Good morning Grid Connections listeners.

Today we're thrilled to have Quincy Lee,
the founder of Electric Era join us.

In this episode we'll dive deep into how
Electric Era positions itself as a leading

charge point operator in the rapidly
evolving EV charging landscape.

Quincy will share insights on the current
state of EV charging and reveal how

Electric Era leverages hardware along with
cutting edge software to differentiate

itself and prioritize customer experience.

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leaders with that.

the CEO and founder of Electric Era.

Our company builds EV fast charging
stations for gas stations, convenience

stores, and quick service restaurants that
are modernizing their offerings for EV

drivers.

Prior to founding Electric Era in 2020, I
was a SpaceX engineer for seven years

where I worked on predominantly the
Starlink program.

So SpaceX's constellation of satellites, I
was one of the earliest team members on

that.

joining the team in about 2016, early
2016.

And in my final role there, I was
responsible for the global rollout of the

Gateway Ground Station antennas, which are
the large antennas that provide backhaul

connectivity to Starlink users and the
terrestrial internet.

So, you know, our team is very product
focused and engineering and technology

focused, and I think we'll touch on a lot
of that today during the conversation.

Good to be here with you.

that's great.

And I guess something I should say just
personally, Quince, I want to say thank

you for that.

I actually use starling myself.

I had been living in a hood river, Oregon,
which is kind of outside of, Portland,

Oregon by about an hour or so.

And where we were, the internet was
terrible.

And, we, I think got starling back in, it
was pretty early, like 2020, maybe 2021.

when the first users in Oregon, I guess,
so we were told.

And then, now I live in bend Oregon, which
is actually a lot larger, but we had

actually come with the local internet
provider and then it turned out to be

really bad.

I dropped so much more than starling.

So we actually ended up just getting
starling again.

And now that's what we're using here in
bend, just cause it's so much more stable

than even the local fiber, which I was
pretty surprised by too.

So, but that's just a side.

I would love to talk to you more about
that.

Yeah.

It's been such great service.

It's definitely a fantastic product.

It's really, I think, opening up the
internet to a lot of places that obviously

historically haven't had it.

So happy to hear that you guys have had a
good experience with it.

Sometimes, you know, for early adopters,
it wasn't always this good in the early

days, but I'm glad it's doing great now.

No, it's, it's funny.

The only issue we ever had, especially
here in Ben is whenever thunderstorms,

lightning storms would come through, it
would kind of disrupt it.

And then it would like drop down, every so
often, but that was really the first year

we lived here.

And ever since then, even when lightning
storms and stuff come through, I haven't

had an issue.

So it's, it's definitely better than the
local option.

Yeah, you know, it's funny, like back in
those early days of Starlink that they

were really just chasing nines, right?

They were trying to get reliability higher
and higher and higher.

And I'm having kind of deja vu all over
again, because that was what I was working

on and focused on extensively when I left
Starlink.

And now I'm focused on it extensively as
we scale up our EV fast charging network

and charging stations for customers all
over the country.

We're religiously focused on reliability.

We define reliability very meticulously as
when you plug in doesn't work immediately.

And we're chasing nines, right?

We're trying to get up to 99 .9 % success
rates.

And that's an extremely challenging thing
to do.

Not a lot of people are doing it, but
that's really what matters to the EV

driver base.

So we're going through that whole effort
that we went at Starlink all over again

here at Electric Era as we build out our
charging stations.

like an almost perfect segue.

I just want to commend you on that.

Maybe you should be the host, but, no,
obviously we could talk about probably

starling for another hour, but what, what
I'm really interested in is what we're

interested about too is exactly that, like
electric vehicle reliability, specifically

charter and the vehicles themselves.

It's not so much an issue.

It's really the charting infrastructure.

And I'm kind of curious to learn like,
what was it that made you

start electric here.

I think a lot of people have had their own
experiences, but what really was, was

there any one moment that you're just
like, I can't stand this, this someone

needs to step into the space and, improve
this experience for EV drivers.

Yeah, I think way back in 2018, from a
more existential perspective, I started

Electric Era because I really felt that
the world was not making fast enough

progress on decarbonization of
transportation.

And ironically, while watching a SpaceX
rocket launch, I kind of was looking at

the Earth getting smaller and smaller in
the rear -facing camera of the rocket and

thought to myself, man, I should be
spending my time and talents

making the world a better place as opposed
to sending technologies out into the

cosmos, which obviously I love too.

But it was just that kind of that moment
tied in with the existentialism question

that really got me to jump and leave
SpaceX in 2020 and start Electric Era.

I think when I started the company, it
really was around that premise of, man,

charging's terrible.

It's really expensive.

It's hard to build.

It takes years to build in some cases.

how do we make all that better?

Because it's a key linchpin in the
overarching EV adoption motion that we're

going through.

Folks, I hear it from folks all the time.

