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Insider's Guide to Energy
The Energy Industry is uniquely evolving as traders are under increasing pressure to manage costs, cash, limits, and risks. The Insider’s Guide to Energy Podcast addresses current and emerging challenges business executives face daily through stories shared from peers and industry experts while covering topics such as innovation, disruptive technologies, and emerging trends.
Insider's Guide to Energy
27. Advancing EV Adoption: The Push for Open Standards and Reliable Charging Infrastructure
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In this episode of "Insider's Guide To Energy EV", Blake Jessen dives into the critical need for open standards in the electric vehicle (EV) charging industry. Jessen emphasizes that the current landscape, often referred to as the "wild west," demands a shift towards universally accepted protocols to foster innovation and reliability. By adopting open standards, the industry can improve uptime, support best-in-class solutions, and enhance the overall driver experience, thus accelerating EV adoption across North America. Jessen's insights provide a clear roadmap for overcoming the challenges posed by proprietary systems and fragmented infrastructure.
Hosts Chris Sass and Niall Riddell join Jessen in discussing the state of EV adoption in North America compared to other regions. The conversation highlights the significant lag in EV adoption in the U.S., where the current rate is about 7% compared to California's closer-to-35% benchmark. They explore the impact of Tesla's recent struggles with demand and the broader issues related to charging infrastructure reliability. The trio delves into the complexities of building a robust charging network, from addressing outdated equipment in Europe to leveraging new technologies and best practices from around the globe.
The episode also covers the importance of grid capacity and power availability in expanding EV charging infrastructure. Jessen discusses innovative solutions, such as integrating onsite batteries and renewable energy, to manage power constraints effectively. The conversation wraps up with a forward-looking perspective on the EV market's next 12 to 24 months, predicting further consolidation and the adoption of advanced standards like OCPP 2.0.1 to support functionalities such as plug and charge. This episode offers valuable insights for anyone interested in the future of electric vehicles and the critical role of standardized, reliable charging infrastructure in driving widespread adoption.
Meet our Guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blake-jessen-9285366a/
Transcript
00:00:00 Blake Jessen
In the world of electric vehicle charging, we must continue to push for the adoption of open standards and reject proprietary closed providers. This will mature the industry beyond the current Wild West. Open standards allow us to improve uptime, foster innovative best in class solutions, and ultimately provide a better driver experience. This is what we desperately need to advance EV option in the US.
00:00:27 Speaker 1
Broadcasting from Washington, DC, This is Insider's Guide To Energy.
00:00:42 Chris Sass
This episode of Insider's Guide to Energy EV Miniseries is powered by Paua. Paua helps your business transition to electric vehicles by simplifying charging, managing payments, and optimizing your charging data.
00:00:55 Chris Sass
Welcome to the Insider's Guide to Energy EV series. I'm your host Chris Sass ,with me is Niall Riddell, my co-host. And today we're going to talk about open standards and how they can impact and make the driving experience much more interesting for EV drivers, particularly here in the United States. We're having reliability issues with our charging infrastructure and people are.
00:01:13 Chris Sass
It's earned and one of the solutions is to adopt open standards and make sure that things work well together and to define what reliability is and make sure we're all working towards the same goal. Today we're joined by Blake Jessen. Blake is going to walk us through his thoughts and experience of how this could go and what we could do better to improve the EV experience. Blake, welcome to the program.
00:01:34 Chris Sass
Blake welcome to the podcast. Why don't you start by telling us the state of EV adoption in North America today? I think that's a logical beginning for this conversation.
00:01:43 Blake Jessen
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think we're in the US three to five years behind other parts of the world that are, you know, looking at 35% of adoption in terms of new passenger vehicles, right. So if you look at California, that's the closest to that standard.
00:02:03 Blake Jessen
And the rest of the world far below it, reaching around 7%, I think it's the last.
00:02:10 Blake Jessen
I saw so we've got a long way to go. But like, I think if we continue to push for open standards, it's a great way to get there.
