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FUTURE OF XYZ is a bi-weekly interview series that explores big questions about where we are as a world and where we’re going. Through candid conversations with international experts, visionary leaders and courageous changemakers- we provoke new thinking about what's coming down the pipeline on matters related to art & design, science & innovation, culture & creativity.
Future of XYZ is presented by iF Design, a respected member of the international design community and host of the prestigious iF DESIGN AWARD since 1953. The show is also a proud member of the SURROUND Podcast Network. For more information, visit ifdesign.com/XYZ.
00:00:04:00 - 00:00:21:23
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to this hot summer edition of Future of XYZ. We're here today talking about the future of EV charging with Tiya Gordon, who is the co-founder and COO of It's Electric. Welcome to the Future of XYZ.
00:00:22:00 - 00:00:24:06
Speaker 2
Awesome. Thank you so much, Lisa.
00:00:24:08 - 00:00:59:21
Speaker 1
well, you and your, co-founder and partner, Nathan King founded It's Electric in 2022. but prior to that, you had worked in quite a lot of big, design institutions and top firms in both leadership, management and design roles. and you've received through that work a lot of accolades. I mean, from, you know, the, IFDA gold winner, Rex Architects, where you were, they won a gold this year, to the National Design Award from the Cooper Hewitt and the Smithsonian and South by Southwest and the Keeling Curve.
00:00:59:21 - 00:01:09:12
Speaker 1
And I think what's even more exciting, and I'm wondering if it's for it's electric, was a 2024 finalist in the Earthshot Innovation Challenge.
00:01:09:14 - 00:01:54:17
Speaker 2
That's right. Yeah. I had been very fortunate in my career, in terms of working for these large design institutions or these large companies that were really working on these massive projects, but behind the scenes, respectfully, where we're pretty small. so we were always projecting this sort of outward optics, of, of being massive, but it was this sort of little small engine that kept everything running and my favorite part of of all of that work, you know, that led to those amazing awards that we were able to receive, was this idea of sort of blending the idea of, operation and design together to create new solutions and new ideas.
00:01:54:19 - 00:02:16:12
Speaker 2
it's one thing to have a highly creative organization. It's another thing to actually be able to get that organization to, to execute to the scale that's needed. And so I always joke that sometimes I was what was called the first adult that was hired. And a lot of these design institutions, that one. Exactly. which means that you don't have the fun job, but you have a really important job.
00:02:16:14 - 00:02:35:01
Speaker 1
I love that, and I think that carried you forward. I mean, you went to Parsons New School, for your BFA. and you're sitting, I think, right now in the Navy Yard in Brooklyn. Navy yard in Brooklyn, where you guys are based. I'm curious, as we always do, to start out every future of X, Y, Z to define the topic.
00:02:35:01 - 00:02:52:02
Speaker 1
And this is a big one because EV charging can cover lots of technical as well as design as well as business, etc.. So let's just start in the context of your expertise across all these different industries and disciplines prior to 2022. How do we define EV charging now?
00:02:52:04 - 00:03:22:18
Speaker 2
Sure. Now in in 2026, electric vehicle charging needs to be defined as something that's accessible for everyone. In the United States, the leading barriers for everyone driving an EV have been two things. One has been the cost of electric vehicles. They've just been priced in the entirely wrong framework. And the second has been the access to charging. 85% of people who actually have an EV in the U.S., they charge it at home, meaning they live in a place that has a garage or a driveway.
00:03:22:23 - 00:03:40:03
Speaker 2
And that's awesome. And that's the gold standard. And they have a very nice life. They can come home every day and plug in their car and wake up and have a full battery, and literally never have to go to a gas station for the rest of their lives. However, if you live in a city where you don't have a driveway or a garage, you're pretty much out of luck.