They're like, man, I don't want to buy an
EV.

I can't charge my car anywhere.

And the common retort is, well, what about
at your house?

And more people than not don't have good,
consistent places to charge.

And even if they did, they still need to
be able to charge up their car around

town.

So solving that gap, that infrastructural
gap, and actually doing a good job.

It was like the motivation for the
business.

And clearly there's so much frustration
online.

People are fed up with the charging
reliability, fed up with the lack of

uptime, fed up with the cut cables, fed up
with the low charging speeds, fed up with

the lack of transparency.

We're aiming to solve all of those
problems at Electric Era.

Well, that's, I think, probably welcome
news to the people listening to this.

What, what do you like when you started in
2020 to now have been kind of the biggest,

like chasing those nines, like what, what
has been the biggest, maybe wins or like

improvements you've seen over the last
four years to really help make those big

first early differences, kind of the quick
moving high impact.

Yeah, I mean, I would say most of the last
four years have really just been about

building the technology stack and only
recently have we started to scale up.

But now that the scale up is underway and
now we're really in the chase the nines

frame of mind, I think like the things
that we did early on from a technology

perspective that gave us the framework to
go in effect way to be fast charging

reliably were probably threefold.

One, we were able to solve the grid
infrastructure problem.

by building our charging stations with the
battery backing the charging station.

Having that battery there actually allows
you to ride through a lot of transients

and electrical variations that you might
see from the grid and actually keep your

charging station online and healthy when
the grid is having challenges.

So that's a big part of it.

I think a more important part is having
Edge compute on site.

A lot of people do this.

They don't really do it that well, but
certain folks have put site controllers at

their charging stations.

That local low latency compute is super
valuable for a bunch of different reasons.

And it gives you, again, a good
foundational framework to go build super

reliable charging stations that work all
the time.

And then finally, the third pillar is like
a vertically integrated software stack.

And that's really where the rubber hits
the road.

If you're not owning the entire end to end
software stack or you're charging at a

charging company that does not have a
vertically integrated software stack,

expect bad things to happen.

Because basically,

everybody in the industry with the
exception of like essentially Tesla and

Rivian and and us they outsource all their
software they They give this part to that

company this part to that company this
part to that company.

They're not actually building technology
They're not actually building software.

They're they're pulling it all together
from other vendors and that leads to

interconnection handoffs that leads to
Finger -pointing that leads to a very poor

user -driver experience That's the most
important pillar.

That's I think where we really shine
because we own everything in -house

We can go really, really low into the
firmware, firmware adjacent software stack

and make the charging experience super
good across everything from payments to UX

on the driver's screen or on the charging
station screen to the OCP 1 .6 connection

and actual charger activation to
everything else that is required to make a

charging station session successful.

And I think that's great to hear.

So let's let's say you are a listener to
this podcast and you drive an EV and you

hear all this stuff.

That sounds amazing.

How do drivers find electric era chargers
or ones using that technology to really

make sure that they're going to the ones
probably with the best uptime.

Yeah, so you can find us on PlugShare.

You can find us on Apple Maps.

You can find us on Google Maps.

And because we're in Apple Maps and Google
Maps, we populate in the infotainment

systems of all the major automotive
companies, with the exception of Tesla and

a few others.

So those are kind of the most common ways
of discoverability.

And you'll notice right out the gate that
we actually have good driver reviews.

You go into a PlugShare review of an
average charging station and the

driver reviews are terrible, right?

It's like comically bad.

One of my favorite driver reviews in
Plugshare was somebody saying, wow, this

is the future.

We need this all over America.

Like, that made me feel so good because
it's kind of the manifestation or the

verbalization of the vision of the
company.

It's just like, build EV fast charging
everywhere that's awesome so drivers can

just get on with their lives and have an
amazing experience and not worry about the

frustration of charging their car.

So we have a lot of listeners all over the
US as they, as these are rolling out more,

is there anything, are there certain areas
that your team's looking at first and kind

of rolling out from that way?

Or are there certain partnerships or
others that drivers might be best to kind

of look for to find electric or chargers?

Yeah, I think in our first couple quarters
of sales, we were eager to build charging

stations wherever and whenever.

And our initial sales motion and
installation pattern was kind of

scattershot as a result, right?

So we have charging stations in Boston and
Portland.

We have another one coming in Portland.

We have another one in Southern Oregon.

We have three coming along in Northern
California.

randomly one in Missouri and Tennessee and
others popping up.

I think as we focus, we're going to put
our minds to work on building out specific

concentrated corridors, leveraging our
customers' properties and coaching our

customers to go to market with their
charging stations there.

I think that's going to be key to provide
contiguous coverage of super seamless and

easy to use charging that's really fast.

So, that'll be what we start to shift
towards going into the next couple years

ahead of us.

But what will that look like in practice?

Well, you can kind of imagine where
that'll be based off of EV adoption rates.