00:02:20 Chris Sass
Now we're we're talking a day where the news from Tesla wasn't particularly good. I think their shares are down about 8% today. There is a first time or one other times they're dealing with less demand for Tesla product globally and the high end EV market and some of the analysts I was hearing this morning. Talk.
00:02:37 Chris Sass
Pushed that back to the charging infrastructure, they they blamed a couple of things. They blamed some Chinese entry and lower end vehicles that Tesla doesn't play in, but they also said in North America market and protect particular it was charging infrastructure. What does that mean? So we're early, we're behind folks. Does that mean the rest of the world has the charging charging infrastructure figured out and there?
00:02:56 Chris Sass
Paramus.
00:02:58 Blake Jessen
I think it just means other parts of the world have been doing it longer and are delivering on a much better customer experience. You could consider that uptime and you could consider that advanced functionalities like plug and charge and auto charge, right? So I think in the US.
00:03:18 Blake Jessen
The most important thing for us to focus on it as an industry is when a driver pulls up, plugs into the car, are they going to get a reliable.
00:03:28
Charge.
00:03:30 Niall Riddell
And yet here I am, sat in the UK and one of the number one debates we're facing at the moment is reliability at charging. We've been building charging infrastructure for a very long time now, 1520 years and some of that kit is old, unreliable, doesn't work with new models and therefore is the US, perhaps blessed with the fact that it can.
00:03:50 Niall Riddell
Catch up. It can move faster and it can overcome some of the challenges of reliability that we're now facing here in Europe.
00:04:00 Blake Jessen
Can the US catch up? So can you elaborate?
00:04:03 Niall Riddell
Yeah, I mean we, we've got such old equipment in some places that we're now having to go around and rip stuff out. Whereas actually you've now got best in class quality. Can you build that faster and better and get a better network than we've got over here?
00:04:09 Blake Jessen
Got it.
00:04:16 Blake Jessen
Yeah, I I think so, right. And it's about sorting through who are those quality providers, right. You've got 22 new DC hardware OEM's in UL, just from South Korea alone, right? So you've just got a flood of new entrants coming in.
00:04:34 Blake Jessen
And so I think it's one are we all going to be speaking the same common technological language, OCP, to be able to integrate all those new chargers into the infrastructure.
00:04:46 Blake Jessen
And you know, I think the other thing we're seeing is, you know, best in class coming from other places of the world, right. So we work with providers around the world like Chem, power and electronics that are taking an already successful recipe.
00:05:01 Blake Jessen
And all patronymic taste. From Italy to to the US. Right. And so I think that shows promise for sure in terms of, hey, we've already done it. We've already proven it, and now we're adapting our technology to the US so yes, I I think in short, the US can benefit.
00:05:21 Blake Jessen
From all of the learnings that have happened in other.
00:05:25 Blake Jessen
To the world.
00:05:27 Niall Riddell
It's it's super interesting to hear you quote those particular names of Al Patronis and Kemper because, you know, a few years ago, there were companies that didn't exist. No one had ever heard of them, and now they're they're desirable charge point to.
00:05:38 Niall Riddell
Install. Why? Why?
00:05:40 Niall Riddell
Why is that? What is the key benefit? You think that these guys are providing that perhaps some of the guys who?
00:05:45 Niall Riddell
Haven't made the cut.
00:05:47 Niall Riddell
Delivering.
00:05:48 Blake Jessen
Yeah, I think they're delivering on the most important thing, which is up time and quality. And so we we've been as a software provider, we've been doing this for 12 years. We've got a learning algorithm that's capturing all the unique error codes of these manufacturers.
00:06:09 Blake Jessen
We're doing this across 1500 different makes and models of chargers that are certified on our platform. So we've got a wealth of operational data on the different hardware manufacturers and have a good sense for who's getting it done and who isn't.
00:06:26 Chris Sass
When we're talking reliability, what exactly do you mean by that? What what is a reliable charging infrastructure and and where are we focused in this conversation?
00:06:35 Blake Jessen
Yeah, that's a great point. You know, if we we're talking about agreeing on open standards, let's first agree on what uptime is right. I think there's a lot of misinformation.