00:03:40:03 - 00:04:02:15
Speaker 2
There isn't infrastructure for charging. There's barely gas stations in cities. so how do we solve this problem? So that's that's the framework of, of of electric vehicles and charging in 2026 is making sure that no one is left out of the equation. And most importantly, cities where EVs, I think are almost the perfect vehicle given, you know, the limited miles of people put on their vehicles in cities every day.
00:04:02:17 - 00:04:32:12
Speaker 1
It's so interesting. I want to, like, just technically dive into something just to ground our listeners first. The mechanism of EV charging is pretty unique because the power grid traditionally supplies an alternating current. But the EV battery actually only stores direct current. So there's a conversion that's necessary, and that's what kind of gets into our speed, I guess, like level one two and then like that direct current.
00:04:32:14 - 00:04:44:06
Speaker 1
what what is typical in an urban environment and is that one of the situations that you're actually dealing with? as, as a design challenge?
00:04:44:08 - 00:05:07:19
Speaker 2
Yes. We are so you want to think about it in two different ways. it's electric is a level two solution. So where that 240 volt solution, we're charging your car in an ideal space and time. We're charging your car overnight. So we're giving you that same luxury of home charging when your garage is the street. That's what we're bringing to people.
00:05:07:21 - 00:05:25:13
Speaker 2
but we also need to live in a world in which there is DC or there is fast charging, because we need all of that. however, in a city, if you were to look at just a four stall installation of a fast charging location, let's look at it in two different ways of one, let's look at it in terms of energy and energy curve.
00:05:25:15 - 00:05:48:05
Speaker 2
A four stall fast charging station uses as much energy as a 300 unit apartment building in a month. So if you think about the timeline needed to have the utility bring that power from the substation to that new location, if you are building a new tower in a city like New York or Chicago or DC or Boston, this is a 24 to 36 month timeline.
00:05:48:10 - 00:06:12:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, you can't just pop these fast chargers up everywhere based on the the sheer sheer volume of power that they require. The other side of it that makes it really hard is real estate in New York City and Boston and DC and Chicago and LA and San Francisco is really expensive. So you have to secure the real estate to put in these very large units, and then you have to get the power there.
00:06:12:12 - 00:06:22:18
Speaker 2
So you basically created a double edged sword for yourself in terms of how you're going to do this. So this is where I which is where I talk about it's electric. Can I, can I can, I can, I can yeah.
00:06:22:18 - 00:06:32:12
Speaker 1
I was just going to say, I mean that's what, that's what you guys say. You say you solve the largest barrier cities facing the deployment of public EV charging. What does that actually mean.
00:06:32:14 - 00:07:01:05
Speaker 2
So what does that mean exactly. So right now to charge in the city, as I just mentioned, there's very few places where you can actually do this. You can go to the airport and then there's usually like maybe five spots within a city and they're all sort of out in the city edges to be able to find these, these fast charging sites and then there's usually lines that you're waiting in for 60 maybe 60 minutes, maybe an hour or two hours, depending on how, time of day and how many people are there before you.
00:07:01:07 - 00:07:19:21
Speaker 2
And this is really inconvenient for not only regular people drivers, but also for rideshare. So we'll talk about rideshare a little bit more later on. So what it's electric does is we said, okay, well, fast charging takes a really long time to install, is very expensive and it's prohibitive in terms of the real estate value proposition. Then let's look at a city like London.
00:07:20:02 - 00:07:43:20
Speaker 2
London, similar population to New York City, 8.5 to 9 million people. London has 25,000 curbside electric vehicle chargers designed exactly for what we describe people who park on the street. So why can't we just do the same thing here? Why can't we just convert our lamp posts in New York and Boston and DC to EB chargers? And the reason is that the electrical infrastructure is quite different in London
00:07:43:20 - 00:08:06:11
Speaker 2
it's 220/240, in New York it's 90 or 110, and they're also all on the same circuit. And they're also I need to get the all powered on or off at the same time. And a lot of lampposts in New York City are powered off during the day. So we have some very different conditions. So it's sort of like this Goldilocks situation so fast charging, you know, to big lamppost charging, not the right size too small.