It's like the West Coast.

Surprisingly, the Northeast is actually
getting a ton of usage.

Our charging station out there gets a ton
of usage every day.

And I think that reveals that there's a
lot of EV adoption in the Northeast as

well.

And then I think actually Texas is going
to be a sleeper, but come along fast in

terms of EV adoption rates in the kind of
Tri -City area.

So we'll probably focus predominantly on
the West Coast, the Northeast, maybe all

the way even out to Pennsylvania and Ohio
down to Virginia, and then Texas.

I think those will be our first core focus
areas, but nothing set in stone yet.

And we're still trying to figure that out
actively internally.

Totally.

And what have, is it been like Nevi
funding or incentive?

What, what have, it's kind of like, what
makes an area kind of a better focus for

electric era to go after other than maybe
electric vehicle driver Density

Well, it all starts with driver density,
right?

I mean, that's the kind of leading
indicator of the financial health of the

charging station.

A spicy and lesser known fact about EV
fast charging stations is you can actually

make a crap ton of money off them and
actually have good margins.

So ironically, EVgo and Electrify America,
their networks are actually making a fair

bit of revenue and are supporting decently
high profit margins in unit economics.

That's a toolkit that we're

to our customers who want to own and
operate their own charging stations and

capture share of wallet from a new class
of drivers.

And it makes most sense financially from a
pure commercialization perspective to

build in high EV density areas because
your stations get so much more

utilization.

Outside of that, I mean, yeah, certainly
Neve funding is really key.

We have two stations coming online.

If in Delaware from Neve funding, we have
an Ohio station.

that we were recently awarded.

We have one in New Mexico actually coming
online by the end of the year.

And we have a really, really big
announcement that we're not ready to share

about a huge state where we were awarded.

So that'll be coming out soon as well.

But yeah, I know that's, I mean, it's a
pretty exciting one.

I don't think we're technically ready to
talk about it, but basically that's a big,

that was a big award for us and our
customers.

There's lots of good stuff happening all
over the country and I think drivers

should expect to see a lot of electric
-era power charging stations across the

country in years to come.

So you talk, I mean, we've had a lot of
people on the show that kind of talk about

the challenges around the business model
for EV chargers.

And you look at the traditional kind of C
stores or kind of fueling stations where a

majority of their profit actually comes
from selling hot dogs or what they

actually sell in store versus actually
trying to make money off gas.

I realized some of this may be a little
bit secret saucy, but I'm kind of curious,

is it just,

Does it have to go with the site
assessment to make sure you have high

utilization of the site or what are some
of the areas that really, especially if

you are like a person with an interest in
putting in a charging location, like what

are the kind of the tips and tricks to
really make sure you're getting that high

revenue and high margin, return on the
electric vehicle infrastructure

investment.

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things
that makes our company so cool is we're

very tech forward.

So we actually built an entire machine
learning model just that we actually give

our customers access to for free to help
them figure out where their highest

sessions per day will be across their
portfolio of stores.

So that is kind of the most important part
of the process.

And we actually just released a blog post
on our website today about that.

So for anybody that's listening into this,
maybe you could add it to the show notes,

Chase.

sure.

There's a blog post that we just put out
today about actually the step -by -step

process of how we walk our customers
through this.

But the first step is basically ingest the
locations, figure out where the highest

sessions per day are, and from there,
financially stack rank the locations based

off of the sessions per day, but also the
utility tariff and any sort of kind of tax

incentives that they can get.

And then the output of that is a list of
stations that are financially attractive

and...

have an associated internal rate of
return.

And from there, we can have a pretty
financially literate conversation with our

customers and just boil it down to the
basics of the business and assess if the

locations based off of the forecast are
going to be attractive or not.

That doesn't include things like in -store
sales, which you're right is the number

one profit winner of the kind of car
refill business.

I think there's like the old expression in
the gas world.

where it's like you make a nickel per
gallon on gas and then you make 90 %

profit margins on the Coke in the store
because you have a captive audience.

So that is going to be true for EV fast
charging.

And actually that's another big reason why
we're so stoked about retail adjacent fast

charging is because it provides kind of an
anchor for the business and ancillary

revenue streams that they'll be relying on
for decades to come.

and charging an amenity that complements
that and gets new EV drivers to that

location.

So yeah, I would encourage people to check
out that blog.

It's on our website at
electricaerotechnologies .com.

And Chase, if you wouldn't mind adding it
to the show notes, that'd be cool.

Cool.

one of the things we were talking about
right before we can record was, and this

is also interesting to me, kind of having
more of a software background is as you've

mentioned, really having a software first
focus.

And I think that has worked well for
others like Tesla and Rivian, but can you

kind of go a little bit more on the actual
tech stack and what that might look like

and kind of what separates electric air
from a lot of others in the space right

now.

