Insider's Guide to Energy EV

12. Chargetrip: predicting range, optimizing routing and managing charging

• Chris Sass • Season 1 • Episode 12

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In this fascinating episode of Insiders Guide to Energy, hosts Chris Sass and Niall Riddell delve into the rapidly evolving world of electric vehicles (EVs) with Cecile Post, a seasoned expert in the field. Cecile shares her unique journey, beginning with her roots in the family logistics business and leading up to her influential role at ChargeTrip. With a focus on the monumental task of transitioning over 300 million commercial vehicles to electric, this episode sheds light on the pivotal role ChargeTrip plays in shaping the future of sustainable transportation. Their recent $10 million funding from HSBC and Wex is a testament to the growing excitement and confidence in ChargeTrip's mission. This insightful discussion provides a glimpse into the complexities and triumphs of the EV industry, making it a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of energy and transportation.

The conversation takes a deep dive into the intricacies of EV charging optimization and fleet management. Cecile illuminates the challenges and opportunities in the 'European Chargepoint Operator Jungle,' sharing her experiences from the early days at eViolin and the EV Roaming Foundation. Her insights into the development of these foundational aspects of the EV ecosystem are both enlightening and inspiring. ChargeTrip's innovative approach to optimizing commercial electric vehicle choices and ensuring efficient operation is a focal point of the discussion. The company's sophisticated algorithms and strategies not only help businesses save significant costs but also contribute to a more sustainable and efficient transportation sector.

The episode also explores the technical and operational aspects of ChargeTrip's services. Listeners will learn how ChargeTrip is revolutionizing the EV experience by preventing range anxiety and ensuring seamless journeys. Cecile's expertise brings to light the importance of precise energy consumption modeling and routing algorithms tailored to individual vehicle needs and driving behaviors. This podcast is an invaluable resource for businesses considering the shift to EVs, offering expert guidance on navigating the transition with maximum efficiency and minimum environmental impact. It's a compelling narrative that intertwines personal experiences with professional insights, making it an engaging and informative listen for anyone interested in the cutting edge of energy and automotive technology.


https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilepost/ 

Transcript 

 

00:00:04 Speaker 1 

Broadcasting from the commodity capital of the world, Zurich, Switzerland, this is insiders guide to energy. 

00:00:20 

Addition to insiders guide to energy is brought to you by fidectus. 

00:00:24 

Go to www.fidectus.com For more information. 

00:00:59 Speaker 3 

This episode of Insiders Guide to Energy EV miniseries Is powered by Paua. 

00:01:05 Speaker 3 

Paua helps your business transition to electric vehicles by simplifying charging, managing payments, and optimizing your charging data. Welcome to insiders Guide EV miniseries. This is Chris Sass and with me is Niall Riddell. 

00:01:17 Speaker 3 

As always, Niall, how's it going today? 

00:01:19 Speaker 2 

Hey, Chris, it's lovely to be back again and we've got some exciting conversations to be having today. 

00:01:25 Speaker 3 

So what exactly are we talking about? This TV series has started out. We started general we getting we're drilling down into topics. What's the topic du jour? 

00:01:34 Speaker 2 

So today we're going to be talking to Cecile Post and Cecile has a background in the EV industry, which is quite enviable for those who haven't spent much time in electric vehicles. She's got a perspective on a number of things, but the bit we're really diving into is her role at charge trip, charge trip are specialists in software that enables. 

00:01:54 Speaker 2 

Electric vehicles to go further and those are my words. So the best thing to do at this point might be to get Cecile to tell us who our charged trip and why should we care? 

00:02:04 Speaker 3 

Well, let's go. Why don't you bring her on board, Neil? 

00:02:07 Speaker 4 

Yeah. Good afternoon, guys. Good question, Neil, why should we care? Well, I think one thing that's very important to keep in mind is that if we look at the electrification, it's it's a lot spoken about. But if you look at commercial vehicles, we see especially in Europe, but also in the US that really kicking off and even though it seems in many use cases still a pilot. 

