix existing charging
stations that were listed as temporarily unavailable.

591
00:49:47,503 --> 00:50:00,707
So you're basically paying people to go fix the problems that they created in the first
place, paying companies who sold the equipment, never maintained it, to go fix and replace

592
00:50:00,707 --> 00:50:02,117
the chargers in the first place.

593
00:50:02,117 --> 00:50:11,430
I have continued to have a lot of problems with that program, but they've got a plan,
they're rolling it out, and we'll see what comes of it.

594
00:50:11,430 --> 00:50:14,421
yeah, think putting the right...

595
00:50:14,501 --> 00:50:17,537
Having the right tool for the job is just as important.

596
00:50:17,755 --> 00:50:18,055
Yeah.

597
00:50:18,055 --> 00:50:21,215
And I, I, I completely agree with you on that.

598
00:50:21,495 --> 00:50:31,395
It's, one of the other things, unfortunately, especially when Tom, I think he's that I
bring up a lot is the, old saying of the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

599
00:50:31,395 --> 00:50:38,695
And I kind of feel like that exactly is another kind of example of that, but I, I realize
we're kind of coming up a little bit on the end of our time here.

600
00:50:38,695 --> 00:50:47,179
So one of the things I did want to ask you about that, kind of indirectly related with
what you work on is you're in North Carolina and it seems like there's so many different.

601
00:50:47,179 --> 00:50:54,957
EV, even, like we were telling before we started here, there's a lot of electric bus,
there's an electric bus company there, but there's Alpetronic.

602
00:50:54,957 --> 00:50:58,401
There's a lot of other electric vehicle infrastructure things in the region.

603
00:50:58,401 --> 00:51:05,498
So I'm just kind of curious as to what you think has made North Carolina and just kind of
that area is such a big hub for them.

604
00:51:05,749 --> 00:51:10,133
and any other things that you might want to share and why you're so excited about it as
well.

605
00:51:10,341 --> 00:51:19,664
Yeah, so I moved down here about a over six years ago now, I think, as part of this IBM
team that was trying to help the Federal Reserve Bank.

606
00:51:19,664 --> 00:51:31,387
And what I found here is over the last six years is there is a growing community of
understanding around how EVs work and infrastructure.

607
00:51:31,387 --> 00:51:35,628
But really, think more broadly, the state has friendly business rules.

608
00:51:35,968 --> 00:51:38,129
The state government has really

609
00:51:38,339 --> 00:51:40,212
really good climate policies.

610
00:51:40,212 --> 00:51:46,940
The climate itself is temperate, you know, it's not Florida.

611
00:51:47,501 --> 00:51:51,285
We thought we were hurricane proof up until about a few weeks ago, but

612
00:51:51,887 --> 00:51:58,374
Well, I was laughing that not to cut you off there, but because I have very low tolerance
for humidity.

613
00:51:58,835 --> 00:52:00,657
And unfortunately, like, yeah, I've been to Florida.

614
00:52:00,657 --> 00:52:02,740
I love Florida, but way too humid for me.

615
00:52:02,740 --> 00:52:06,124
then to kind of hear the comparisons like, yeah, that that part's still too humid for me.

616
00:52:06,124 --> 00:52:07,996
But it's it seems like such a beautiful area.

617
00:52:07,996 --> 00:52:09,393
I've always wanted to visit more.

618
00:52:09,393 --> 00:52:10,573
Yes, yes.

619
00:52:10,573 --> 00:52:16,333
yeah, but you can always, like 10 months out of the year, you cut the humidity with a
knife there.

620
00:52:16,453 --> 00:52:22,533
So I think that temperate climate, I think also there's great public and private
universities, both in the Raleigh area.

621
00:52:22,533 --> 00:52:28,413
Charlotte draws from Clemson, which is to the south in South Carolina, which is Columbia,
which is not far away.

622
00:52:28,413 --> 00:52:36,833
So there's just this atmosphere, right, that reminds me a lot of the kind of the early
days in the 80s and 90s in Boston.

623
00:52:37,341 --> 00:52:47,748
And there's just this atmosphere of companies coming here because the talent's here to be
able to build out the kind of companies that make sense.

624
00:52:47,748 --> 00:52:49,169
And yeah, you mentioned a couple, right?

625
00:52:49,169 --> 00:52:54,333
So, ChemPower and Alpatronic are here from the charging hardware side.

626
00:52:54,773 --> 00:52:59,917
Toyota's making batteries in the northern part of the state.

627
00:53:00,269 --> 00:53:03,681
Vinfast is building car manufacturing.

628
00:53:03,681 --> 00:53:06,293
I'm not sure where they are in that process.

629
00:53:06,614 --> 00:53:11,337
So there's big companies that the state touts every time they bring this out.

630
00:53:11,337 --> 00:53:13,278
But there's a lot of small companies too.

631
00:53:14,239 --> 00:53:19,422
The one I bring up is actually in my hometown, which is a company called Atom Power.

632
00:53:19,563 --> 00:53:27,348
Atom Power makes these digital circuits that they were trying to find a really good use
case for these digital circuits.

633
00:53:27,448 --> 00:53:28,769
And essentially,

634
00:53:28,843 --> 00:53:32,035
they can control them at the nanosecond level.

635
00:53:32,035 --> 00:53:40,820
And they found that level two charging, especially level two, like apartment level,
parking lot level charging, was a great way to leverage their capabilities, their

636
00:53:40,820 --> 00:53:51,165
technology for getting EV charging, again, right place, right time, without as much of an
expense cost from bringing in new power.