Yeah, I mean, I think like I talked about
it a little bit.

I talked about some of the important parts
of it earlier on.

But I'll go a little bit deeper.

Basically, every single EV fast, every
single electric car EV fast charging

station has an on -site energy storage
system and at least two chargers, maybe up

to four.

Some of our early stations only had one,
but basically going forward, we'll always

at least have two or four chargers.

I'm sorry to cut you off there.

What, what was the, what's kind of led to
that decision to make sure you have the

battery and then also that two to four
charger versus larger sites.

Yeah, that's a great question.

So the two to four larger site
configuration is kind of an output of the

learnings that we've seen from the Tesla
Diaspora, where all these Tesla people

left Supercharge and they kind of went out
in the world and they started to interview

with companies like us.

And one of the learnings from that
experience was, yeah, you got to

standardize.

You got to provide kind of configurations
that make sense within...

all of your business motion.

So everything from the supply chain team
to the implementation team to the

contractors you use to construct the site,
having a standardized set of deliverables

really is key to kind of simplifying the
go -to -market motion.

So that's part of the reason why we have
two or four.

I think we actually technically also have
a six sizer, but standardization is key.

It's way better to do that than say three
or five.

and maybe sometimes a seven and maybe
sometimes at one.

Like that just creates a lot of chaos
internally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, there's a, we think of the product
as the whole charging station, you know,

it's, it's, and everything that goes into
building it from supply chain to

implementation, to the contractors, to the
software, to, of course the charger, the

charge is just a small part.

And I think that's, people need to uplevel
their thinking.

It's the whole charging station that
matters.

It's not just the charger.

And part of our charging station, to
answer your previous question, is a

battery system.

We are one of the first to really take the
lead on battery -backed EV fast charging

stations.

There's companies out there, like Formally
FreeWire, who I think went out of

business, and or ADS Tech, who I think is
still in business, that have a battery

-integrated charger.

For people to have a simple mental model,
it's basically the difference between the

two.

to battery approaches is kind of like the
difference between a gas station that has

a big gas pump or tank rather underneath
it.

That's what gas stations do today versus a
battery integrated charger is like a gas

pump with a little gas tank inside of it
that runs out really quick.

And we realized that early on.

We built a software system called Power
Simulation that is like a full physics

simulator of charging stations.

you know, simulate 10 ,000 days and kind
of figure out all the edge cases, et

cetera, from that.

We ran our models and we're like, yeah,
like that doesn't make sense.

But battery -backed EV fast charging
stations are more technically difficult

and you have to have really low latency
power control to do it well.

So that's a challenge and part of the
reason we have an edge compute system on

site.

that's all good.

so is the battery backup not so much, I
think we've heard, and you're totally

right.

You have some that have kind of done it
where it's directly tied to the charger

and then like tests and some others will
do it.

So it's a much larger one tied to the
site.

And is the reason for tying it more to the
site driven to reliability or is it to

avoid like long -term costs due to,
charges from the utility and stuff like

that, or is it just kind of a healthy mix
of both?

It's predominantly the latter.

It's mainly a means of keeping the total
cost of ownership as low as possible, so

keeping demand charges low and also
keeping time to market low.

We can install in as little as, I think
we've done as little as four months, our

average is probably five to six.

It basically is a way to decrease the grid
requirements on site pretty substantially.

So minimize is like transformers and kind
of the larger stuff that really can slow

down some of these projects.

The vast majority of EV fast charging here
on out will, especially as we head into

the next five to 10 to 20 years, it's
going to be battery backed.

And it's mainly a function of the grid
being undersized and the supply chain

challenges around transformers.

So I think battery backed fast charging is
definitively here to stay.

And we're super happy.

chain for that's much greater right now
and then it is for transformers in the

supporting infrastructure.

Interesting.

And it makes sense, but yeah.

Yeah.

know, just use the one that's available
and cheap and getting cheaper every day as

opposed to the one that's not available
and getting more expensive every day.

Are you seeing an overlap?

It seems like it'd be a different chem,
maybe not necessarily different chemistry,

but slightly different supply chain
around.

people talk about like year ago, EV
batteries really expensive.

And now we're kind of seeing, due to some
of the changes with that supply chain that

the prices have come down because there's
more supply is that same with the battery

backups that your team is purchasing or
just kind of coincidental.

or still kind of niche enough market that
you're able to kind of keep up with.

the supply.

I would not be surprised if batteries were
anywhere from $20 to $30 per kilowatt hour

from wholesalers by the end of the decade
or at latest by 2035.

It basically is getting super freaking
cheap and it's largely a function of a

huge amount of production capacity coming
online across the world.

Everything from the raw material
extraction to the refining to the shipment

systems to

processing and manufacturing of battery
cells to the battery pack manufacturing

all the way up.

So China is doing what China does really
well, which is they are pushing the price

curve down and down and down and are
essentially commoditizing the offering.