00:02:28 Speaker 4 

Today, it's good to keep in mind that over the course of like the this decade, over 300 million commercial vehicles will electrify. That's a lot. There's a lot that needs to happen. There's a lot of anxiety that we need to take. 

00:02:42 Speaker 4 

Wait, how about your trip? Where range prediction and EV routing platform around for seven years. Headquarter in Amsterdam and today we're already route over 12% of the European electric vehicles on the market. 

00:02:59 Speaker 4 

And yeah, we started off on a personal vehicle site. So how can you know us? Well, if you use any kind of? 

00:03:06 Speaker 4 

Tab of any of the EM's out there, like for example shell recharge or Ng or the Norwegian Driving Association and tons of others. You see that engine that helps you get from A to B and what makes your trip different is that we can we run an algorithm and we can predict for each and every vehicle. 

00:03:26 Speaker 4 

How you are going to consume energy and how much energy that will be on the trip. And then if you look at for example, and it must be what we do is we optimize that algorithm for their agreements that they have in that space. So that allows you as an end user. 

00:03:42 Speaker 4 

To travel the same distance from A to B, let's say from Amsterdam to Paris, but then really optimize for cost or for the amenity if you want to stop. 

00:03:52 Speaker 4 

And then we do tons of things as well in the commercial vehicle space. 

00:03:54 Speaker 4 

But let's maybe. 

00:03:56 Speaker 4 

Check in if you're still with me. 

00:03:59 Speaker 2 

That's fascinating to hear, but each and every vehicle, there's surely there's hundreds of different makes and models out there. Now, that's quite a bold claim to say that you can support all of these different vehicles on. 

00:04:09 Speaker 2 

Their journeys. How do you do that? 

00:04:11 Speaker 4 

Yeah, yeah, that's actually quite cool. And I was super impressed when I joined the company a few years back. 

00:04:17 Speaker 4 

Because today we have consumption models for over 1100 vehicles, so all personal vehicles out there in the European and the US markets, we even support hybrids, even though routing is probably not the most favorable to do it in hybrid. And then we also have all events in the European and the US market. 

00:04:37 Speaker 4 

Ready. So even though if you don't have any real time data yet on how that vehicle is going to behave, we can really help you along on. 

00:04:46 Speaker 4 

What does it mean if I start driving this vehicle? 

00:04:49 Speaker 3 

So as we're talking, I I keep thinking of my son's video game with all the cool cars that we could drive and you jump in and the video game producer having to know the car. But I guess the the question is, is how much variability is there between, you know, if I'm I'm driving, let's say a Tesla and Neal has a pollster, you know, how how different are journeys and and how important is. 

00:05:09 Speaker 3 

The software knowing the difference further. 

00:05:12 Speaker 4 

It's a completely different journey and that has to do with on one hand the the charging speed of your car, but also the compatibility with the charging stations and what we do know is we build all those consumption models per model. So we know at what speeds they're they're they're charging, how to say like the. 

00:05:32 Speaker 4 

The the curve is how it consumes, so your posts are may consume completely different than the Tesla. And also if you take another look at the other example. 

00:05:43 Speaker 4 

I always like to use the example we have this distance matrix and they cannot really shows right now because we're on a podcast. But what we see is if you drive the same routes and and you take three different drivers, let's say a taxi driver, last month delivery company and you or me as a as a person that a bit to see consumer. 

00:06:03 Speaker 4 

We all have completely different needs, so we can really set up the algorithm for each and every of those use cases and make sure that you end up at the charging station that is suitable for that. That person on that specific trip and that vehicle. 

00:06:18 Speaker 2 

So that's interesting because Chris and I probably both drive in that sense like a B2C driver. How might a last mile delivery driver differ from Chris Or's journey between A&B? 

00:06:30 Speaker 4 

Well, often he like a letter of the review company, drives longer hours but shorter period of time. So we also take factors like do you drive a lot on the highway or is this route on the highway or is it on in the city center because that's a different consumption model, but it also often has access to semi public charging infrastructure. So you can also. 

00:06:51 Speaker 4 

Squeeze that in and make sure that he charges at the most cost effective, effective. 

