Good morning.
Grid connections listeners.
I'm joined today by Brian Boshes He is the head of operations at ranger.
EV If you go back a few episodes, we recently had Brian Clark who is also from ranger.
EV kind of talking about some of the program, but really excited to have Brian here today.
Brian, thanks for coming on and really excited for the conversation.
Yeah, Chase, thanks for having me.
Me too.
So just in case, our listeners, maybe they missed the previous episode.
I'll be sure to have it in the show notes for today.
Can you give them just a little explanation?
I guess first about Ranger EV and what your team's trying to accomplish.
And then second, we'll kind of discuss maybe a little bit about your background.
Then kind of getting us of the topics we want to talk about today.
Yeah, so with Ranger EV, we're really trying to build the easiest way for folks to share energy, mainly between hosts and guests.
So the target market for Ranger EV, the one that we're most excited about, is really enabling hospitality providers like vacation rental owners to offer EV charging as an
amenity to their guests and get paid for it.
Really the big thing with Ranger EV is this underlying belief that energy, especially the energy that powers our transportation needs has value.
And if you make a really easy way to build a transaction around that and exchange that value that folks will do it.
And by doing that, we're filling in the charging deserts starting first in the Pacific Northwest, but have plans to expand as far as we can with this model to really solve this
you know, kind of hard issue for folks when it comes to travel planning.
You you want it to be as simple as possible and having a home charging experience wherever you go, like everyone we talk to that's an EV owner is like, that's exactly what I want.
No, and I think that's spot on and I've shared a little bit on this and it was kind of funny talking to Brian about this.
coincidentally, I I'd gone to Manzanita a few weeks ago to visit my wife.
cause she was already out there for a day and I, just decide, why don't we just extend it and stay out there for a couple of days.
And we both were driving EVs and the place we were staying at was a great location, great resort.
But unfortunately, neither of them had, uh, EV charging and in the scheme of things we were able to figure it out, but it is always just kind of a nice thing to just makes you
relax that much easier.
Uh, and can just give you a peace of mind, just knowing that there is either EV charging or something at least close by and in Manzanita, Oregon, there really isn't anything, uh,
public level to public fast chart.
And you have to go probably at least to Cannon beach, which I tried one day.
Um,
And unfortunately, that was a terrible experience.
then.
it's the right east of the highway there, right?
Next to the general store.
Mm-hmm.
OK, I don't know why my camera keeps doing that, it's one of those things.
Technical issues here.
It's one of those things that like really, even as a experienced EV driver really puts a just bad experience in.
It just makes you want to like, OK, if I am having trouble with this, how is someone who's new to it going to have a much smoother and better experience?
Mm-hmm.
And exactly that location, not only the worst part was not only did I have the app previously, but because of the settings on my phone, if I don't use an app for a while, it
deletes it.
And where I was had no cell reception, the payment terminal for my credit card didn't work.
And so it was just probably the worst charging experience I've had in a long time.
And traditionally I just have really bad experiences with that CPL, unfortunately.
And, I, luckily I still had plenty of charges.
Just would have been easier at that time to try it.
And like I said, all things said, it worked out.
I ended up using a Rivian, a venture network charger in Astoria, which was kind of cool to test that out.
And that was a great experience, but it goes to like a lot of the things, especially here in the Northwest where we have so many great, beautiful locations that are pretty remote.
And, um, honestly, it's like the charging to get there isn't the issue, but like.
having charging where you're at as a home base and then just do kind of the day trips and exploring and get back really just would make things smoother.
So yeah, I would love to kind of talk with you more about that and what you guys are working on, how, in that case, especially, your team's really trying to work with that.
Well, I mean, it's funny that you bring up Manzanita, Oregon, because that's actually like very near and dear to our heart here at Ranger EV, because that's the home of some of our
first pilots.
So we're working with a vacation rental group out of Manzanita called Sunset to Sunset.
They've been amazing to work with.
Jeffy and her entire team there and also their homeowners.
So they've been working, working alongside us to really evangelize.
ranger EV to the homeowners and saying, hey, this is an amenity that folks from Portland and Seattle that are coming to visit our area would really find attractive.
And because of that, the homeowners there have been very receptive.
And we've got a couple pilots now, so you can rent vacation homes in Manzanita with a ranger EV, ranger station is what we like to call them, there.
And so we've got folks.
like the tree house, which is a premier property, like overlooking the beach, you know, it sleeps a lot, you know, a lot of people there, but it's a gorgeous home.
They have a charger there that you can just plug right in, add your credit card, get electrons right at the base of the house.
We've got another home called the Sasquatch house that has this big, big wooden Sasquatch in the front.
And he's got a charger out there.
And it's these homeowners that sort of recognize just that use case where
gonna make your vacation that much more easy.
there's the first break hold on.
No worries.
turned his own movie off.
well, I'll pick it up from saying it's funny how you were talking about Manzanita.
I'm gonna start that section over again.
Well, Chase, it's funny that you mentioned Manzanita because that city is actually where we've launched the first Ranger station pilots.
It's what we like to call like that Ranger EV host.
They host a charging station in their driveway and we call them Ranger stations.
And yeah, the first two
installs we did were in Manzanita and we've since expanded from that.
Working with a great property management firm called Sunset to Sunset.
Jeffy and her entire team have been really great at helping us really demonstrate the value to the owners because ultimately it's the homeowner that decides to install the
charger or to put Ranger EV on one of their plugs and we can talk about that solution as well.
So yeah, now we've got, I think we're up to four homes in there and you can rent the home and then you get the charger as an amenity.