We saw them do this with solar and now
we're seeing it with battery cells and

they're also actually doing it with power
electronics, which is something we're

starting to think about more and more.

But basically,

I think it's broadly good.

I know there's a lot of discussions about
what do we do with China, what do we do

with China.

At the end of the day, China is making a
lot of really important technologies that

are important to the energy transition.

They're drastically cutting the price down
and down and down, and that makes the

products more accessible for others.

I think it's honestly, we need to figure
out how to keep that relationship moving

in a good direction, in my opinion,
especially as it pertains to the clean

energy technologies.

For sure.

So you're looking at primarily, I mean, I
haven't heard about it as much lately, but

obviously one of the other big kind of
grid tied battery backup systems was kind

of like redox batteries and some of these
other things more usually utility scale.

But it sounds like everything that you've
been doing or like, like utility solar

scale sort of stuff.

It sounds like it's all just been lithium
ion based grid tied batteries.

Yeah, 100%.

So lithium iron phosphate, that's the
specific chemistry that we use.

And we use it for a few different reasons.

It's typically a higher power chemistry,
and it's capable of longer cycle life.

And it's actually kind of become the...

It actually, I think, is definitely the
lowest cost chemistry on the market.

And that's largely coming from the fact
that the majority of EVs are using it as

their primary chemistry now.

Like, we don't really need cobalt,
alumina, nickel.

solutions anymore.

We can just use lithium ion phosphate and
get the range that the average driver

expects.

So that's, I think, a big win for the
environment and also for the cost

structure of the product.

I think actually there's some pretty
interesting news coming out of China

around sodium ion battery cells.

I actually haven't studied that
extensively, but technically the bill of

materials costs

from a raw materials perspective is
cheaper for sodium.

So if China and other manufacturers can
figure out how to productize that and

scale it up and achieve economies of
scale, then theoretically we should even

be able to go into another big step down
in price for dollar per kilowatt hour,

which would be sweet.

And sodium ion has longer cycle life,
which is really key for our application

and others.

So we're keeping an eye on that and pretty
exciting stuff coming.

No, that, I mean, that's great.

And that's been such a big, I mean, I,
there's definitely been more talk of

sodium mine and unfortunately it just
seems to be, it's been mostly focused on

the Chinese market than anything from the
domestic manufacturers.

And it does kind of feel like it's where
LFP was only just a few years ago.

So I think there is a large potential for
it, especially in these kinds of, grid

related things where weight density, or
energy density by weight isn't as critical

as it is in automotive.

And it's been impressive already just
seen.

how many of these different battery
technologies have increased in that energy

density too so quickly.

Yeah, the energy density is an interesting
one.

And I think I haven't studied sodium ion
closely, but I suspect with the vehicle

level efficiency and range benefits that
are kind of that companies like Tesla and

Rivian and others are unlocking, we'll be
able to unlock and continually use lower

and lower energy density capable cells.

And that's basically what happened with
nickel, right?

Everyone was like, my God, we got to put a

crap ton of energy in these cells because
everything's so expensive and the arrows

package is not good and thermal control
and it's not great and the powertrain

isn't as efficient yet.

And then over five to 10 years, Tesla got
all those things figured out and they were

able to unlock lithium iron phosphate.

So perhaps they'll be able to do it again.

So it'll be interesting to see.

for sure.

So we talked about kind of the battery
side to it.

So what in this stack is kind of like the
next part.

It goes from the battery to then obviously
the actual charger itself and have there

been any things in particular with that
charging hardware that you guys really

look for or that you've noticed is a big
part of the reliability.

I mean, I know from some it's kind of been
charging cords and the cables to really

get kind of down to the parts and pieces
of it.

But I'm just kind of curious what your
team has seen.

Yeah, let me share my screen.

I don't know if people can see this on
their screen, but if you're on YouTube or

you're watching this, you'll be able to
see the following.

So here's a good slide on just like how we
think about reliability.

I think everybody and anybody in the
entire industry needs to understand this

fundamental concept, which is why I'm
gonna start here.

So there is a very big difference between
just is the station online, which is one

part of reliability, and does the station
successfully charge?

Really all that the driver cares about is
that second part.

They care about that the charging session
was successful.

They plugged in.

They quickly tapped their credit card or
Google Pay or Apple Pay.

Boom, they're off to the races.

And the power starts ramping up, and they
can go inside and not even think about it.

Like that walk away moment of I trust that
it's charging and I don't have to fiddle

around with my app anymore is like the
delight that we are trying to capture with

our drivers.

So that's what we do.

I mean, we're actually quite good at that
second part.

We're also very good at the first part.

So the first part is just basics.

It's like, can you tie your shoes?

It's like, is the station online?

Is it up?

Is it operational?

Well, we know down to the millisecond if
it is at our stations, because we have

that edge -compute system, and we have an
LTE antenna, and we have a team of five to

six engineers on our network operation
center.