00:08:06:11 - 00:08:30:14
Speaker 2
So what is our Goldilocks of just right here. And for me that is level two curbside. But that uses power that's already there. And where there's the power that's already there, it's buildings. Every city has buildings and every building has power. So it's electric simply pulls power from buildings to power. Public infrastructure.
00:08:30:16 - 00:08:50:09
Speaker 1
So it's a it's a pretty unique business model actually. So that like instead of having to have that like both time and and price prohibitive, new utility connections, you're basically just pulling this connection from existing buildings and then doing a rev share revenue share with them, it seems. Is that correct?
00:08:50:11 - 00:09:05:15
Speaker 2
That's correct. So when we come into a new city, first we need that city's permission and we get that through either, winning a competitive RFP. you know, our big flex is that, you know, as an early stage, women led, five person team, we beat Tesla to win the city of Boston. or we can.
00:09:05:15 - 00:09:06:10
Speaker 1
Pretty major.
00:09:06:12 - 00:09:24:07
Speaker 2
Pretty major. pretty psyched about that one. Still. and or we develop custom models with cities, where we develop, a pilot or a pilot that graduates into a permanent installation together. So once we have permission from that city, then we go out and we have that hunting license to work with all of these different buildings.
00:09:24:07 - 00:09:44:11
Speaker 2
And again, we can work with any building typology just to pull that two 40 volt power that we need. This could be a single family home. It's going to be a library. This can be a, a 50 unit apartment building and everything in between. And then we do the installation for free for the building. We separately meter the AV charger so their electricity bill never goes up.
00:09:44:11 - 00:10:06:05
Speaker 2
We pay the energy used by that charger directly to the utility company, and then we sweeten the deal for the building. And we say, thanks for letting us take a day to install this. We're going to rev share with you. So you're going to earn passive income every quarter. right now, you know, when we get the the utilization target that we're looking for, that building is earning around $3,000 per year.
00:10:06:07 - 00:10:07:06
Speaker 1
It's amazing.
00:10:07:08 - 00:10:09:12
Speaker 2
Our goal is just to offset their electric bill.
00:10:09:14 - 00:10:32:18
Speaker 1
And and it's important because of course, like there is in the US. And I want to talk about us versus rest of the world because the US is a little bit behind. I mean, how do cities and states lead the way on EV charging in the absence of federal support for electric transportation? I mean, your solution seems to be one way, which is sweetening the deal and incentivizing the private owners of buildings.
00:10:32:20 - 00:10:52:15
Speaker 2
Yeah. So we're we're recording this in July of 2026. So I can say with a little tongue in my cheek, that, you know, all of the, funding that was previously allocated for electric vehicle infrastructure in the United States has been, redesignated for a wrestling ring. so, you know, it's been moved to a different category.
00:10:52:17 - 00:11:26:06
Speaker 2
and so how do we survive as an industry without that federal support? When you look at countries that have massive build outs of infrastructure, it's because it was government led and then privately funded, right? Like the government started the process and then private financing came in to help fill it out. but without the government, leading cities have been left on their own and it was a back foot situation for, you know, the first half of this year, I would say, as we were all kind of reckoning with the fact that there was no federal funding left for EV infrastructure.
00:11:26:08 - 00:11:33:15
Speaker 2
But now cities are looking for those solutions. So they have to find what we call CapEx light solutions, where they're not having to outlay.
00:11:33:15 - 00:11:34:15
Speaker 1
Capital expenditure.
00:11:34:20 - 00:11:56:02
Speaker 2
Capital expenditure for this infrastructure and that's also where its electric checks a big box for these cities, because we can come in at no cost to the city. We bare the capital outlay because we, we, we, we keep the revenue. That's that. We break with that. We deal with that. We that we broker with cities. and so we're really finding that cities are not wanting to change.