637
00:53:51,165 --> 00:53:58,369
They can really work with the power that's already there and share it intelligently and
quickly across the work there.

638
00:53:58,709 --> 00:54:03,992
And then you mentioned, of course, my favorite, which is my favorite topic out of all of
these.

639
00:54:04,233 --> 00:54:10,537
And I have nothing to do with it other than it's just one of my pet peeves that every
school bus in America ought to be electric.

640
00:54:10,537 --> 00:54:13,900
And so Thomas built buses.

641
00:54:13,900 --> 00:54:15,091
You probably rode in one.

642
00:54:15,091 --> 00:54:18,973
I rode in one when I went to grammar school and high school, a Thomas bus.

643
00:54:18,973 --> 00:54:20,244
And they're now building EVs.

644
00:54:20,244 --> 00:54:23,256
They're up in High Point, North Carolina.

645
00:54:23,256 --> 00:54:27,509
They're building these EV buses, which is, in my view of the world,

646
00:54:27,885 --> 00:54:33,896
you should not be able to buy a gas powered or diesel powered bus unless you have been
able to provide a valid reason.

647
00:54:33,896 --> 00:54:39,845
By default, all bus purchases ought to be electric and we need to be doing whatever we can
to support that effort.

648
00:54:40,027 --> 00:54:41,388
That's my soapbox.

649
00:54:42,841 --> 00:54:50,615
Yeah, no, I think there's a lot of really good data showing out as to, especially with
kids, kind of the health reasons why to do it alone.

650
00:54:51,076 --> 00:54:59,671
but it's also been really interesting because that seems to be where a lot of the, there's
been so much kind of hype and talk around like V2G, but that seems to be where actually

651
00:54:59,671 --> 00:55:06,364
there's been the most interesting and like actual pilots and stuff actually happening with
the implementation of it is with electric buses.

652
00:55:06,364 --> 00:55:11,183
And of course the use case of it, they're not usually being used too much in the summer.

653
00:55:11,183 --> 00:55:14,232
And so the need for that really well aligns.

654
00:55:14,445 --> 00:55:16,154
Exactly, exactly.

655
00:55:16,869 --> 00:55:19,122
Well, Bill, I want to say thank you for coming on today.

656
00:55:19,122 --> 00:55:20,363
This has been really fascinating.

657
00:55:20,363 --> 00:55:21,775
I hope to have you get on soon.

658
00:55:21,775 --> 00:55:30,767
But I guess just for anyone listening, what's kind of the best way for people to follow up
with you and kind of learn more about Perrin and some of the stuff that you're working on.

659
00:55:30,767 --> 00:55:32,978
Yeah, so again, thanks for having me.

660
00:55:32,978 --> 00:55:35,638
I've had a blast here this morning.

661
00:55:36,199 --> 00:55:38,739
You can follow us on LinkedIn.

662
00:55:39,180 --> 00:55:41,500
You'll find Paren on LinkedIn.

663
00:55:41,500 --> 00:55:43,561
You can follow Loren McDonald.

664
00:55:43,561 --> 00:55:45,282
If you don't already, you should.

665
00:55:45,282 --> 00:55:47,862
You can follow me on LinkedIn as well.

666
00:55:47,862 --> 00:55:50,843
And you can visit us on paren.app.

667
00:55:51,023 --> 00:55:55,765
today on our website, which is paren.app,

668
00:55:56,625 --> 00:56:11,838
We actually have a bunch of interesting data that we post on a weekly basis and update
around EV charging infrastructure and growth in utilization and reliability across the US.

669
00:56:11,838 --> 00:56:23,847
so we're going to be building on that site both from a paid perspective as well as a free
perspective to give away some of the data that we have just to entice folks to dig deeper

670
00:56:23,847 --> 00:56:26,089
as well as to share what we have with.

671
00:56:26,117 --> 00:56:30,489
with folks like yourselves, with journalists and other folks that we talk to on regular
basis.

672
00:56:31,365 --> 00:56:32,327
Well, thank you so much, Bill.

673
00:56:32,327 --> 00:56:34,601
And we'll be sure to have a lot of that in today's show notes.

674
00:56:34,601 --> 00:56:39,410
So anyone that does have questions or wants to check that out, they can just kind of tap
onto and go straight there.

675
00:56:39,410 --> 00:56:40,672
But thank you again, Bill.

676
00:56:40,672 --> 00:56:42,551
And we'll have you back on soon.

677
00:56:42,551 --> 00:56:43,725
All right, thank you.

678
00:56:48,849 --> 00:56:51,691
Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of Grid Connections.

679
00:56:51,691 --> 00:57:00,147
We hope you enjoyed our conversation with Bill Ferro, CTO and co-founder of Paren and
gained valuable insights into how Paren is tackling the challenges of EV charging

680
00:57:00,147 --> 00:57:05,920
reliability and transparency with making these systems more accessible to everyone.

681
00:57:05,921 --> 00:57:14,606
Bill's deep experience in both the software world and the EV industry highlights the
critical role data plays in shaping the future of electric vehicle infrastructure.

682
00:57:14,647 --> 00:57:16,764
If you found this episode informative,

683
00:57:16,764 --> 00:57:21,861
Be sure to share with someone who might enjoy it as well and leave us a positive review on
our podcast page.

684
00:57:21,861 --> 00:57:26,618
Your support helps us continue to bring you these important discussions to the forefront.

685
00:57:26,618 --> 00:57:31,155
Thanks again for listening and until next week, this is the Grid Connections podcast
signing off.