And it's great because, you know, folks like yourself or myself or Brian or anyone else is traveling that area, as you were just saying, like the nearest fast charger or just
charger in general, because I don't know how many other level two chargers are just hanging out.
I think there's one at the depot in Manzanita, but it's the city's depot.
Maybe if you ask nicely, they'd let you use it.
They have like a charge point hanging out I saw.
But there just really isn't.
mean, talk about a charging desert.
You're driving 20 miles north or south to get there.
But you can get to Manzanita from Portland on a single charge.
And so like our dream scenario is like you're heading to Manzanita for the weekend.
You're heading out of Portland with a full charge.
You get there.
You plug in overnight at your vacation rental.
You're charged up by the time you leave and you're not having to visit.
a story.
mean, you can go visit a story, but you're not having to take time out of your out of your day to visit the fast charger because it's like even if it's convenient, that fast charger
stop is still 30 minutes.
And it might be on the wrong side of the highway or in an area you don't want to hang out or yeah, it's like I mean, I like reading a book and catching up on my emails.
But when you're when you're vacationing, it's just really nice.
to have that home charging experience where you can leave with a full battery in the morning.
that's the great thing about, yeah.
I mean, and that's the great thing about EVs in general.
I mean, strokes for different folks, but just this idea that like I can be refueled while I sleep is great.
You know, I'm a dad with two little kids and it's like even just that idea of, when we're heading to Newport, which is where we like to recreate.
Okay, I got to stop at the Fred Meyer gas station on the way out to like make sure I have the game.
Oh, and it's only a few minutes, but it's still like I didn't really want to do that.
It's still a couple minutes in the wrong direction.
So now I'm double backing.
It's like it ends up being like a 20 minute trip, even just to refuel my my ice vehicle.
So
Yeah, it's kind of funny.
My wife had already made the reservation and I was actually aware you guys had a couple locations out in Manzanita because I was like, hey, you know, it'd be kind of cool to
finally check this out and use it.
But yeah, unfortunately, it was with a different one that she's booked with before.
But we'll have to talk about that offline.
Maybe you guys can get set up there, too.
Yeah, mean, you know, a few plugs for our great hosts.
You know, we got the Sasquatch house.
They've got one of our chargers.
There's the tree house.
These are all sunset to sunset properties.
The seashell, there's the Valentine's property.
And now like they're, you know, we're trying to figure out also like, do you advertise this amenity?
Like, is it a big, you know, EV charging icon on the listing?
As you know, like various places like Airbnb and things like that, you can filter by EV charger now.
So yeah, it's still changing times.
Like people aren't expecting it.
So it is like, very cool.
But eventually, you know, just like any of these technologies like wifi or Netflix or things that they're going to start to be, I mean, our expectation is that they're going to
start being sort of an expected amenity for folks or one that they're sort of actively, you know, choosing to have or not have at a property.
Yeah.
Well, and it's kind of interesting because, I think the way that your team is approaching it is kind of unique because there's, there's a lot of challenges, obviously with like
communications with level two chargers and all of these things.
So, just in case people aren't familiar, let's kind of walk through what the experience would be.
Like, let's say we are staying at the tree house and what would that look like, as an EV driver to use the Ranger EV Ranger station there.
Well, there's two different sort of modes of use.
And I'll take you through the one that we've got at the tree house and the Sasquatch house.
And then I'll talk about sort of our honor system model, which is a lot easier for hosts to get started with.
we'll call it like Ranger EV Plus, or for us, was sort of the original incarnation of our technology.
It was very similar to the experience that you get at a fast charging CPO.
like a charge point or a EVCS, like you would go to the property, you'd see the charger there.
It has a QR code on, it says Ranger EV, there's a QR code.
You scan the QR code and it would have you sign up, add a credit card, and then you can activate the charger.
And those are metered connections, so we know exactly how much energy that's been distributed from the charger and you're sort of getting charged by the kilowatt.
Then you simply unplug, transaction ends.
It's very, very easy, very simple, very similar to what is out there commercially.
And so it's just, it was a very easy place for us to get started.
And as a host, our hosts like that, because they know that every electron that's coming out of their device is sort of metered.
So there isn't this idea that, I have this.
this charger that's sitting in the front of my house.
These are beach homes, know, like some of them don't have garages.
So in theory, you could drive by and go, I wonder if that's sort of an open port.
And so they really liked that solution and we were able to install quite a few of those.
But what we kept hearing were, hey, I've got a charger that's
that's not a OCPP open charger, like it is a proprietary charger, or it's a non-Wi-Fi enabled charger, or it's just the dryer plug that's in their garage or available.
Like, was there a way that they could still become a Ranger EV host and host a Ranger station on the property with the technology that they already have?
Like the Tesla charger is another good example of one that a lot of people had because they had a Tesla, but they know that
that the people that visiting them don't necessarily have a Tesla and how to make that happen for them.
So then we pivoted slightly and what you see on rangerev.co, our website, talks a lot more about the Ranger EV solution that is more of a guest-initiated payment.
And for this, it's a slightly different experience.
when the guest drives up, they would still see a charger or a plug.
They'd still see the Ranger EV QR code.
But when they click on that QR code, it would take them through the steps that they would need to do to reimburse the host for the energy that they used.
So it's much more like a Venmo type squaring up system where we'll suggest, hey, if you've got a 40 kilowatt battery or an 80 kilowatt battery, here's some very easy like,
buttons you can press that just based on the cost of energy that the host has requested, you can give them that.