00:06:48 Blake Jessen
Information on how uptime is reported. Again, Wild West in the US. Certainly Nevy is very clear on how it defines up time and the teeth behind that uptime requirement. If it's not met. But certainly I think as a starting point.
00:07:08 Blake Jessen
We believe up time should be defined at the port level, right? So I think there's other providers out there that are.
00:07:17 Blake Jessen
That are reporting uptime at the site level, right? So you've for example, you've got four chargers, one of them's down, but the other three are working. The site is 100% up. Think that's not fair. So what we look at up time, you know, we we.
00:07:33 Blake Jessen
Look at the port level.
00:07:36 Niall Riddell
That's that's really fascinating. The UK Government has introduced some legislation last year to try and address this reliability question.
00:07:44 Niall Riddell
They've determined, like you've suggested, that it should be nearer the port level. They're actually working at an evse level, which is the supply equipment that sits behind that connector or that port, but they're using OCI as the basis of that standard and that's a sensible thing or a bad idea.
00:08:01 Blake Jessen
No, I think that's absolutely sensible.
00:08:03 Blake Jessen
Yeah.
00:08:04 Niall Riddell
So in theory, we're agreeing that we need some form of common reliability standard and a common language to describe it. However, what we've started to establish is actually the consumer doesn't care.
00:08:17 Niall Riddell
The consumer just wants a charge, so as far as they're concerned, even if the charger is reporting is available, they don't care. They just want it to work and therefore we I still think there's a gap between the consumer experience and the, you know, what the software says it should be able to do.
00:08:26 Blake Jessen
Yeah.
00:08:33 Blake Jessen
Yeah, agreed. Absolutely. So I think it's a really complex ecosystem that has to come together to deliver on up time, right? So it starts at the software network operator level.
00:08:45 Blake Jessen
We deliver 99.99% availability, so you need to start at a high level of availability so that every bit in the ecosystem that flows down from there it can can provide that that industry leading up time as well.
00:09:05 Blake Jessen
So from there you know hardware. It's got to be quality hardware and then your service provider, right, they have to have the ability and the operational tools to see what's happening at the site to keep those chargers up to roll trucks quickly if need be.
00:09:22 Blake Jessen
But, but certainly it's orchestration of a really complex ecosystem to provide that that uptime.
00:09:29 Niall Riddell
And then the kind of issues we start to see that consumers then complain about is icing and electric and non electric vehicle parking and electric vehicle charging Bay. You can't really tell how do you manage that and reliability, credit card readers or card readers on machines not interfacing and therefore not providing a reliable data.
00:09:48 Niall Riddell
Is that you know what other issues are you starting to see or try and overcome to really help improve that consumer experience?
00:09:55 Blake Jessen
Yeah, I think the number one we're seeing is connectivity, right? So we're only as good. The hardware is only as good as the site connectivity and that seems to be the first point of failure and the largest point of failure. So what we're seeing is SIM providers that have built in redundancy.
00:10:16 Blake Jessen
Strategies that they they can switch between carriers. So I think that's a a unique thing to consider when when building a, when trying to build reliable infrastructure.
00:10:28 Chris Sass
And then.
00:10:29 Chris Sass
From the user experience so that they get there, they either find a car parked in the space or the the the network's not getting there and they can get their billing or their information through. What else are are we going through? You called it the Wild West. It's early ending. So is this the same experience if I'm driving a Tesla and Tesla's network or if I'm driving?
00:10:49 Chris Sass
One of the many EV choices I have today, what's the user experience like today in north?
00:10:54 Chris Sass
America.
00:10:55 Blake Jessen
Yeah, absolutely. I think you. Yeah. You hit the nail on the head, Chris, it's.
00:11:01 Blake Jessen
I think the the experience well. So I think Tesla has created a great experience because they've they've built it from from scratch and it's end to end, right? So that you know they they've controlled that quality and and had to they were you know they were really an industry leader so the industry didn't exist the standards.
00:11:22 Blake Jessen
Didn't exist, and they had to innovate. So I think they brought the industry to a great, great point.
