How did you get into this space? I previously would imagine that most EV companies or folks building out their own chargers would have this type of thing figured out, and so I'm probably wrong! Would like to hear more about that.
EV charging is similar to many other infrastructure businesses. The companies that install, own, and operate EV chargers don't build the actual EV charging hardware and software.
If you were to compare it to the petrol industry, Shell builds gas stations, but the less-known Gilbarco Veeder-Root builds the actual gas pumps and POS software.
What's different in EV charging is that almost anywhere can be a refuelling station -- grocery stores, office buildings, condos, apartments, even single-family homes.
With some many use cases, it's impossible to build a comprehensive product to serve every niche. At ChargeLab we focus on the core needs of the industry, like hardware-agnostic device connectivity, device monitoring, reporting, power management, and payments. Then we provide a public API to enable others to build niche-specific solutions on top of our platform: a unique fleet scheduling tool, an integration with existing petrol loyalty programs, or just a custom interface for your apartment building.
1) When you say hardware agnostic, is that really true? how standardize is the hardware of EV charging ? Do you require the compatible EV to have a specific protocol implemented or do you have some firmware level integration ?
2) how easy is to scale this business in different geo ? I believe you started in Canada and now present in NORAM, what would it take to get to EMEA?
3) You business model is b2b, but would you be interested in going b2c and leverage a network of EV running your OS ? (independently of who's operating it). For instance with a Cross EV charger subscription
1) There's an open protocol called the Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP). It's been adopted by all of the top hardware manufacturers (ABB, Siemens, Schneider Electric, Eaton, Delta, Phihong, etc.). So long as a charger complies with OCPP, it will work with our cloud.
There are still holdouts that do not use the protocol or make it difficult to access within their firmware, like ChargePoint and Tesla.
Just like any industry, "hardware agnostic" does not mean "any hardware". But our platform does work with 4 out of 5 of the most sold EV charging brands in the world!
2) We're focused on North America right now. We have ambitions to serve other markets, but it's really tricky to hop the Atlantic. Language, GDPR, and other things make it tricky to enter new markets. We're also only running on one cloud region now (us-east-1). As we scale we'll naturally run instances on different cloud instances, but haven't done so yet.
3) We would provide the technology to enable this, but might not create it ourselves. Our customers (all the emerging charging networks) will have much stronger opinions on whether they want to create a subscription with each other or not.
Is there anything preventing widespread adoption of Plug and Charge? And could it be implemented in a way that doesn't require registering with every charging company separately?
I have literally 17 different charging apps on my phone. Almost all of them are truly awful clunky garbage, and seem to exist solely to harvest my private information, and to press "Start".
We put a QR code on every charger and provide a web app so that users don't have to download another app.
Plug and Charge is exciting, but there's many limitations. Mostly comes down to vehicle manufacturers and charger manufacturers. On both sides, there are many that don't support ISO 15118 yet.
ChargePoint's security concerns about ISO 15118 published a few years ago were also valid (https://www.chargepoint.com/files/15118whitepaper.pdf). A man-in-the-middle attack is possible with the current version of the ISO 15118.
My impression is that car manufacturers have just been slow to roll it out, and that the implementations aren’t that standardized so there’s another layer of adoption by the charging networks that has to happen.
Agreed about the apps. Have you found any that you particularly like? Pretty much all of them are just map > list of chargers > start button. NFC tap or scan a QR code if it’s “fancy”. But I’ve yet to use anything I thought made charging a nice experience…