00:11:56:04 - 00:12:15:06
Speaker 2
They have made all of this investment, all this commitment in fleets that are electric, yeah, and they just need the infrastructure to charge them. Yeah. Once they do that, their actual operations cost drop significantly. So this is an investment for them as well, especially as we know we look at current situations that are not resolving in the Middle East around the Strait of Hormuz.
00:12:15:11 - 00:12:38:02
Speaker 2
We're not going to see oil, fluctuations end. And they're continue to go up and down every week. and this is a real opportunity for cities to just completely sort of free themselves of, of, of that burden. So we're really excited to find cities first solutions that can help cities still meet their targets and their goals with the complete absence of, of of federal support.
00:12:38:04 - 00:13:13:05
Speaker 1
I mean, it's it's an important play. I mean, I want to talk about I want to get into the design aspect of EV charging and especially its electric solution. But, you know, as a, as a, as a starting point, perhaps we should talk about the fact that, like, as you mentioned in the U.S., most historically, most people are charging at home, whereas in Europe, obviously led by the Netherlands, Scandinavian countries, Germany, France, whatever, there's been enormous again, federal investment, also much smaller areas, generally speaking.
00:13:13:09 - 00:13:32:01
Speaker 1
But like there's an, you know, an urban play. I mean, most urban residents in Europe live within its I think it's 89% live within one kilometer of a charging station, which of course is not at all the case here. And in China, it's even more because they're doing fast charging, because the utilities are all owned, you know, at the federal level.
00:13:32:01 - 00:13:55:16
Speaker 1
So that's an a category completely of its own. We're playing catch up here. But there are a design. You talked about a lamp post charger. You talk about like the fast chargers. You talk about the Tesla chargers like you guys have actually provided a pretty elegant, I think, design solution. And it feels very designed. First, even though we're 15 minutes into this conversation, you haven't mentioned that yet.
00:13:55:18 - 00:13:58:13
Speaker 1
Talk about the design and what goes into that.
00:13:58:15 - 00:14:20:00
Speaker 2
So it's on our website. But when we started it's electric. It was because I was living in New York City. It was the pandemic. public transportation was largely shuttered at the time. I had an, parent who is quite old. I had a daughter who was quite young, and things were very safe. Sorry. Pardon me. Things were very unsafe in terms of public transportation.
00:14:20:00 - 00:14:38:11
Speaker 2
So like a lot of New Yorkers, I was like, oh, boy, do I have to get a car in case I have to find a solution for an emergency and needing to either go somewhere quickly or get somewhere someone get someone somewhere quickly. and when I went to purchase what I was hoping would be like a used EV, that was my.
00:14:38:11 - 00:14:54:05
Speaker 2
That was my big goal. I first went to research where there was actually chargers and the answer was basically nowhere. And then the Chargers, they did exist. They're all just like they're horrible. They you know, and I said to myself, I'm like, why are they so ugly. Like they all are. So like they look like gas pumps.
00:14:54:07 - 00:15:15:01
Speaker 2
They're the design is terrible. And then and and of course, they're not everywhere because no one wants something that looks like a, like a a, you know, like a gas pump in the end, like an iPod had a baby. and they want to put it in front of, like, your beautiful tree lined street in Brooklyn. it's this is never going to fly.
00:15:15:01 - 00:15:44:05
Speaker 2
So that's when, you know, design thinking brain kicked on. And I really started just applying my years and years and years of experience in that space to this problem. And it came down to wanting to design a charger that just really blended right into the street. the biggest compliment, in fact, that we receive when we have ribbon cuttings in new cities and, you know, a mayor shows up or, someone from the city's, sustainability office and they said, where's the charger?
00:15:44:05 - 00:16:03:24
Speaker 2
They don't. It's just that it's not even visible. It's so small. It's like a little silver fire hydrant. It just sits on the curb. and there's no attached cables. So that's the European model of a detachable cable. I mean, like I say, not we're just European. We're importing that here to the US. Because the only thing I like to say is that it is the US, so we can't have nice things.