We actually literally staff a network
operation center, which is pretty crazy

and pretty wild, but it's like a...

cultural defect or a cultural carryover
from our Starlink days.

No, I think that's huge.

You just don't see, I think that's where a
lot of others struggle at first.

Yeah, it's crazy.

I mean, I don't know if this is true, but
I heard the other day that Electrify

America has 80 people on their network
operations team, which is crazy.

So we're able to basically have one person
on call and monitoring the fleet at any

given time.

And we actually expect to, because we
leverage so much software, we expect to

continue, maybe slightly increase, but
predominantly continue that single source

coverage.

Yeah, that's why.

Even as we go and build eventually more
charging stations than Electrify American

EV Go, which I actually think we will go
do.

So that's a key way to just discern if
it's up and operational.

Some of the more challenging things are
like, okay, did the cable get cut?

Well, you have to be able to tell with
your software if the cable got cut.

And if it did get cut, then you need to
alert the network operations center

operator immediately, at which point they
can go and look at the telemetry and

figure out, yeah, it got cut.

we need to trigger a technician to go out
there.

So at that point, or let's say if the
screen breaks or if there's like a pump or

some power module, something like that
that fails, we can see all of that.

And we then go and trigger a maintenance
technician to go out and fix it.

So we're very much in the monitor early,
monitor often, and monitor with software

frame of mind so that we can stay ahead of
downtime issues.

The more challenging part is the charging
session reliability.

So in order to successfully charge, you
have to oversee and successfully initiate

everything in the following sequence.

Car shows up, they plug in, they tap their
payment, their credit card, whatever.

The charger actually connects and starts
talking to the car.

There's about 10 step to 20 step process
that they go through.

There's a checklist of electrical safety
tests.

Things like ground isolation and faults
that they need to go and work through

together, the car and the charger.

And then if that all passes, then the
session initiates.

At which point you start to ramp up power
and the car says, give me more, give me

more, give me more.

And at which point you'll kind of reach
your peak power and then you'll then start

to do the longer dwell.

And of course, as everybody knows in our
industry, like then the power rolls off as

you get to higher and higher states of
charge in the battery.

You also need to be able to be ready for a
driver to come by and quickly rip out the

connector because drivers do that all the
time.

So you need to be able to safely turn it
off really quick.

And if anything in that sequence goes
wrong, you need to have kind of...

Well, first off, you should just design
your software such that it doesn't go

wrong.

If the payment doesn't work, you failed.

You failed the charging succession
reliability test.

If the power doesn't initiate or the car
can't talk to the charger, you failed.

So designing the software at a lower level
to make sure that those don't fail is

super key.

But if there is a failure, you need to be
able to quickly recover it in software so

that the driver doesn't notice.

For example, power cycling some power
module so that it comes back up safely and

is ready to then deliver power into the
car as an example.

All that to say, that's the brains of the
operation.

We started this conversation talking about
our technology.

That's the core technology.

It's really this vertically integrated
software that makes Tesla really good at

what they do.

It's what makes Rivian really beautiful,
really good at what they do and all the

fancy controls that they have in their
cars.

And it's what makes electric era really
fantastic at charging our customers, EV

drivers cars.

Yeah.

One of the things I hear a lot from EV
drivers is like, why, why don't they work?

This just seems so simple.

It's been solved in so many other
industries in a way.

And I think the more you learn about the
industry or the technology, especially you

realize it isn't the concept of what
you're trying to execute is pretty simple,

but there are a lot of things involved
with making sure it's done efficiently and

then also safely.

And in your opinion, is that.

just because a lot of others have
struggled with having a really strong kind

of software first approach with kind of
making the experience more difficult for

EV drivers and kind of reliability in
general.

I think the very like...

A very skeptical and pessimistic person in
me says, man, I just don't think they

care.

I think that one of the core cultural
things that makes our company so

exceptional is we're just super obsessed
with EV drivers.

And so is Tesla, and so is Rivian.

There's an element of love in their
products and an element of love in ours.

And you look at Electrify America, you
look at the origin story, they came out of

the diesel gate scandal and it was just
this big corporate thing that got stood up

out of a government...

payout mandate and how could you have love
for anything in that situation?

Not to talk bad about Electrofair America,
I'm sure there are people that very much

care about EV drivers at that company, but
I just think if you're a startup or

you're, which Tesla was and Rivian was
obviously, you have to have an obsessive

approach to high product quality
experiences.

So I think it's just like almost a
metaphysical answer to your question.

The technology on top of it.

There's a lot more that I'm not talking
about that also has to go right.

So it's like, you got to get all of these
things together, working seamlessly, whose

value is greater than the sum of the
individual parts.

And the way to work yourself through that
pain and chase those nines is really just

coming back to the labor of love that is
electric era.