00:11:29 Blake Jessen
But now all the providers that are coming in all the auto OEMs, we really need to push towards the open standards for everyone to work together. So my experience, the charging at you know networks outside of Tesla is some flavor of awful.
00:11:50 Blake Jessen
So you know you you've got to come, you've got to download different apps, right? So.
00:11:57 Blake Jessen
You you need to start by downloading the app, having payment ready to go, swiping cards, tapping it's a different experience every time, and so the the drivers really don't know what to expect or potentially even how to find or navigate to the stations. So again, I I turn back to.
00:12:16 Blake Jessen
Open standards as a way to solve this, so the more OCP IR roaming agreements that can be in place between the various providers that will help drivers navigate to the different find and navigate to the different chargers seamless.
00:12:33 Blake Jessen
With the right agreements in place, they don't need to download different apps, right? They can all do it within whichever network provider app they they have chosen. So I think that's one way to improve. The other would be plug and charge and auto charge, right? So the idea that you're not fumbling with payment.
00:12:52 Blake Jessen
You're not fumbling with apps you're plugging in and you initiate a charge. Everything is handled on the back end, so the new OCP standards 2 dot O .1 they have they're allowing for plug and charge and auto charge support.
00:13:08 Blake Jessen
So as we migrate to those standards, you're going to see a much larger adoption of those and that's going to go a long way to improve that customer experience.
00:13:19 Chris Sass
So I I guess what I'm wondering is you you you're kind of making statements with Chris, you know the magic wand here, right? So if we if we get this interoperability or these?
00:13:30 Chris Sass
These agreements between carriers and they share information and everyone gets standards. The user experience gets better, but is that implying the infrastructure is not part of the problem too? Is it just billing and you know connectivity that I'm worried about is that so making my experience bad? Or is it that there just isn't connectivity?
00:13:47 Chris Sass
Today. What? What?
00:13:48 Chris Sass
Is is it more than just the user experience?
00:13:52 Blake Jessen
It's it's certainly more than the user experience, it's, you know, the reliability of the charging infrastructure. Is it going to work when I plug in and it's also the availability, there's not enough charging infrastructure in the places where it needs to be.
00:14:11 Blake Jessen
And to that point, we're limited by, you know, availability of power and grid capacity. That's a major issue. So I think if you look at some of the segments that are experienced in the most pain there, electric trucking for.
00:14:26 Blake Jessen
Example I sat down with one of the majors that are deploying electric trucking hubs across the US and they indicated they're oftentimes asking for four times the amount of power that a utility can give them to get the rest, you know, good luck. You're waiting years and years, right? So I think all of those things are.
00:14:46 Blake Jessen
Contributing to you know the the problem that we have today.
00:14:51 Niall Riddell
And and we hear this a lot. You know, the the biggest limiting factor on rolling out networks is grid connection or the speed at which you can get grid connection. And it's sad because ultimately the grid has been perfectly optimized for the energy requirements we have in place today. And as soon as someone comes along and tries to boost that energy requirement, you get a problem.
00:15:10 Niall Riddell
Do you see any particular initiatives being driven out in the US to enable those, you know, grid constraints to?
00:15:16 Niall Riddell
That would come.
00:15:17 Blake Jessen
Yeah, absolutely. I think the low hanging fruit there is to take the power that is available and use it in a smarter way through software, right? So you're looking at optimizing and managing that load across the available chargers.
00:15:36 Blake Jessen
By prioritization by specific or dynamics.
00:15:43 Blake Jessen
Points, but really that is the least capital intensive way to manage within the given constraints. Beyond that, you you're looking at spending some pretty significant dollars, right. So adding renewables, you know that's going to significantly change your capital outlay and your ROI.
00:16:05 Blake Jessen
Or adding battery right to to manage and you know we're seeing really unique solutions out there that you you can take, you know half the amount or less of you know available grid power and still get the the charge that you need by using batteries.
00:16:24 Niall Riddell
And and one of the things that we've seen a bit of over here in the UK is people have done exactly that, they've rolled out charges at that 150 kilowatt nameplate capacity. They put two of them in the ground. They've only got 100 kilowatts of capacity between the pair of them. Suddenly the two drivers turn up and they're pulling 50 kilowatts each. And they're standing there complaining about their experience.