00:06:57 Speaker 2 

So does that mean you pick up things like regen, slopes, Rd. average, Rd. speed, vehicle shape, all of that stuff in your calculations? 

00:07:07 Speaker 4 

Yeah, yeah. There's a very nice. 

00:07:11 Speaker 4 

And I mean it in the most positive way, but geeky team working on this, yes. 

00:07:16 Speaker 2 

We like. 

00:07:17 Speaker 4 

And no, and yeah. And I think the cool thing is that because we we started off so long ago already, there was not that much around connectors, connected car. So we really needed to get good at this because if you don't. 

00:07:32 Speaker 4 

It's really important to know what you you you predict for and what you cater that route for and if you don't know what the consumption will be, how can you then advise drivers? Well how to get from A to B so that was one of the fundamental. 

00:07:46 Speaker 4 

Elements of the algorithm and I think now that's really the differentiator factor as well. If you look in the industry, there are not many parties out there that can really help you well. 

00:07:56 Speaker 3 

So I guess I'm old enough to remember, at least in the US, fuel shortage in the past, and we used to calculate gas mileage, right? You you would do and you figure out how much is in your tank and you would top it off and you see how your vehicle was doing. And that was kind of one make sure you know one thing you did and maybe air condition on maybe air condition off you had air. 

00:08:13 Speaker 3 

Conditioning at that time, I guess in the total life of a vehicle. 

00:08:18 Speaker 3 

I'm wondering what kind of impact is this right? So an individual trip, you know, it it there, but if if I'm delivering Uber eats every day or drive-in every day and over the long haul, is this basically a cost effective measure why I'm using your software or is it a convenience measure? Like what? What's the driving factor? Do you want to calculate all this other than going well? Geez. 

00:08:39 Speaker 3 

I'm working this region. I know the target station over here. Is it available? Is it broken this week? Let me. 

00:08:43 Speaker 3 

Go plug in. Help help. 

00:08:46 Speaker 4 

I think we have a variety of use cases, so maybe I highlight the three I find most interesting today. One is really. 

00:08:54 Speaker 4 

And and Chris is maybe interesting for you also to understand, if you look at the European landscape, there are around 2300 Cpos in this CPO jungle in the US, you only have around a handful. So if you get from. 

00:09:12 Speaker 4 

Amsterdam to Paris. Like I just mentioned. 

00:09:15 Speaker 4 

A beta sheet driver often until two or three years back, would get a PDF with which 2300 CPO's they would get access to. That's not really feasible, right? If you. If you really want to end up in a divorce, I don't recommend you take the PDF with the CPO's and then all the French cities. Each city has a different CPO so. 

00:09:35 Speaker 4 

I think it's really convenient and bringing the whole driver experience experience closer to mom and dad that maybe also overtime start driving to a new. 

00:09:45 Speaker 4 

On the other hand, we see fleets and that can go from leasing or rental companies that need to make this switch for, well, obvious reasons, but also see the anxiety of the drivers. They need to be well educated and they want to make sure that they don't get stranded. And then if you look at commercial vehicles, so vans for example. 

00:10:05 Speaker 4 

Well, even if you educate your drivers well, you will be surprised that the other day I was chatting with the fleet manager and he mentioned like, yeah, I I gave all my my drivers to training, but still every once out of 30 trips the vehicle ends with 0% of battery on the highway. 

00:10:23 Speaker 4 

You're like how you see the meters, like slowing down, right? And they're like, you will be surprised, man. It's just still not there. 

00:10:32 Speaker 4 

Not not clear enough. 

00:10:35 Speaker 2 

That's really interesting. I've heard this story before, and it does seem that it's it links to commercial vehicles, but clearly as an individual you don't want that range anxiety either, particularly when you're new to this space. 

00:10:47 Speaker 2 

Chris mentioned Tesla earlier. You know, I I made this joke that Tesla guys have a a complete different experience. 

00:10:52 Speaker 2 

The rest of. 

00:10:52 Speaker 2 

The world you know, they've got everything vertically integrated. 