It's that mentality that we have every day
that causes us to approach our jobs with

intensity.

Because we really truly believe that we
got to get EV charging infrastructure out

there that's awesome if people want to
drive EVs.

Yeah, that's great.

And we've definitely been talking about
kind of like looking back on the charging

space and how electric areas started and
grown.

I'm kind of curious on your thoughts
looking forward, like what do you see are

some of the interesting trends in the
space and kind of ways that you're looking

to help stand out even further or like
possibly even accelerate the rollout for

electric era.

Yeah, so of the things that we're
comfortable talking about externally, I

mean, I guess there's a lot.

So we have a very comprehensive and
almost, I think, 10, at least, year view

of our product roadmap.

And it is pretty technically intense.

Like, we're aiming to do to EV fast
charging what NVIDIA did to GPUs.

Like, we're thinking that deeply in
that...

afield about the problem.

And obviously, we're early in that
planning exercise.

So it's not like we're going to commit to
doing one thing or the other.

But of the things that we've identified
that are really interesting, it really

kind of comes back to solving some of the
core points that we hit on the pod today,

which is power access, power efficiency,
power delivery.

Reliability, instantaneous and low latency
control.

Product and customer experience, the
driver experience at retail locations.

We're going to announce some really cool
stuff there down the road as well.

So I think EV drivers are going to be
really, really fired up about our product

roadmap.

And I truly think we're going to be the
cutting edge technology in this space.

I think that's a pretty bold statement,
but with what we see coming, I think it's

actually true.

I think Tesla is very split focused.

You know, they're going to go build
optimists and they're going to go build

like new EVs and FSD.

They don't really have a whole lot of
bandwidth to think about the charging side

of things.

And that's the beauty of focus in a
company is you can go in compound value

around a specific niche of customer value
that is highly differentiated.

It creates a highly technical and cutting
edge solution.

So I would just say, stay tuned.

I mean, we got a lot of stuff coming out
over the next year alone and, and, and the

years following that are going to be even
more exciting.

That's great.

And I think just looking at the broader EV
market right now, there's, I think a lot

of narrative around that it's EV sales are
slowing when in fact, other than kind of

Tesla slowing down their sales overall, it
seems like a lot of the auto manufacturers

are growing and increasing in their year
over year sales.

What do you see is the best way to kind of
get people over the hump if they're

skeptical about EVs or

anything that's really kind of stood out
to you as like the experience of it.

Cause I think there are so many
narratives, but when you live with it day

to day, you realize, this is so much
easier.

And there's a lot of benefits over the
others.

I'm just kind of curious with what you've
done and your experience, what you've

found to try to

Get people interested.

I think the most common and easiest way is
usually just get butts in seats and drive

an electric vehicle.

But I'm just kind of curious if there's
anything that you've seen that has been of

interest or kind of changed that
perspective for others that might be

skeptical or kind of leery of making the
switch to electric vehicle.

Well, I mean, as somebody who's watched

Rockets land themselves and satellite
constellations take fold and new

technologies in the automotive space
emerge.

It's just inevitable to me that better
products and better technologies are going

to come out.

I think the framework for people that are
considering EV drive in EV is you should

select a very good EV car company that is
reputable and has a lot of ...

excitable fans like Tesla and Rivian
specifically.

And you should go buy their cars.

I think a lot of EVs are just not that
exciting.

They're just kind of like, eh, it's our
attempt.

We're not really good engineers and we
don't really care.

And here's the thing.

Here's a concept car.

Let's see how it does.

Like those cars are terrible and I would
not buy them.

I think like Kia is good.

Rivian is great.

Fantastic.

Really.

I love their cars.

I think Tesla sells incredible cars.

There's others as well.

Then there's a lot that are not good.

The ones that are good are incredible.

EVs are just so freaking sweet.

It's basically the difference between a
flip phone and an iPhone.

It's the difference between a horse and
buggy and a car, an ICE car.

It's a quantum step improvement.

You are in a rocket ship that accelerates
extremely fast, that has extremely low

energy and maintenance costs, that drives
you everywhere.

It's just a quantum leap forward.

And there's nothing really worth focusing
on than that in the EV adoption sector.

Like we should just be talking about how
the product is better because it is a

fundamentally superior automotive
experience.

And yeah, if anybody else is, if anybody
in the audience is interested in driving

one, yeah, go get in it, go get your butts
in your seats as Chase mentioned and go

experience it for yourself.

Cause once you sit in the car and you
press the accelerator, you'll know exactly

what I'm talking about.

No, I think you're spot on.

I mean, it's interesting you mentioned
Kenaki and Hyundai, because I think of the

traditional automakers, they have been the
best at making that transition with their

product portfolio for making compelling
EVs.

And then otherwise it's kind of been the
completely new startups that really go

back to that focus and kind of love on
product that have really been able to get

people passionate about cars who either
haven't been or even convince people who

have been traditional car enthusiasts.

to kind of get out and board the EV
bandwagon as well.