00:16:45 Niall Riddell
How do we overcome that? Is there a way that we can signpost to drivers that the upgrade is coming? It's going to get better soon but at the moment it's not a full nameplate 150. It's something we can do to help drivers.
00:16:57 Blake Jessen
Yeah. I mean, I think that that is the experience today. You know, you know, you I think the the challenge you're you're today, you're still dealing with a lot of early adopters, right? You haven't hit the sort of that, that, that mass adoption curve yet. And so the early adopters are are typically willing to.
00:17:16 Blake Jessen
Have less of an experience or put up with a lesser experience.
00:17:22 Blake Jessen
Today, when you pull up to a charger, you're often sharing power with the the other drivers that are there, and depending on your state of charge, you know your your, your experience. Your kW output is going to be significantly ramped out. So I think you know, yes, I think signage.
00:17:41 Blake Jessen
To be a helpful way to to let drivers know that that's going to happen to set that expectation. That can be done within, you know, the app to let the drivers know ahead of time that you know there's a range of charge that they're they're going to receive.
00:17:59 Blake Jessen
But it is, it is just the state of charging today. As a driver, you're going to have to be prepped that you're not always going to get that that full amount.
00:18:08 Blake Jessen
Of power.
00:18:09 Niall Riddell
Yeah, it's, it's it's a huge educational battle. I've had the experience of meeting Porsche Taycan drivers who've spent 100,000 British pounds on buying this beautiful car. They've turned up at this high-powered charging site, and suddenly they've got to start understanding that their 800 Volt architecture doesn't work with the 400 Volt capable.
00:18:28 Niall Riddell
Charger, which doesn't have full capacity and unfortunately some of our drivers are now pretty much mainstream drive.
00:18:34 Niall Riddell
Others, and that's leading to quite a few complex conversations, which usually results in the statement. It doesn't work or it's not ready yet and that's a hard thing for us to overcome.
00:18:43 Blake Jessen
Yeah.
00:18:46 Blake Jessen
Yeah, that's fair. I I think it's it's all about education, right?
00:18:51 Chris Sass
But do we? Do we really want to educate the market or build the software? So I don't have to right when I pick up my telephone and dial my mom, I just wanna talk to my mom. I don't care about the signaling and how many switches I went through. And whatever happened, I want to make a phone call right when I when I'm in the transportation.
00:19:08 Chris Sass
I I want to hop in my vehicle and go where I need to go or if I want to go drive my fancy Porsche, I want to go fast in around fun corners. On my way there, but I don't want to maybe learn all the the education so so how do we mainstream this in North America so that the average person doesn't have to become an EV expert? Or are we saying that's not possible? There is inherent education needed for this industry.
00:19:29 Chris Sass
To be successful.
00:19:30 Blake Jessen
Yeah, I think it's just, it's certainly possible, just not possible where we're at today. We need to work towards that standard and likely meet in the middle. I think that you know, new EV drivers get to experience a whole other host of benefits.
00:19:50 Blake Jessen
That can make the inconveniences worthwhile, right? I love that I don't have. I have almost zero maintenance on my EV.
00:20:00 Blake Jessen
Right. I think that's, you know for that I'll, I'll do better planning on where to charge and make sure I plug in at home right when I get when I get, when I get home. So I've got to charge in the morning. So I think there's you know it's.
00:20:14 Blake Jessen
Just.
00:20:15 Blake Jessen
Americans are are are habit driven and we need to create and establish new habits.
00:20:22 Blake Jessen
And so part of that is education. Part of that is just improving to your point, Chris, on the experience, so that it's more consumable by the masses.
00:20:33 Chris Sass
Alright, so as we drive this this conversation forward, you come from a software company, we're talking about software maybe. Let's extrapolate what it is that drives does like how how are you bringing value and helping manage this process like what is, what is it you guys do to make my experience better?
00:20:52 Blake Jessen
Yeah, absolutely. It's a combination of technology and expert.