But then for a lot of the modern EVs, they'll actually say in this charging session, you use 72.5 kilowatts.
We also have a mode where you can just enter 72.5 kilowatts in and it will build the transaction.
So really trying to meet hosts and guests wherever they are with a solution that just makes
Formalizing a transaction around sharing energy, very simple and very easy.
Yeah, because I think you bring up a lot of great points.
One, you obviously have kind of the issues with the traditional Tesla charge board versus like a J 1772.
but then there's also just the fact that, and some true with some of the older equipment too, that there just might not be a wifi connection or some other kind of internet
connection.
So you're kind of having to have a couple of different systems, hopefully talk together to be successful.
And at the end of the day, the real success is if someone's able to charge.
I think what I liked about the strategy is like, it's not
There's definitely ways it can be optimized, but it's such a great way to get going and to implement and to at least make it much more of a two way street with allowing EV charging
and making it feel much more beneficial to the site owner.
And also then the EV charger, even if there is some sort of weird issue, they can at least still get a charge.
And I think that's what I really like about this system.
And obviously you can kind of build it up to a further state from there.
but it's such a good starting point.
It's a really great sort of entry point or gateway to some of the more like complex yet probably more secure and more data enriched experiences that the people and the drivers
are used to.
But you bring up such good points, Jason, that we're really just trying to get out of people's way.
And like you just mentioned, it's let's first try to make sure that we put electrons in your battery.
Because that's what you want.
And then we'll worry about the transaction and making sure.
But like you were just mentioning, like, I couldn't swipe the credit card.
The card reader wouldn't work.
The charger wouldn't turn on.
that stuff.
Like, that's great.
Like, let's move that to the end, especially with, I mean, you know, especially with the types of owners we're dealing with and the fact that they're not just trying to monetize
just the charging session.
they're already providing so many services to you in terms of, you know, the
the property you're staying at, other amenities that are included.
And they know that they're providing value there and getting paid for that value.
And so the charging session is a very small part of that, relatively speaking.
So there's just a lot of flexibility for them.
And we'll use that flexibility to really just improve the experience for the driver.
Because it's just, plug in, especially with the honor system model.
Plug in, do this.
and then, hey,
The next day when you found out how much energy you've taken or before you leave, you know, square up with your host.
And, know, originally we had even played with the idea of calling it like an EV charging tip.
You know, we live in a, in tipping culture where it's like, have you seen extra value or extra service?
And especially when something you weren't expecting, you know, thinking of it as like, yeah, I, I'd give you 10 bucks because I left with a full, full battery the next day.
and you know,
It saves me time, saves me money.
A lot of these hosts are able to offer a retail rate that's below the fast chargers because they just have a lower capital expense to get started with this program.
mean, arguably their utilization rate is not the same as a fast charger, but yeah, they're happy with what they've got because they've started with the hardware that they have.
So this is just a pure add-on for a lot of folks.
Yeah.
And I think that is kind of a great way to frame it.
I think a lot of people are totally fine with the tipping idea, uh, just because it goes to that luxury.
And especially, like I said, when I was in Manzanita, I would have paid a, just a extra just to have him be done with it.
So I, I understand when people love the free charging at hotels and stuff, but, um, I think we've even seen now a lot of that has been not necessarily abused by just
because they were free, they haven't been updated.
so like having the ongoing kind of infrastructure and rates really does help guarantee that the system keeps working and stays in place for others that want to use it down the
road.
Currently your team and Range Review is based in the Northwest, right?
So Oregon and Washington.
Can you tell us a little bit more about that and maybe like what the future for expansion looks like for the company?
I mean, Oregon's our home.
It's the places that we know best.
I mean, really, it makes sense for us to start in Oregon, the Pacific Northwest.
I spent many years in Seattle working up there prior in a prior life, prior career.
And so we just know these areas where there's an acute need.
Whereas if you're looking at a map, we would be sort of fish out of water.
I know that there are charging deserts in Maine.
But I don't know Maine very well.
don't know, where should we go?
Who should we be working with?
Eventually we'll get there.
We'll find some folks that can help us expand into those areas.
But Oregon's our backyard.
It's where we know best.
We've been recreating for the past decade all across the state.
So we know where the need is.
so, you know, everybody in the Ranger EV team is out there, you know, basically scouting these places in our everyday lives.
Knowing, yeah, I went through, I'm trying to get out to Bend, the fast cars in Madras.
Like, where are people staying in Bend?
Where's the charging infrastructure?
Using resources like, you know, plug share and things like that to kind of get a sense of like, where are the plugs in Pendleton versus where people want to stay in Pendleton or,
you know, what people want to do there.
It's the children's museum and the casino is where the chargers are.
If, unless you're on the freeway anyways, I digress.
But the,
So the team is based here because this where we know.
And really there's a ton of opportunity.
mean, if you look at Seattle and Portland, just as the two major metropolitan areas, very high EV adoption rates compared to the rest of the country.
Just relatively speaking, just per capita, they have really great EV adoption rates.
And they're people that like to recreate and go out to these charging deserts.
as sort of like an ideal customer profile, this is really the
probably one of the best places in the country to do what we're trying to do with Ranger EV.
Just in the Southwest, we have California, but California is a very interesting sort of battleground when it comes to different technologies and different government regulations
when it comes to EVs.
mean, they are a really interesting state because they've taken a very, I would say proactive.
And depending on which side of the fence you're on, maybe like a very aggressive approach to EV adoption and really trying to push the country forward to think about different
programs, you know, to help support EV adoption.