00:16:04:01 - 00:16:23:15
Speaker 2
and all of those big ugly chargers all have their cables attached, like a vacuum cleaner or recoiled like a carbon cleaner. And guess what happens? Those cables get cut and then that charger is down. You have a poor customer experience. You reduce consumer confidence. And so we want to avoid all of that. So we designed these little sleek silver fire hydrants that sit on the curb.
00:16:23:17 - 00:16:43:07
Speaker 2
And the driver just when they show up, to plug in and charge the cables in their car and they just plug in on two ends, has been to just one. and this has been massive for cities who have previously faced a lot of NIMBYism, of people saying, you know, I understand that you have these goals, you want to have EV charging, but not on my block.
00:16:44:03 - 00:16:52:21
Speaker 1
Nimby stand is is short in all sorts of ways around the world, which is like, I like the idea in principle, but I don't want it in my backyard. Not not not not in my backyard is where it stands for.
00:16:53:02 - 00:17:10:07
Speaker 2
Exactly. So, you know, we wanted to design something that was, yes, in my backyard because you don't even don't even notice, is it? It's off setting your on your electric bill. And it's enabling you to be able to charge an EV if you already have one, or if you want to have one in the future. Yeah, it's a great amenity for landlords.
00:17:10:07 - 00:17:18:06
Speaker 2
It's a great amenity for neighborhoods. and you know, people get really excited about it once they're installed in front of their building.
00:17:18:08 - 00:17:32:18
Speaker 1
You've, you've talked a lot about, the infrastructural challenges, but you've you also talk about the environmental justice barriers and the deployment of electrical electric vehicle, EV charging. Can you talk about that?
00:17:32:20 - 00:18:09:10
Speaker 2
Sure. So historically, when cities were working to deploy these chargers, often because of the extreme costs of installation, there would need to be a case made for utilization. So often the chargers were installed in more high income areas where there was a higher EV adoption rate, where you would see maybe 12 Teslas parked across 2 or 3 blocks, as opposed to low income areas where there is no EVs because people weren't able to afford them yet, and B because there wasn't even the chance of there being infrastructure to charge them.
00:18:09:10 - 00:18:33:10
Speaker 2
So part of our design was to ensure that the charger itself and the the capital expense behind it was low enough that we could install in both high income and in low income areas, and have the to balance each other out in terms of that utilization. So, you know, like, you know, the higher income areas would, would basically offset that cost that we would expand in the low income areas.
00:18:33:12 - 00:18:59:17
Speaker 2
And we know this is really important because when you're looking at low income areas and cities, those are often the areas that are transit deserts. They're a little bit further, if not much further away from a subway. They have limited bus schedules. And so these are the areas of Queens and Brooklyn and the Bronx where people actually rely on their personal vehicle to go to the grocery store, to take their kids to school and to get to work.
00:18:59:19 - 00:19:06:03
Speaker 2
And so if you can convert those drivers, you know, you're hitting a really important.
00:19:06:05 - 00:19:08:00
Speaker 1
it's amazing.
00:19:08:02 - 00:19:18:12
Speaker 2
as opposed to your, you know, your Upper West Side Manhattan drivers that are only taking their car to go to their weekend trips. Yeah. out of the city.
00:19:18:14 - 00:19:39:03
Speaker 1
It's it's interesting because, well, in a lot of the public speaking you've done, which is quite extensive and includes places like Davos, World Economic Forum in Davos and things like this. You publicly stated that your personal mission now through, whenever you keep going, is to build companies that use design to wage war against the climate crisis. how does EV charging?
00:19:39:03 - 00:19:43:01
Speaker 1
I think it's obvious, but how does EV charging fit into that?
00:19:43:03 - 00:20:16:19
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, we live in 2026, in an era which, you know, I can't necessarily walk around as a, you know, waving a flag that says climate because a lot of people don't understand what that means as much as they understand. When I say that electrification is a health intervention, it's it's a new way that I'm trying to find ways to communicate this idea of using designed to wage war against climate, you know.