00:20:58 Blake Jessen
So on the tech side, the platform is used by the Open Charge Alliance that manages OCP standards to certify new hardware. So because of that 1500 different makes and models are certified on the drives platform. So really open interoperability is.
00:21:18 Blake Jessen
Is one of our key mantra.
00:21:21 Blake Jessen
From their uptime and so we're operating some of the largest networks around the world at 98 1/2% of time at the plug level. How do we do that? So again, it's tech and experience. So the tech is we're ingesting the unique error codes.
00:21:40 Blake Jessen
Of the various manufacturers and we are remotely troubleshooting and automatically troubleshooting based upon those error codes.
00:21:49 Blake Jessen
And then the AI algorithm is learning what's working. What's not over 1500 Chargers, 12 years of experience, hundreds of millions of events, or really amassing a just operational wealth of data?
00:22:05 Niall Riddell
Yeah, we've, umm, had the privilege of working with a number of drives customers and one of the things that we can consistently say is it's is easy to connect with. It's easy to work with. And I think the bit that businesses like ours ultimately are trying to do is take a huge amount of complexity.
00:22:20 Niall Riddell
And hide it from the user so the user as Chris might just said, can ring their mum and get through to their mum and have that conversation. But you know, behind that wealth of experience, you've got hundreds of people who've built this technology and are constantly maintaining it. You're now, you know, what, one of the largest software providers in the world.
00:22:28 Blake Jessen
That's right.
00:22:40 Niall Riddell
For this solution.
00:22:41 Blake Jessen
We are. Yeah, we are 150 dedicated to just the drives solution. 90% of that are, you know, product engineering, tech focus.
00:22:54 Blake Jessen
But now part of the Volunteer Corporation so volunteer is based in North Carolina, 3 billion in assets and 9000 employees. So we've really got a large you know US presence to build on.
00:23:09 Niall Riddell
And therefore innovation driving new technologies, driving new solutions.
00:23:14 Niall Riddell
That's clearly part of what you're focused on. You know, what can we expect from you?
00:23:17
Next.
00:23:18 Blake Jessen
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, volunteer is a holding company of various mobility focused solutions. And so you know, not only now is it just size and scale, but it's what can we do to integrate the various technology providers. So some examples.
00:23:39 Blake Jessen
Sparky on is a sister company that manages on site batteries. So now we've integrated the ability to manage on site batteries into our tech stack.
00:23:50 Blake Jessen
Along with the EV charger so you know we can manage anything could be an asset, a charger, battery storage, renewables Breakers, smart Breakers. So we can manage that all within you know and orchestrate all of that within the platform. And then I think the other really interesting one.
00:24:10 Blake Jessen
For me is Teletrac navman is aggregating telematics data, working with some of the largest providers in the industry. We're we're taking that telematics data and ingesting that into the horsepower of the drives back in.
00:24:25 Blake Jessen
And we're able to inform really interesting predictive decisions for fleets, right? So we know when a vehicle will be arriving, the state of charge, we can know, you know, what's happening with, you know, on site prioritization, what which, what's what's the scheduling that needs to happen.
00:24:47 Blake Jessen
For that vehicle. So some really interesting things to.
00:24:53 Niall Riddell
Yeah, there's a really cool ecosystem as you add layers of data together to simplify that driver experience you briefly mentioned plug and charge earlier. What what, what's the position on plug and charge? I mean you, you're a software provider, but clearly you have to influence the hardware installers, the operators to adopt this. How are you getting?
00:25:13 Niall Riddell
On with that.
00:25:14 Blake Jessen
Yeah, it's it's being forced or it's being guided by some of the largest customers in in North America right now. So we just spent the last month testing with the major auto OEM's and the new vehicles coming out.
00:25:33 Blake Jessen
Across different hardware providers on our software platform.
00:25:36 Blake Jessen
And one of the test procedures was plug and charge as well as auto charge. So auto charge for us is it and for the industry a bit more simple to to initiate and to I think to to to adopt but not quite as secure.
00:25:57 Blake Jessen
Is is plug and charge, so you know some providers are turning to subject as a way as a middle middle where provider to to make that more simple. But we're supporting both currently today within the plan.