But we're kind of waiting, there's a little bit of wait and see.
And because of that, and because they are supportive, that I would say is just a very red ocean from a competitive landscape.
There's just a lot of people there trying to crack that nut.
No one trying to do it the way that Ranger EV is trying to do it, but
Again, like we think there's enough time, enough market in, you know, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, really what we would consider the Pacific Northwest to kind of prove out the model
that we're trying to do with Ranger EV before we would have to even consider going into California.
Now, if someone with a vacation home in California called me up and said, Hey, we'd love to host a Ranger station.
It's great.
think the other thing is because we're an amenity, it's tacked on to an existing home.
We're not really worried about discovery.
like if you log into ranger.ev.app, you're not going to see a map with pins on it and things like that.
Because none of these chargers are actually like publicly discoverable.
That's not really the problem that we're trying to solve or we're looking to drive utilization.
Like they're already trying to drive utilization.
It's called their vacation home.
They're just trying to sort of offer another amenity, which Ranger EV helps them to sort of manage.
So, yeah, if a person, again, Oregon's our home, but if someone in Kansas City or Florida or California called up and said, hey, we'd like to have a Ranger station, yeah, like we'd
love to have you because again, we're not looking for pins on a map.
Yeah.
I lost your audio, Jace.
my apologies.
I'm back.
I think one of the things that a lot of people might be curious about is learning more about you mentioned competition and I think when a lot of people can hear what range
review is offering they're like well it's a level two charging system and Can you just kind of break that down how you visualize it because it is different But just for those
listening, especially if they maybe have a vacation home or thinking about doing something like this
how Ranger EV is different in that space and kind of the positioning of it, just to kind of help for the listeners kind of better understand that.
So if they look for doing it for their home, they can have a better understanding.
Yeah, and I mean, it goes back to what I was saying earlier, Chase, about sort of being very hardware agnostic and really starting with what you've got is, you know, if you have
a plug and don't even have an EVSE, like a charger on your property, you can start saying, hey, I offer EV charging.
Because I think that's really the start of it is people going to these places and going, can I charge my EV here?
Like, I have my EVSE in the trunk of my car.
I can't just plug it in.
Is that okay for me to do?
so, yeah, a big part of what we built is technological, is software, but a large part of what Ranger EV is trying to do is actually influence the social norms around charging.
And this idea that if I plug in at a person's house and they're giving me energy in my vehicle, I should reimburse them for that energy.
But then it's like, well, what is the reimbursement rate?
What is the expectation of the host?
What is being a a good guest look like in the host eyes?
And Ranger and UD sort of helps to formalize that.
like, they're requesting 25 cent, it's a kilowatt like tip on, on the energy that I'm using.
Okay.
Well, great.
I mean, the number of Reddit forums and, Airbnb forums where you look and people are like,
Well, how much do I pay and do I leave like $5 on the desk or should I even message the person or what if they look at see me on a ring camera plugging in my forward lightning
like over the weekend that they're to freak out.
so a lot of what we're just trying to do outside of, you know, building a, you know, a nice app that works well that people want to use is, is really being have an entry point
into sort of the creation of these, these social norms.
I know I'm going a little bit astray of the original question chase, but like, that's kind of the starting point of just, you know, do you, as a, as a host want to make it really
easy to set up that social norm for EB travelers that it's okay to charge here?
And, and here's what I would like to be reimbursed, you know, for that.
So that's step one.
And, and then once you've kind of made that commitment as a host, then it's well, hardware.
just, just to stop you right there.
I think that's a great call out because you're right.
I think a lot of people listening to this might not understand that fundamentally of like, what, is the difference with Ranger review?
But then in practice, when you're going to charge your, you're totally right.
These things kind of happen where people like, is this okay?
And then maybe you even see like a horror story of like a rent or an Airbnb landlord got angry because someone was charging their vehicle and stuff and it didn't take into account
these things.
So.
I really appreciate that clarification because you're totally right.
It's like one of those things when you hear about you don't think it's a thing, but then actually in practice when you are the person there with the EV, there is actually a bit of
attention or just uncertainty, but I I'm sorry.
I continue.
Yeah, running an extension cord into the house, like through a window, we've heard it all.
so once they've kind of mentally come to that conclusion as a host that they can do this, and that's one of the big things that Ranger EV is just trying to go out there and sell is
like, hey, you can do this.
You can come to this conclusion.
And EV drivers are more than happy to this than have clarity.
Then we can say, OK, what hardware do you have?
And how do we make this happen for you?
And that's where the different types of Ranger EV and the different technological solutions that we've come up with start to kick in.
But it starts at an outlet.
Do you have an outlet that EV chargers can use?
How accessible is that outlet?
Is it a 120 or 240 volt outlet?
Do you provide?
kind of the granny cable, the mobile charger, EVSE, whatever you call it, so that people that come in and didn't know like, well, hey, here's an EVSE that plugs into the outlet,
has a Naxx or a J1772 end, and you can use that.
Just like they would provide a toaster or any sort of other appliance.
Like the EVSE is just another appliance that they can offer in the garage and say, hey, this is part...
of the use of our stay.
they're like, not that expensive.
can get them on Amazon for like $100.
And so that's what we've been coaching.
to call out is we've been talking about level two, but you mentioned 120 volts.
So is this a solution that even if you have just a level one currently or couple outlets that someone could be a part of this or is does it have to be kind of a higher amperage at
least?