00:10:56 Speaker 2 

Car tells you where the charger is. You get a nice little diagram on a huge great screen inside your car, and it kind of gives you a bit of Peace of Mind. 

00:11:02 Speaker 2 

Is that is that how you guys work? How do you how do you support that driver experience? 

00:11:08 Speaker 4 

Yeah. So that's definitely, I think that's an ideal world, right. I think the, the, the test experience is really well thought out. I think until now it's the most impressive. 

00:11:18 Speaker 4 

Out there is a clear reason why other Oh yeah, I'm sure looking into this how you see some announcements popping up, I think we're we really are really. 

00:11:29 Speaker 4 

Coming into that play is that Tesla is a like I mentioned, a closed system, but that's not most of the reality. So it's also quite important that if you move away out of this closed system, like for example fleet or commercial fleet, they don't have one vehicle and one network that could support it that you really bring that fragment, that system system together, make sure that they still don't get stranded. 

00:11:53 Speaker 3 

I mean I I I see Tesla a lot like the Apple ecosystem when you know when, you know, I just went through the buying process where the Tesla and online and stuff like that and it felt a lot like an apple experience in the whole whole experience. But you're saying fleets are very different in different. So where is your software? Is your software mostly used through APIs and White label or is this something that I would know that I'm using? 

00:12:15 Speaker 3 

Software directly? Or is it kind of behind the scenes doing things, making my life better and I just don't know you're doing it? 

00:12:21 Speaker 4 

Yeah, I have the best job. If you don't know how brand is out there, it's horrible. But that's a little bit how it is because we are today. Indeed we're we're powering a very broad range of apps in the market, but we also work with telematics companies, for example, of the dispatching systems. And in that how that works. 

00:12:40 Speaker 4 

Is or how we help in the whole electrification journey is a little bit in the pre buying or decision making process by asking for historic route data and selecting the vehicles you consider switching to and then you get a complete scenario outlook on what it looks like if you start switching your electric like all your your vehicles. 

00:13:01 Speaker 4 

V on the other hand, if you look on. 

00:13:04 Speaker 4 

In in operation we can predict. For example, if you have 100 vehicles for Evo's that need to get ready for the mission of tomorrow. What you've seen a lot of pilots today or where the early stage phases where we're in in this market is all vehicles will get charged up every night to 100%. 

00:13:25 Speaker 4 

But if you then challenge the fleet manager like, hey, do you also fuel up all your gasoline cars or petrol cars every night? They're like, no, why would I do that? I'm like, yeah, that's precisely what you do now in the EV space. So what we help them with is if you have a specific trip that you're going to drive, you know, that trip. 

00:13:44 Speaker 4 

Including the cargo loads and we can predict precisely how much battery that trip will cost you. And if you're ready for that mission or not. And then on in operation or on the trip, we can also track if what we predicted versus the reality of the state of battery at the trip, if that if if that's. 

00:14:04 Speaker 4 

Matching and if that is not matching, you can reroute them to a charger that is nearby or maybe even at the depot, because they will still be able. 

00:14:13 Speaker 4 

To make it. 

00:14:14 Speaker 2 

So that bit I was really interested in. You can look at like loading levels on vehicles to predict whether they'll make the route or not. This. Yeah, this this gives a fleet manager incredible power in to. 

00:14:27 Speaker 2 

Two ways. Firstly, they can take a diesel fleet and go. What would it look like if I converted it to electric or what vehicles might I need or what opportunity have I got to save costs by getting big batteries and small batteries? I think the second one is you can then do this whole piece, you go right? Hang on, I've got to deliver some really. 

00:14:44 Speaker 2 

Heavy stuff today. Which vehicle should I put the heavy stuff in versus the light? 

00:14:49 Speaker 2 

Well, is that a real use case or is that me making stuff up? 

00:14:52 Speaker 4 

No, that's definitely luckily a real use case, Neil. 

00:14:57 Speaker 2 

That's thousands of pounds of savings straight away, 10s of thousands of savings. 

00:15:01 Speaker 4 

Yeah. And there's some really cool examples. 

00:15:05 Speaker 4 

I think I cannot really put the numbers out unfortunately, but imagine if you if if you very simple use case. If you think about. 