00:26:12 Niall Riddell
So so for the for the listeners, the vehicle pulls up, the vehicle has a certificate on it, the charger is already ready. It has a certificate on it. There's a handshake between the two, that's all automated. And you get that Tesla style experience of pulling up and plugging in and effectively your software is supporting all of these guys.
00:26:31 Niall Riddell
With managing that supremely smooth charging experience.
00:26:36 Blake Jessen
That's right.
00:26:37 Niall Riddell
So what? What happens next when we get into a world of more vehicles adopting this because right now, as I understand it, we've got a very limited number of vehicles and a fairly limited number of operators using this solution.
00:26:50 Blake Jessen
Yeah, that's right. We need to see more adoption from vehicle OEM's to allow that to happen. But I think all the majors are pushing that way, right. And so I do think that it it will be an adopted standard in the coming years.
00:27:10 Chris Sass
Where are we? Along the way, you mentioned heavy fleet and and fleets, right? So yeah, I get that. You know, every driveway having an EV, maybe a vision of the future, we're not quite there.
00:27:20 Chris Sass
Yet but the fleet vision should be further along. So what's the charging infrastructure like if if I want to run trucks, if I'm in California and I want to get rid of my internal combustion engine truck from California and I want to go from like LA to Houston or something like that, what? Where are we on that journey?
00:27:37 Blake Jessen
The the corridors are being electrified as we.
00:27:41 Blake Jessen
Speak. And so there's already a handful online today, and by the end of the year, believe that you know, you'll be able to make the journey across the West Coast and have several options where to plug in. And then as we you know, you look three to five years.
00:28:02 Blake Jessen
There'll be more options. More trucks would just expand upon that, that infrastructure, but it's it's happening now, which is really exciting to.
00:28:12 Blake Jessen
See.
00:28:13
Alright.
00:28:13 Chris Sass
So when you say it's happening, how are they getting enough power to these spacing along the route? So if you're going to go along the West Coast there.
00:28:22 Chris Sass
Are the utilities.
00:28:24 Chris Sass
Putting in infrastructure or substations and because we're not talking individual cars, so how are we getting the kind of power to get the charges that's meaningful for a fleet and a reliable fleet to use it?
00:28:34 Blake Jessen
Yeah, I think that the the providers are working with the power they can get and they are pre planning, you know pipes wires to to to plan for additional infrastructure when utilities can provide.
00:28:51 Blake Jessen
That some are looking at renewables and on site batteries to to, you know, make that availability power go yet further to our earlier point. But I think where you know it's really about trying to match adoption of of.
00:29:11 Blake Jessen
Availability of vehicles and infrastructure, and so where we're at today, you know, you don't see a lot of electric semis out there just yet. So the, you know, the infrastructure we have in place.
00:29:25 Blake Jessen
Is adequate for where we're at today. Will it be adequate for the future? Absolutely not. And so that's where, you know, we we've got to get creative with with technology to to make to stretch that availability of power. And we've got to lean, continue to lean on utilities to to provide more where they can.
00:29:46 Chris Sass
Now you you mentioned the West Coast quarter is an early mover. It sounded like where will the pockets of these early movers be? So where will I start seeing fleets electrifying at least for semis and heavy trucks in the in the near future?
00:30:00 Blake Jessen
Yeah, West Coast, East Coast. And then to connect West to east, right. So it it seems simple and intuitive, but that's that's how I think it's going to happen.
00:30:17 Niall Riddell
And do you guys support the emerging MW charging standard to enable you know these heavier vehicles to get that really high-powered?
00:30:24
Watch.
00:30:25 Blake Jessen
We do, yeah, we we support that. We see, you know that already happening in other parts of the world and we see that certain providers are close to being able to provide that in the US.
00:30:42 Niall Riddell
Yeah. And I think one of the things we've observed here in the UK, we have 1 EHGV stop and in the entirety of the UK that we can currently use for for larger vehicles officially.
00:30:52 Niall Riddell
But realistically, we we're expecting to see more and more of these high pad charges come into life and it's great to hear that you're starting to to simplify that experience. I've particularly enjoyed hearing about how really the open standard ecosystem is something that you are, you know, really being a a flag carrier for because ultimately this is where we can.