I mean, obviously as a driver, we would love everywhere to be high amperage EVSE, like what we consider like a level two, so somewhere between six to 11 kilowatts.
even, mean, if you think of from just the use cases that we have, like think about on your vacation, like how many miles, other than like getting from point A to point B,
Like how many miles do you drive intraday on your vacation?
Like you don't want to be in the car for days and days and days.
You're probably driving 30 to 40 miles, which, light bulb just happens to be the amount of, of mileage you'd probably put on from a, from a 120 volt, like level one outlet
overnight.
So like every night you can get your intraday driving, sort of put back on your vehicle.
Or if you're doing a weekend trip,
to Manzanita and you're not using your car while you're there, you're just out there enjoying the beach, walking around, like that's 48 hours worth of charge.
And so you can get an 80 % battery, vehicle dependent, like from a level one outlet, if you just let it sit there for a while.
for sure.
And I think that is a great call out vehicle dependent.
We both actually have a model three and a model Y.
And so it's a little bit different.
I know a lot of friends now who are getting the bigger trucks and I will say I, we were in a rental for a few months that didn't have EV charging.
So we were using level one and it won.
They are just really efficient, smaller vehicles.
So that went a long ways, but I was shocked how much level one just worked for us.
And I didn't even think about it, even though we do a lot of driving that as long as it was just plugged in at level one, the car was always ready to go.
obviously level two is ideal, but, I definitely, and especially if you like, have like someone coming in and like a Rivian, like big three row kind of SUV.
Yeah.
Then it's going to be definitely a move point.
but I, I, I think my, I guess what I'm trying to say is anything's better than nothing.
So even if people are listening and they want to get like a level two down the road,
It shouldn't stop you from just at least maybe being transparent that it's just an outlet, but even starting with that can be good.
And like you said, even if you have a really big truck or something, if it turns out you're only driving it a little bit or not at all for like two days or something, you
should still be pretty good.
Yeah.
And you know, lot of it is, I mean, there's the convenience, there's the cost, but there's also, you know, in those extreme cases, it's that it's those miles that allow you to get
to a more convenient fast charger location the next day or, or, or, or back to the highway or whatever it, whatever it ends up being.
I mean, in some cases that level one outlet, that one 20 volt outlet was a critical need for folks.
And I mean, I drove, I drive a Nissan Leaf.
very efficient vehicle, very tiny battery relative to some of my EV peers.
so level one charging is a really important amenity for me whenever I'm taking the vehicle out of the city limits.
Like when I drive it down to Salem to visit my in-laws, like we run the extension cord into the garage for the day just to have that extra cushion, you know, driving back.
Like we can make it there and back, but it's nice to have, hey, I put on 30 or 40 miles when I was sitting there plugged in for the day.
That's great.
So
So yeah, level one, you can start with any outlet you've got.
You can get that feedback from your guests that say like, hey, this was great, but I would have loved for it to be level two.
And then as the homeowner then starts to hear that more and more that ABD drivers are coming, they are plugging in, they are reimbursing them for the energy, but they are sort
of saying like, hey, it would have been great if there was a higher power solution.
Well, now they know what improvements to make.
They can justify that cost.
Cause I think that
that's, that was the biggest barrier of entry for a lot of our early customers was, I really want to offer EV charging, but I, I don't have an existing high amperage law, high
voltage line to install a level two charger.
mean, these are beach homes.
Some of them have like very, like only a hundred amps of service for the whole home.
So they're looking at, you know, minders to share the.
50 amp circuit with the oven because that's the only 50 amp circuit that they have for the whole home, which they have great products that allow them to do that too.
so they were looking at all these creative solutions.
But again, that's why there's so many different technologies out there to, that are trying to solve these various use cases and trying to open up EV access, for homeowners and
hospitality providers that
That's why we went to the, this honor system was just like, okay, there's the tapestry of different technologies that are trying to solve this is so high.
You've got stuff in the breaker box, stuff at the plug.
You've got dongles that can plug into plugs.
and so we just bypass all of that and just say, set up whatever solution works for you.
That again, allows you to put electrons into the battery.
Then let us come in and start to build the social norm around the transaction.
They don't have to be highly integrated to start.
But then that becomes another gateway into like our managed charging solution, our Ranger EV, we're calling it a plus, where we actually can install an EVSE that we can
communicate, that we can commuter.
And then that provides sort of like the premier DC fast charging like experience in your garage.
Not speed, but experience.
Right.
Now, one of the things we've talked about so far is kind of for like Airbnb's or rentals is your team looking at doing like, let's say it was a hotel complex and they said, well,
we've got like five or six and it's kind of in a remote area, but we'd be open to doing this.
Is that something your team's open to, or is that, right now trying to just focus on the kind of smaller one-off one mom and pop or kind of boutique Airbnb's.
Yeah, I mean, we've been having discussions with various sort of hotel property owners and honestly, they have some of the same concerns around, you know, around like capital costs
and things like that, that a homeowner would have.
But I mean, to answer your question directly, like absolutely, if there was a hotel in Oregon that was thinking about doing this and wanted to have like, I know, a managed
charging as a service provider like Ranger ED, kind of help them and be a partner.
in delivering sort of a top notch charging experience at their property, then absolutely.
We were actually just talking about this last night at an event, Ranger EV was speaking with the Oregon EV Association, OEVA, and someone asked about that exact question.
really, hotels are interesting because they kind of fall into two camps right now.
They fall into the, it's just free.
like we've installed it and it's free because we got some great grant from the city.
And so like the, the energy costs is sort of negligible compared to, to, to how many people are using it.
Or they've got the, we don't actually manage the charger.
The charger is managed by a third party CPO.