00:20:16:21 - 00:20:46:14
Speaker 2
Emissions from lightweight duty vehicles are the second largest source of of, sorry, lightweight vehicles are the second largest source of emissions in the United States. So if we can convert all of those to electric, we're removing a huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Yeah. And if you or whoever's listening or your mom doesn't necessarily connect the dots between greenhouse gas emissions and your everyday life, then that's a whole nother area.
00:20:46:14 - 00:21:06:19
Speaker 2
That's that's that's hard to kind of educate and speak to you. But you can really get people on board with really quickly is understanding emissions and human health. so I talk a lot about how this past winter here in New York City, we had those two massive blizzards, now one at one after the other, and we had this beautiful white snow on the streets, for about three hours.
00:21:06:21 - 00:21:10:24
Speaker 2
And then it was. And then and then it was gray and grays.
00:21:10:24 - 00:21:11:17
Speaker 1
Nice.
00:21:11:19 - 00:21:34:13
Speaker 2
Great. Yeah. It was, and there was a nice, nice gray, but it was gray within three hours. And that is your lungs that is. Yeah. This is what we are breathing every day to electric vehicles just to be very basic do not have tailpipes. There are no emissions. and then what was amazing was I was I was walking or trying to walk to the, to the subway during, the aftermath of one of those blizzards.
00:21:34:15 - 00:22:04:15
Speaker 2
And there was a, like an old, you know, obviously internal combustion van trying to get out of the snowbank that it was buried and it had its foot all the way on the gas, and its wheels were just spinning on the ice, and the emissions were just spewing. So much that people were covering their mouths and coughing. Oh, and it just stuck with me as this visual of the easiest possible solution we can take right now is just moving so many people out of internal combustion vehicles into clean transportation.
00:22:04:17 - 00:22:09:19
Speaker 2
it's cleaner, it's quieter, it's healthier. It's just it's just better. and.
00:22:09:24 - 00:22:13:11
Speaker 1
And the and the charging is the mechanism to make it possible.
00:22:13:13 - 00:22:41:02
Speaker 2
The charging is the mechanism to make it possible. it's just it's just it's the most basic thing I, I come from design. What I've realized since I've made this transition into working in transportation, that the two biggest factors that can make your life better or worse, and I truly mean this are your housing and your transport. if you have a great commute every day, if you have a really easy way to get to work and to school, it makes your day much better.
00:22:41:02 - 00:22:58:22
Speaker 2
If you come home and you have housing that you are comfortable in and that meets your needs and that heats and cools, your life, is that much better. And I think that we can use design to improve those two most human basic needs to make them just ideal for everyone.
00:22:58:24 - 00:22:59:24
Speaker 1
I love that that's.
00:23:00:03 - 00:23:01:12
Speaker 2
Excited to be able to do.
00:23:01:14 - 00:23:25:08
Speaker 1
It. Makes sense. let me we're we're we're kind of not in there. We have a few more minutes, but I want to I want to go rapid fire, if you don't mind. And a couple of topic areas I want to talk about design of EV chargers in general. You can talk about it's electric, but you can talk in general because the reality is an EV charger is not just one thing, it is hardware.
00:23:25:10 - 00:23:49:06
Speaker 1
It is software, it is UI, it is UX. And of course it's also infrastructural, architectural, built environment integration. So when you think about design of an EV charger, which of that you talked about, you it's electric but like which of those is the most important part in a hierarchy or what are the major components.
00:23:49:08 - 00:24:07:03
Speaker 2
Oh good. Good question. And the answer is all of it. We ripped it all up. We we tore up the envelope and we redid everything. We like to joke and say that we're like the disco and sunshine of EV charging, because EV charging used to be really, really, really painful. To be charging. You would show up to a charger.