00:15:14 Speaker 4 

Picking the smaller, the better. Better repack on average where vans there's like. 

00:15:19 Speaker 4 

There's a 10 to 50K difference in the battery back for trucks that goes up easily to 70K. If you then don't need or you only need the larger battery pack one out of 20 trips. That's quite an easy calculation to then tell. This is how much money you save if you need to invest in 100 vehicles. 

00:15:41 Speaker 4 

And maybe it's worth charging once every 20th trip in a public charging station, because then, well, there's a lot of public charging you can do until you you you break even on that investment. So yeah, that's really cool stuff to look into, but also very much need. 

00:15:58 Speaker 3 

We dove right into your current role and and and Neil had told me that you have a really interesting history of how you got here. Maybe we should maybe take a break here and find out more about the journey you took to get to where we're at. 

00:16:13 Speaker 4 

Yeah, where it starts. No. Yeah. No. And I think I shared it with you the last time I saw you is, UM, my parents actually have a logistics company. So I grew up in. 

00:16:26 Speaker 4 

This this industry and I actually tried to break out of it. So my brother, it's a family business. My brother and sister are both in the business. And I always said like, no, I want to get as far away as possible. Like don't count on me and then I'll end up my first job at in. 

00:16:42 Speaker 4 

Shell and and I helped logistics company on. 

00:16:46 Speaker 4 

Companies on how they needed to fuel up their fleet. So my dad was precisely, uh, yeah. It was a direct client of my colleague that was sitting next to me. 

00:16:56 Speaker 4 

So I thought it was super cool and on the outside, but no, not really. And and then I worked for a period of time in a startup of Shell that was doing fueling on demand. And unfortunately I think this is a big thing created in in the US convenience. But we started off with a beat to see in a, B to B proposition. 

00:17:18 Speaker 4 

And it turned out that the Netherlands is not that much about convenience, but that the B2B case is very interesting. So today, if I'm not mistaken, they they flipped completely to the US, and they're like a massive team in the US on fueling on demand. So I've been on the starting the start of that, what was really crazy. 

00:17:36 Speaker 4 

Because there was nothing yet, so figuring out those all the safety stuff and the business case, those kind of things. 

00:17:42 Speaker 4 

And then. 

00:17:44 Speaker 4 

I think for me it was time to to move away from the big corporate, which was a really cool journey. You can learn a lot and you can do everything at big skill, but it's also what comes with the the corporate. 

00:17:56 Speaker 4 

Processes, right? So I was not the most patient. I learned. So then I moved to. 

00:18:03 Speaker 4 

To actually the first company I knew in EV space and it was called EV Box, that was back in the time when the team was relatively small. 

00:18:11 Speaker 4 

And started as a roaming manager, which I thought was very established in that industry, but it was around five years ago and as quick as I got the job, I figured out that there was nothing standardized. 

00:18:24 Speaker 4 

So that was a yeah, that was quite a journey. Being part of a lot of boards to set regulations. Ospi is now a very much known protocol. But back then we would be debating on. 

00:18:37 Speaker 4 

How to exchange Cdr? So that's actually the transactions and and how you can set up a connection between the CPU and image P because in theory it worked, but nobody was really sure how to do it, so that's what I did for a couple of years. They were also launching a new back end software which. 

00:18:57 Speaker 4 

There was no chills team, so it was part of that Seals team. 

00:18:59 Speaker 4 

Which was a. 

00:19:00 Speaker 4 

Really good journey, I realized afterwards, because then you understand what the back end solution is about. And maybe for those who don't know it, the back end solution is where you host your charging cards and your charging stations so you can make them available to the public domain. Yeah, maybe that's a brief. 

00:19:18 Speaker 4 

Background, yeah. 

00:19:20 Speaker 2 

And then from EVE Box into charge trip, what a year two years ago. 

00:19:25 Speaker 4 

Actually, today, no yesterday was two years. Yes, thank you. 

00:19:32 Speaker 2 

You kind of skimmed over, some of which I found really interesting, which is you were one of the early volunteer members at the EV Roaming foundation. 