00:31:13 Niall Riddell
Tie together multiple sets of hardware, multiple sets of software, multiple vehicle types, multiple driver experiences into something which you know in Chris's language enables you to ring your mother and be able to get through to them directly.
00:31:27 Niall Riddell
And that experience is really what we need more of, not just in the US, in my view, we need that globally. So it's great to hear that you're driving that journey.
00:31:36 Blake Jessen
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's also a difference of best in class versus you know the one throat to choke, right. And so I think.
00:31:48 Blake Jessen
You know, other parts of the world we, you know that are three, five years ahead. We find that you know is is the industry matures and customers become more.
00:31:58 Blake Jessen
Located they tend towards a best in class approach right? So they want to be able to choose best in class software, best in class hardware for the application. In the US I think it's just a, you know, a metric of of where we're at today. Consumers still seem to to want that easy button.
00:32:18 Blake Jessen
Right. And so they oftentimes would go to providers that say, hey, we can do it all in house.
00:32:25 Blake Jessen
But again, as the maturity happens sophistication, you know, I think the realization is that no one provider can do it all really well. And so I think that's one thing we'll see here in the US is providers moving towards a a best in class strategy.
00:32:42 Chris Sass
All right. So as we move to that best in class you, you started this interview by saying it's about standard standard standards. I think I've heard that a few times this interview that this makes things better.
00:32:52 Chris Sass
I always like to ask the last question of one of our shows is a crystal ball approach. So where will the North American EV market be 12 to 24 months from now and you're you're you're welcome to hang your hat on the standards and just see how far you think we're going to get.
00:33:08 Blake Jessen
Yeah, that's fair. I think I'll start with, you know, you know we we really saw a tough.
00:33:17 Blake Jessen
So let me let me start over the a year ago, I think we came into 23. The industry with really.
00:33:28 Blake Jessen
Hopes, and I think that providers were forecasting major gains in revenue and there were major investments being made in by America's technology and spinning up manufacturing and the.
00:33:48 Blake Jessen
The industry, you know, as a whole cooled off a bit. You know the the you know, EV sales were still chugging along, but.
00:34:00 Blake Jessen
I think we had, we had moved away from, moved out of post COVID times where you could get your hands on chargers for months and months and now you know, there were plenty of chargers available. And so that really sent, you know, many companies into a bit of a tailspin.
00:34:20 Blake Jessen
Right. They they missed revenues, they missed their guidances. You know stocks are at all time lows, companies are flailing at the moment and some of the largest in the industry. So that's that's not great for for creating confidence.
00:34:40 Blake Jessen
For for you know drivers and would be EV purchasers. And so I think we're going to continue to see some of that, right? We're going to continue to see companies go under, others get bought up consolidation, we're going to see a lot of new entrants come in. So I think it's going to be a bit Wild West.
00:35:01 Blake Jessen
For the next 12 to 24.
00:35:02 Blake Jessen
Months for sure.
00:35:03 Blake Jessen
And it will be interesting to see who has a seat when the music stops, but.
00:35:11 Blake Jessen
Coming away from that, yes. Like I I think the industry will move towards adoption of standards. Manufacturers are already starting to move towards the next version of OCP. So OCP 2 dot O .1, which supports these advanced functionalities of plug and charge and auto.
00:35:31 Blake Jessen
Charge it supports better communication.
00:35:35 Blake Jessen
Of error code data to between the manufacturer and the software provider, and I think it's really a necessity to for us to continue to advance easy adoption.
00:35:51 Chris Sass
Well, I appreciate you taking the time to come on insiders, guide, EV and share your insights with us. I'll be sorry to see you folks go, but anytime we're in an emerging nascent market, companies come and go. That seems to be part of the the cycle and there's going to be some consolidation.
00:36:06 Chris Sass
Things down the road, so we'll we'll see how good you are when we come back 12,24 months and see what your prediction is. Thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast Today.
00:36:14 Blake Jessen
Thank you.