00:24:07:03 - 00:24:25:14
Speaker 2
It would say that was online, but it was actually offline because the cable is cut, you choke to a charger. It would say that it was online, but it was offline because it was not actually powered. you would show up to a charger and it was online, but the screen that you needed to tap your credit card in was exposed to the sun for the last two years, and you couldn't read it anymore.
00:24:25:16 - 00:24:51:08
Speaker 2
you would show up to the charger and it was online, but there were seven people waiting in front of you to charge because there's only one charger for, let's say a like a five mile radius, in a city. So all of those things made us wanted to rip everything up from top to bottom. that when you basically we wanted to have the time from when you show up to when you're walking away and going to your home or to your job or to wherever you're going to be under a minute.
00:24:51:10 - 00:25:13:04
Speaker 2
And so we literally have it where you pull up to the charger, you plug, you plug, and then you hit either go on the app, you tap your credit card is tap to pay, or you use your RFID and you're done. I like my favorite thing to do is sort of like to hide in the hedges in in any of the cities where we have chargers and watch people at them have having without their knowledge that I'm actually there.
00:25:14:03 - 00:25:15:15
Speaker 1
Not creepy at all. Don't worry it you.
00:25:15:18 - 00:25:38:01
Speaker 2
Just do a transaction and I love it when they are just like they're just seamless with it and they're done and it's so fast. There's no downloading this app. There's no oh, this is not working. And calling customer support. We want to erase the last ten years of gen one EV charging and restart fresh so that everyone is like, wow, this is so easy.
00:25:38:03 - 00:25:50:13
Speaker 2
I'm doing this all the time. I don't want to go to a gas station. I don't want to touch and I don't want to touch fuel. Yeah, I just want to have my life be easier and simpler. Oh, gosh.
00:25:50:15 - 00:26:13:08
Speaker 1
I mean, there's a big accessibility issue here too, right? I mean, not just in terms of the neighborhoods you service, but also in terms of like, I mean, the the, Americans with Disabilities Act or just generally like, how do you how do you design something in an urban environment, not only in the US, but generally in the world that is accessible to all?
00:26:13:10 - 00:26:37:24
Speaker 2
That's a great idea. And that's the cool thing about cities is that, you know, shout out to our amazing team as always, but also shout out to our project director, Judy Chang, who comes from the New York City Department of Transportation, where she led planning for over a decade, especially working on special projects. so what we do whenever we're deploying is like we look at the built environment and we try and understand what we can already utilize, what's there to ensure accessibility.
00:26:37:24 - 00:26:55:00
Speaker 2
So that's as simple as making sure that we are installing a charger where there's already a curb cut with it, with a graded ramp so that people can just, ramp is the wrong transport, just a curb cut that people can then use to be able to access that charger. So it's just about using infrastructure that's already there.
00:26:55:00 - 00:27:07:15
Speaker 2
That's our entire ethos. We're using the power from the building. We're using the curb cut on the sidewalk. we're doing all of these just very minor interventions to help cities build out the infrastructure.
00:27:07:15 - 00:27:27:21
Speaker 1
I love the idea of minor interventions. Why do you think so few people have cared about the design of these before? Or do you think that they just weren't given a choice because you had three major providers, at least in the US, right. You have Amazon, ChargePoint, Tesla and a couple others. Is that why we weren't given a choice, or did people just didn't know that something else was available?
00:27:27:23 - 00:27:48:19
Speaker 2
Two things. you know, Tesla was, you know, the first out there and they started with their vehicles and they just assumed that they were selling to people in Silicon Valley, and they're going to be charging at home. You know, they were not thinking about big cities. That was not part of their plan. and then you look at ChargePoint, you know, they were able to scale.
00:27:48:19 - 00:28:20:17
Speaker 2
They were given $150 million through the VW settlement. and they were looking to basically just put hardware out there in the world without really a lot of consideration. and, you know, as much as I can say things that didn't go well for Gen one, it was the first try. A lot of lessons were learned. and we're just now doing everything that is the antithesis of Gen one.