00:19:39 Speaker 4 

Yeah, indeed. 

00:19:40 Speaker 2 

Which really has pioneered the way that that what did you, the language you used was beautiful. The CPO jungle has emerged inside Europe. Tell me a bit about that. How did that happen? You know what? What was going on with it? Because there's multiple companies at play. There must be multiple voices at the table. 

00:19:59 Speaker 4 

Yes. Yeah, that was actually coming from. 

00:20:05 Speaker 4 

When I got this role, I also got the position at the E violin board and E violin is uh. 

00:20:12 Speaker 4 

Well, netting is a little bit of front runner, but if violin is an institute where this all CPO's and all English bees that were not that many back then would come together on a monthly basis and we would discuss how to make the EV world better. 

00:20:27 Speaker 4 

Back then, if he works had around 14,040 thousand public stations, so that was, I did not realize it back then, but it. 

00:20:35 Speaker 4 

Was like. 

00:20:36 Speaker 4 

I think it was 40% of the. 

00:20:38 Speaker 4 

Market or show show? 

00:20:39 Speaker 4 

It was just me being impatient. Like can we hurry up and people like OK, but you're actually, this is it's a growing industry we need to. 

00:20:46 Speaker 4 

Set some standards and then. 

00:20:48 Speaker 4 

Evaline being very useful but also very operational. There was a spin off of the EU roaming foundation because we also realize that if you really want to skill it, it needs to be much more on a European skill. But it also needed to be closer to Brussels and other regulations because there were so many and I think still today not all the regulations are. 

00:21:08 Speaker 4 

In place, but back then it. 

00:21:10 Speaker 4 

There were literally questions on what happens if you charge in the Netherlands but then export the goods to Belgium. Where did you then buy it, for example, and those kind of problematics needed to get sorted and I think adding the EV roaming foundation also. 

00:21:28 Speaker 4 

Put the importance of getting those things in place and and what I found really cool about this interesting industries that it's then involved in and you see policymakers get involved and they're so much better at their job than inpatients young people. 

00:21:45 Speaker 4 

Building stuff and approaching it from a business perspective. So that really took it to the next skill to the next phase. 

00:21:52 Speaker 2 

So we know that Europe is a a collection of countries that kind of collaborate and the UK sort of sits on the outside of that does is this experience you've had analogous to the US? I mean, the reality is the US is just another collection of small countries in the former states. Or is it completely different? 

00:22:10 Speaker 2 

There, what's your view? 

00:22:13 Speaker 4 

Oh, this is a a tricky 1 because when I look back like Europe, everybody wanted to collaborate, they had Scandinavia and the UK, which both indeed have a firm belief that holding on to your own network will be generating more business. I'm not sure how, but OK. And then I think I had quite a different experience with the US. 

00:22:34 Speaker 4 

That all had to do with back then. 

00:22:37 Speaker 4 

The party I was at was the larger CPO in Europe and I signed a contract with the larger CPO in the US so that opened for me all the doors because I already had the biggest network and from there it was just like that was the first global roaming deal and I think probably until today the only one but that allowed me to really trade. 

00:22:57 Speaker 4 

Or I got some importance right away in the US market as well. 

00:23:00 Speaker 3 

But the US seems different, right? Moving back from Europe back into the US. 

00:23:07 Speaker 3 

When I just talked to folks cocktail party kind of talk, they're evils aren't ready yet. The infrastructure is not here. The news stories are, you know, Tesla opens up to four to let you can use the network. The other, you know, shell and all these others seem to have gotten together and put money into building a 30, some odd thousand charge points around the country. 

00:23:27 Speaker 3 

Is it just that we're not at the same point in time or is it a different philosophy, right? I mean, because it it seems like the infrastructure isn't quite there, right? I mean, like Neil said, if you're in a Tesla infrastructure, yeah, the car tells you where it is, there's there's probably chargers along the way and you probably get to where you want to get, but most Americans have talked about pretty. 

00:23:47 Speaker 3 

Pretty slow on the take. They don't think it's ready for prime time to to make the leap. 