It's not ours.
And so if you're having issues with that, you can call, can call, you know, someone else and, and good luck with that.
both, both have their obvious pros and cons.
And think we're sort of waiting for the market to develop in sort of the third option, which is these hospitality providers that wanna have a managed amenity that they sort of,
control, but they still want a partner to help manage the technology around that.
Yeah, the implementation.
And we'll get there with EV charging.
think we're we're kind of seeing that transition where we've got these
these couple of different models and then as the as sort of the marketplace matures and EVs become more ubiquitous and the demand increases for those places, then, you know,
we'll be there to show these places that there is a new model that Ranger EV sort of represents and that they can take advantage of that.
But yeah, hotels are interesting.
You know, I was down in Newport,
you know, like hey when someone pulls up in a Tesla like what do you tell them and the answer was like Go to go to Walmart Like up the street, that's that's the answer, you
know, and You know as EV drivers You know, we can kind of vote like just like anything we can kind of sort of vote with our pocketbooks too and so You know if that's the answer and
you're unhappy with that answer.
We also
say like, well, we should tell folks that that's not a great answer or let let hotels know like, hey, yeah, I'm fine on Walmart, but like, it would be amazing if you guys installed
this so that I can do this next year, I'd rather pay you than the CPO that's that's out there.
So we'll get there.
They just you know, they haven't they haven't they haven't caught on yet.
Some of them have some of them we've talked to some we've talked to some
I was just going to say, I mean, that's how I choose a lot of the hotels I stay at now is that amenity.
And, uh, there are a lot of resorts now that, uh, even when we say resorts that that can, I mean, as silly as it sounds, that is kind of just like almost a deciding factor.
Cause it's just one less thing you have to think about or worry about when you're on vacation.
Yeah, it's a very interesting sort of issue and actually, no, I'm just gonna stop because that's not really a fruitful line of inquiry.
We'll edit.
Okay, no worries.
Now, we've talked a little bit about where things are with Ranger.
Can you share a little bit more about like the future where you guys are taking this or maybe what you're most excited?
I know you've kind of already had the distinction between kind of the Ranger and the Ranger Plus.
Are there additional features you're looking to add kind of that Ranger Plus side of stuff that maybe you can share for people to think about?
Yeah, I mean, we're experimenting with a bunch of different solutions to make it easier for hosts to meet us where they are.
so that's probably one of the places that I'm most excited about are just, I mentioned like plugs and dongles and different things at the breaker, at the plug.
Like there's so many different areas to explore and we're poking at which of those deserve.
to be commercialized within our product that really make it easy for folks to offer these different charging programs as a part of their rental.
But probably the most, the thing that I'm most excited about, Chase, is this is gonna be like the first big summer season where Ranger EV has a bunch of Ranger stations on our
network, where we really get to prove out that this grand social experiment that is Ranger EV is working.
And so that's really what I'm most excited about is starting to hear travelers going, it was amazing.
They had this Ranger EV station there and it was great.
It worked great.
And I had a full battery when I drove back from Manzanita or, I was wondering like whether I could plug in, but I looked on the plug and there was this little QR code and I learned
about the host and I learned about what rate they're charging.
And so just made it.
you know, seamless for me to have that experience.
And as a traveler, just those warm fuzzies of knowing like that piece of anxiety, least for a day is like totally at peace.
And then, you know, driving that value for our hosts where like, hey, I'm totally going to go back and book that place.
And we know, I mean, we've done surveys and things for folks that if they have good experience with charging infrastructure, they're going to remember that they're going to
go back like, this was easy.
It was fairly priced and it was a great amenity for me to use while I was traveling.
Like you're going to go back there.
I mean, just as simple as like having like, hey, this gas station always has clean bathrooms.
And so you always stop there.
Like it's the same, same thing.
And so that's what I'm most excited about is just to start to hear those customer testimonials on the, on the guest and the host side that, the experiment's working.
Yeah, that's, I guess I always just find those fascinating.
Have there been any, insights already just kind of from the customer feedback that have kind of led to iteration or what the team's kind of thinking of for, improvement or maybe
even just, trends that you hadn't expected to find.
Yeah, mean, well, one of the early pieces of feedback that we got was to make it as easy as possible for someone to try it out as a driver before sort of having to commit to
installing an app and having a log in.
So we knew that very early on, which is why we went with a web app and not a like an application you had to download onto your phone.
It's like no one wants to deal with that.
So you scan ranger, EV dot app on the QR code and it just loads it in the browser.
And so already it's an easy experience for folks.
They're not like sent to their app store to download something.
But we had to make it even easier because at that point we were still wanting to track the guest and we said, oh, we'll just have them log in, add a payment method, attach it to
their account so that subsequent transactions will be super easy.
But what we heard is, hey, I don't even want to create an account.
Like, I just want to give this person $5
because I'm staying with them one time.
Or I just want to plug in at this ranger station this one time because I don't know when I'm going to be back.
So don't make me create an account.
So that was like one of the first things that we did was like we had to build guest checkout.
We hadn't built that.
So me and one of my co-founders, Brandon, we sat down and for like a couple of weeks we just worked on guest checkout.
We launched that.
And then it was like, great.
Yep.
This is even more seamless than it was before.
That's probably a good example of just where we've
heard that customer feedback and because we're the small nimble team are able to, I mean, was like, we heard the feedback and it like a couple of weeks later, like we had the
prototype for guest checkout done.
And in software this day and age, like that's how long it should take.