00:28:20:19 - 00:28:39:22
Speaker 1
That’s fair, I love that, I love that. What's your. Okay, so final two questions to watch. And this one I didn't give you a heads up on at all. So it's on the spot. What's your favorite example of an EV charger? Where is it and why is it your favorite?
00:28:39:24 - 00:28:43:14
Speaker 2
That's not my EV charger. That's a different EV charger. That's not mine.
00:28:43:16 - 00:28:46:07
Speaker 1
I mean, you can answer with your own.
00:28:46:09 - 00:29:13:04
Speaker 2
I mean, yes, my favorite EV chargers, it's electrics EV chargers, but hang on one second. I would say that the other charges that are really interesting is when you start to look outside of the US. So, you know, there's a great company called Chem Power in, in the Netherlands. and they have a really nicely designed charger as well because, hey, it's Scandinavian.
00:29:13:06 - 00:29:21:08
Speaker 2
so, you know, we want to have, we want to let us be the best looking charger in the US and the chem power can be the best looking charger in in Scandinavia.
00:29:21:12 - 00:29:36:08
Speaker 1
Cool. Maybe maybe there's an iF Design award in your in your guys future too. Last question. what is your greatest hope for the future of electric vehicle EV charging in, let's say, 2050? In 25 years?
00:29:36:10 - 00:29:59:24
Speaker 2
My greatest hope is that it is a it is not even a conversation point. That we are looking at gas stations the same way we look at landlines, that no one is walking around bemoaning the loss of of landlines because we are now more efficient. we're mobile where we're able to charge basically anywhere where there's power.
00:30:00:01 - 00:30:20:09
Speaker 2
so my greatest hope is that we, we make this next evolution in terms of technology together and that we really don't look back. I always talk about, when we did our very first pilot here in New York City, we convinced the New York City Economic Development Corporation to give us a stranded asset, which means an abandoned building in the city that we could pilot off of.
00:30:20:11 - 00:30:42:11
Speaker 2
And they gave us this old credit union, in the Brooklyn Army Terminal. That literally was like a credit union bank from from from the Korean War. It was it was abandoned and it was used as like a Covid testing site for two years. And then it was abandoned again. and I wanted to kind of, really, make it feel like ours.
00:30:42:13 - 00:31:00:20
Speaker 2
And so we reached out to, David Byrne of the Talking Heads, because when we started, it's electric. I had the song in my head, which was nothing but flowers. And the key lyric that's kept playing over and over and over its head from the age of dinosaurs, cars have run on gasoline. Where have they gone?
00:31:00:20 - 00:31:12:08
Speaker 2
Now it's nothing but flowers. So it's my greatest hope that in 50 years that we truly look at gasoline as a relic. The same way we look at gas, at dinosaurs.
00:31:12:10 - 00:31:26:15
Speaker 1
I, I love that, Tiya Gordon, co-founder and COO of It's Electric, based in Brooklyn Navy Yard. Thank you so much for this interesting conversation about all things EV charging.
00:31:26:17 - 00:31:28:23
Speaker 2
Thank you Lisa, this was so fun.
00:31:29:00 - 00:31:46:16
Speaker 1
really appreciate it for everyone watching, you can listen anywhere you get your favorite podcast, just be sure to leave us a five star review so that others can find us. If you are listening, you can watch on YouTube and subscribe. You can also follow XYZ on at futureofXYZ on Instagram or visit
00:31:46:16 - 00:31:58:00
Speaker 1
ifdesign.com/xyz for all show links and notes. And we will see you again in two weeks. Stay cool and be sure to check out it'selectric.com.
00:31:58:02 - 00:31:59:19
Speaker 2
At it'selectric.us.
00:31:59:21 - 00:32:04:16
Speaker 1
dot US. Sorry to do. Dot US. thank you.
00:32:04:18 - 00:32:06:04
Speaker 2
Thanks.