Yeah, they have like a classic, some of
the traditional legacy companies, they

have a classic innovators deliver problem.

They don't want to have one product line
cannibalized their other product line.

So it kind of expects corporate strategies
to reflect that constraint.

there's definitely some, there's
definitely been proven to be the clean

sheet design versus kind of these
platforms from the traditional auto OEMs

that are trying to serve a bunch of
different platforms.

I think they've done better than I thought
they would, but it's also still a clear

difference in a clean sheet design for an
electric vehicle versus some of these ones

that have to do is hybrid all of the above
and kind of don't do any of them.

Well, or not even that it's just like,
they're not inspiring when you drive one,

but,

I realized we're kind of coming up on our
time.

And so I, one thing I wanted to ask you
about is around, we definitely see like a

lot of different.

Evie charging some like peak and then kind
of take off and tamper off.

Others kind of might not go to the highest
peak number, but we'll hold there for

quite a while with electric era chargers.

Are there like specific, is it going to be
a three 50 kilowatt system station?

So if I roll up with a Hummer, Evie or
whatever I have, or what, what are kind of

like, what should I expect?

It's kind of like the base.

minimum usually charge rate and kind of
expect for a charging experience for those

kinds of road trips.

Yeah, so currently everything that we have
in market right now is 200 KW peak.

Without sharing too many details, we're
going to be a lot higher than that for our

V3 product, which people should expect to
see next year.

We'll do an announcement probably early
2025 timeframe, if all things are nominal.

So peak power capabilities are going to go
up quite a bit.

On the kind of rollback question that you
talked about, like the way that our

software works is we will give as much
power as the car can accept.

And so we're always car limiting the
charging station power flows as opposed to

holding back.

Unless there's extreme high utilization
and we expect like a large surge coming,

then we'll start to kind of...

peak shave here and there and split power
and more intelligently allocate power to

cars so that we have enough energy and
reserve for the forecasted demand.

We don't really do that at all that often.

But so that's kind of our current...

But rather it is something that might
happen in the event that there is extreme

usage at the station.

So outside of that though, we just give as
much power to the car as it can take.

No, that's great.

I mean, even 200 kilowatts is great.

So many of these are, I'm seeing you in
like 50 to a hundred kilowatts.

And I just don't think that's like really
a number that's truly like future

-proofed.

So to, and then there's still so many EVs
that can't even hit that.

So I think that's, that's definitely great
to see.

And then to hear you're doing even more
down the future, I think it's going to be

great for a lot of drivers.

Yeah, one thing I noticed briefly is just
like this trend line, which is peak power

rate over time.

In 2008, the Roadster, I think, had only a
27 kW peak charging rate.

And over time, the leading power charge
rate has increased to about, I think, a 17

% annualized growth rate.

This is like the Moore's law for fast
charging.

I call it the law of the electric era,
which is...

which I think will hold true until we get
up to cars that can charge at about 1 .2

or 1 .5 megawatts for light duty vehicles,
at which point you're basically on parity

with the time that it takes to fill up a
gas car.

So I don't know how long that'll take, and
if the 19 % annualized year over year

growth rate will continue, but that is
certainly an observation that's driving

our product roadmap, and we think about a
lot.

That's great.

Well, thank you so much for coming on
today, Quincy.

I would be respectful of your time or
coming up at the top of the hour.

But for anyone who's listening, what's a
great way for them to learn more and kind

of reach out to you to look at possibly
installing some electric air chargers at

their facilities.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think if you're an
EV driver, I'll answer your second

question first.

But if you're an EV driver, I would just
encourage you to follow us on our socials.

So we have a large amount of people that
follow us on LinkedIn.

You can find us at Electric Era.

We also have a large following on Twitter.

You can follow us at Electric Era Tech.

You can follow me on Twitter as well at
Quincy Edmund Lee.

And then generally, if you're a customer
and you're interested in adding the fast

charging, just go to our website, click in
the upper right hand corner, request a

demo and schedule time with

one of our amazing team members to just
kind of help you figure out how to

navigate this next big transition in car
refill.

There's also a great amount of material on
our website if you're not yet ready to

take a call with our team.

Just go to our blog under our website and
feel free to peruse around and see what

you like and then give us a call when
you're ready.

Thanks so much, Quincy.

We'll have to have you on soon.

I've been really excited to follow what
Electric Era has been doing and some of

the upcoming announcements as well.

I'm sure we'll have to have you back soon.

Thanks, Chase.

Good to be here.

Thank you for tuning into this episode of
the Grid Connections podcast with Quincy

Lee, the founder of Electric Era.

We hope you enjoyed our deep dive into the
world of EV charging and learned how

Electric Era is making a mark with its
innovative software and customer focused

approach.

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