It's kind of crazy.
know, we've been dabbling with like AI enabled software development and it's crazy now how fast, like I've been in the software business for 20 years and it's just crazy now how
fast you can.
at least develop an MVP.
Like I won't say that, you know, you should be launching like crazy bulletproof high enterprise software into, you know, in two weeks, but like, yeah, the startup world is
really upended by these small nimble teams like Ranger EV that can use, you know, past skills and, you know, current technology to build something really quickly.
And that's what we've done with Ranger EV.
No, it's really cool.
I'm, kind of curious, I guess, for looking at where your team has come.
Are there any other kind of insights or pivots kind of like that one that you've had already?
Because how long has Ranger been around now?
Ranger, I would say our first deployments were in September of last year where we started our pilots.
And so it's really still fairly young, fairly new.
so, like I said, this is gonna be sort of like the first full summer season where those pilots are gonna be there.
mean, winter in Manzanita is still lovely for a certain type of person, but we're really excited to see the...
diehard Oregonian, you go to the Oregon coast in the winter.
that's when I go.
But yeah, so I think we're both excited to see sort of the summer travel season and how folks react to our solution as a part of that.
yeah, as far as pivots, mean, the honor system, moving to the honor system was another big pivot that Ranger EV went through.
around the fall winter time because you we had the first successful pilots.
They were really excited with the hardware, but you know, working with the property management company in Manzanita, their homeowners were like, this is great, but like,
don't want to install a charger.
not gonna install a charger in January, but I really still want to get started.
And so that's when we developed the thing that is Ranger EV today, which is this, you know, the guest initiated payment system, which again was this, know, heard the feedback.
strategize about what was the best way to deliver that experience that that That was still in line with with what we developed like with a metered controlled EVSE charger like we
had that and so now it's how do you introduce something right next to that that doesn't you know that doesn't diminish what we've already built and use it utilizes the you know
all the app that we've already created but
How can we create this new swim lane that enables all of these other experiences and all this other hardware to become part of the network?
So I'd say that was one successful pivot that Ranger EV went through and really opened us up to be set up for this summer to have a much, much wider experiment with the types of
hosts that we bring in and the type of guests that we're able to interact with and the type of experiences that we're able to have with folks.
So excited to see.
how that pans out, but it's still very early days.
Like we haven't seen, you know, what the next pivot is, but it'll be exciting once we start getting that feedback.
And then, like I said, just nimbly try something new, try a new experiment, try to go after that.
I think we know that the core of what we're trying to do, just like the mission doesn't change.
It's like, how do you just make this easier for folks?
It's just...
continuing to tweak the model of how we deliver against that mission.
And, no, I think that's such an important mission and still such a much needed part in the electric vehicle space.
I'm kind of curious.
I'm sure obviously the existing.
EV charging experience was some of the reason that your team founded this, but I guess I haven't actually heard.
How did your team come together?
Like, and what was like kind of the, I guess call that you three kind of came together and said, this needs to be solved.
And this is how we're going to do it.
Well, I met Brian at a startup event here in Portland.
It was actually the last kind of formal event from an organization called the Portland Incubator Experiment.
They had sort of the last cohort that went through that, their sort of graduation event at the Red Event Center.
I was there with another company that I was working for at the time.
and met Brian and Brian was showing off sort of this prototype that he built, which was a version of Ranger EV that we would still love to build at some point.
But it was sort of a, a, a, a Jerry rigged charging apparatus specifically for like RV parks.
was like making the, the pylons in the ground a little bit smarter.
And Brian had come up with this really interesting piece of hardware with some other partners at the time that allowed RV park owners to do that.
But then he started to describe some of the things that that piece of hardware needed to be successful.
And I had just left another company where we did sort of a hardware enabled SaaS solution and had seen all of the problems that he had.
Yeah.
And I was, you know, low volume manufacturing and cellular connectivity and all this stuff.
I went, my gosh, Brian, love, I love the solution.
Love, love the angle, love, love the problem.
But, but this, this, this hardware thing is scary.
Like, let me just talk to you just a little bit about this hardware thing.
And I mean, and Brian's like an awesome guy.
And so it was just very easy to like chat with them.
And so we were,
we would just sit down and chat and be like, well, what do want this to look like?
And what could this do?
And could we do this without hardware?
Could we just do it with software?
Because we can move so much faster and not have to do this crazy long hardware development cycle that competitors are already sort of very, very deep in.
And we just started chatting about, well, what are the different experiences that we want to enable?
And how do we do that?
And that was kind of where the like, and Brian had like a
very long history in the EV world, like renting out EVs and during like test drives with his Rivian and stuff.
And so he'd seen all of these different business models and things around the EV space.
So he'd already looked around a bunch of corners, but we said, hey, we really want to enable these trips.
But even when he was renting out his EV, like the number one question was, well, then where do I charge this thing when I get to where I'm going?
So he had that core insight.
That became sort of the nugget that we built Ranger EV around.
And then we realized we needed a kind of a third leg of the stool.
And that's why when we went out and kind of did a little bit of an open search in the Pacific Northwest, we really wanted our third co-founder to be somewhere that was located
here in Oregon and interviewed a lot of really strong candidates.
But Brandon Gallagher, who's our third co-founder, he lives out in Bend, Oregon.
really brought, I would say, whole, I mean, a complimentary, but really separate set of skills.
I mean, his background, you know, he's done banking apps, he's done food ordering apps, like, so when you looked at what he was, had worked on as, an engineer, nothing in the EV
space, but like, when you think of these transactions as like Venmo-esque transactions, we're like, wow, it starts to look a lot like a fintech company.
And when you look at like trying to get people to buy,
or to rent a night at these vacation homes and have these charge-walls.
It starts to look a lot like a food ordering experience or discoverability when it comes to restaurants.
It was very easy to go, like, okay, we're building this.
And he'd be like, yep, know exactly how to architect that.
so Brandon came on right around the time we were building out the original MVP for Ranger and really helped, I'd say, from a technology perspective.
really bend the curve for us as a team.
And then once we had that, you know, the core three people, you know, that's when we've been able to really like increase the velocity of the number of experiments that we're
working on, allow a little bit more specialization because, know, Brian as the CEO can be out selling and evangelizing and marketing the solution, meeting with hosts, meeting with
guests.
I'm running operations.
So, you know, as hosts get set up and they need stickers and like talking to different, you know,
hardware vendors and software vendors and things like that.
That's in my wheelhouse and Brandon sort of running the technology stack and making sure like you get an email when you're supposed to and all that good stuff.
We're really, I would say a very complimentary team and both Brandon and Brian are just nice guys to work with.
So, and, you know, we've, mean, I should also pause and say we also, you know, have a really great set of outside of the founding team, really awesome people.
Lydia and Lisa who are, you know, help us with a lot of the the championing of the solution, marketing of the solution are out there traveling, meeting people on the Oregon
coast and all throughout Oregon.
So the the Ranger EV team goes sort of beyond just the three founders and we are sort of building that up.
Brian's out recruiting a fabulous team of advisors for us as we go into the summer as well.
So
I'd say the Ranger EV team is growing.
Yeah, it's just fun to interact with all of the folks that are drawn to what we're trying to do with Ranger EV.
Yeah.
And I think that that's, mean, that's great to hear first, but one, guess, since we're kind of coming up on time, one of the things I meant to ask earlier, and you kind of
alluded to was how this, in the earlier version was like working with RV campsites because there's been kind of a pushback where a lot of people would charge their EVs at RV
campsites.
And then sometimes breakers would get flipped and all this stuff.
so I'm kind of curious if that is also on the roadmap or how your team is kind of looking at that or.
too soon to kind of say around the campsite, just because that is something that definitely does seem to be needed given some of the pushback that you're now seeing from
some of those sites.
Yeah, mean, parks in general have always been a very interesting market for us because they've already got infrastructure in the ground.
mean, talk about like, I mean, they've got 50 amp hookups at every one of these sites.
I mean, some of the larger, you even if you look at the state campground, they've got, you know, hundreds of electrified sites that in theory are EV ready.
But like you bring up, Chase, there's
there's a lot of concern around how that infrastructure adapts to EV charging.
And I think there's some of the concerns are very valid.
Some of them are myths, some of them, I mean, they're not myths.
mean, I think it's just, all of this stuff is like your experience will vary.
mean, like my little tiny Nissan Leaf is probably not gonna trip any breakers.
but someone else's vehicle might or I mean, a lot of it comes down to the fact that that EV charging is it just a different load that these RV parks haven't seen before.
So we've talked to EV park owners and we talked to electricians of like, why is this, why is this a problem?
And it's, it's, it's really like when you go in and you take your EV and you plug in that 50 amp hookup, you're pulling 50 amps and you're not stopping until
Right.
until you're done.
Whereas even like a 50 foot RV that's plugging into that, they might spike to 40 amps or 50 amps kicking everything on or like when everything's booting up or they're charging
their house batteries, but very quickly they're off of that peak load.
So, RV parks that have been built out of the infrastructure at RV parks has been built out over decades can go, well great.
we can daisy chain.
these six sites onto this one circuit and because everyone's not plugging in exactly at that time.
And I think again around social norms, it's this idea that like, I brought this RV, this RV is mine, I plugged in, this is my power.
If suddenly the power goes off in my RV because four sites down, someone plugged in their EV, there's just sort of that natural like.
negative reaction that comes from that and RV park owners like they know which customer they have to serve and that's the RV park the RV owner so it's totally natural that for
them to be sort of defensive against EVs and and and know that like I mean they just they need technology or I would say not even technology like they they need a way to make sure
that they're preserving the experience for their existing guests so
I would say Ranger EV is always kind of on the lookout for software solutions, hardware solutions, and social solutions that are going to enable them to do that.
So we are always talking to RV owners.
I don't have anything as far as like product stuff that we're going to be launching for them to talk about, but it's a very interesting area,
yeah, for sure.
No.
And I appreciate that transparency.
I totally understand that there's, there's a lot around that.
So that, that makes sense.
And I appreciate you kind of just going into that for a little bit though.
But, uh, Brian, I just want to say thank you for coming on today.
I know we covered a lot of ground, but for those who are curious to kind of either install one or find locations for a ranger stations and a ranger EV, what's the best way for them
to kind of.
either connect with you or learn more about the services.
The best way is going to be to go to rangerev.co and check us out.
We've got our site there that explains what is Ranger EV.
It's got a link to the web app if they want to sign up in front of a trip and see.
It's got links to some of our featured ranger stations so they can see places where Ranger EV has already been installed and conveniently booked a night stay in some of them.
And then yeah, for hosts, it does describe sort of what the product is, how to get started as a host.
And then as always, it's got our contact information.
So it's very easy to get in touch with Brian, Brandon, or myself via the website.
Great.
Thank you so much for coming on today, Brian.
We'll have to have you and the rest of the Ranger EV crew on again soon.
until next time, thank you so much, Brian.
Thanks, Chase.
Great speaking with you.