00:23:52 Speaker 4 

OK, I don't. I don't feel comfortable making a comment about the the US B2C customer in that sense because they would say the, I don't know, I think it's just a different perspective. No. But I think it's a different perspective because they're it's very much a bit of philosophy. I need to have enough mileage. But if you look at the reports, the effort. 

00:24:11 Speaker 4 

Average US driver also don't need that much range. 

00:24:16 Speaker 4 

But if we then look, if we zoom out a bit on the personal commercial vehicle side, what we do see happening especially within charge trip is that the commercial vehicle bit in the US due to heavy regulations, for example, the Bay Area is picking up much quicker. 

00:24:32 Speaker 4 

Well, and and there. It's really fascinating because huge people did just go all in, right? It's like we're not going to pilot something at a large scale. Now let's let's just get rolling and see where where it goes whilst here in in Europe, we see much more pilot approach. 

00:24:49 Speaker 4 

To electrification of commercial vehicles, but I think indeed the infrastructure built enough trust for B2C customers to get going. However, every end of August, you wonder if there's any personal vehicle that remains on the road because you will see a lot of newspapers on. 

00:25:09 Speaker 4 

Cars getting stranded on their trip in Europe. But then? 

00:25:13 Speaker 4 

Neil, I don't know what your opinion is, but I always wonder how they get strength that there's so much network. 

00:25:19 Speaker 2 

Yeah, I think, I think it's fascinating watching those stories emerge. It does feel like there's a hidden agenda behind some of the conversations that pop out, which is why having these conversations today is really important, helping people understand what what they need to consider. I'm really interested in your your perspectives on the US and Europe. I'm conscious that charge trip recently. 

00:25:39 Speaker 2 

Raised quite a lot of money in order to do quite a lot of expansion activity. Where's that taking you? What are you planning to do with that money? 

00:25:47 Speaker 4 

Yeah, good question. So earlier this year we raised our Series A we have on one end HSBC that has a climate fund that has been our lead investor there together with our previous pre seed investors and then. 

00:26:03 Speaker 4 

Another party that's quite known in the in the US is WEX and that's a well. 

00:26:09 Speaker 4 

Fleet offering provider, fuel card provider UHM. 

00:26:13 Speaker 4 

That maybe also gives a small hint on which direction we're going, but yes, it will be about extending the team in the US, but also scaling the product, putting more products out there in the market and growing as a team because it's a busy time. 

00:26:30 Speaker 3 

So silly question. I mean you you talked specifically about what you do, so if people aren't a customer of yours, how are they solving this problem? Are there other ways to figure this out? 

00:26:41 Speaker 4 

Customers that are not ours, you mean? 

00:26:43 Speaker 3 

If I have a fleet and I'm not using you, how are they? What you're doing today? Is there another method to to figure out the routing? 

00:26:51 Speaker 4 

There's always another method I would say, but. 

00:26:55 Speaker 4 

We can help them optimize. Show what you see happening or where. 

00:27:00 Speaker 4 

Where we sometimes come in not is not completely at the starting point of an electrification journey of a last mail delivery company, but then the moment where it becomes sometimes interesting for us is. 

00:27:12 Speaker 4 

An example here here in the Netherlands is that we worked with a last month delivery company and they have a depot and they they they electrified events and they need to be electrified within a specific period due to regulations. But what they notice now is that they started off with one vehicle and one charger and charge up to every night, right? So that's the use case we're really. 

00:27:33 Speaker 4 

Yeah. We're really used to. 

00:27:35 Speaker 4 

In in Europe at the moment. 

00:27:37 Speaker 4 

But then they ran out of physical space. So they're like, yeah, we cannot electrify more because I don't have a depot that is scalable for that or the US example probably is I don't have enough grid to charge up everything to 100% every night. So as a starting point, you can always look outside the window and see what you need to charge. But then. 

00:27:57 Speaker 4 

It's the same like you can make calculation on a sheet, but that's sort of what you. 

00:28:00 Speaker 4 

Need an Excel file. 

00:28:01 Speaker 4 

To to scale your formula up right. 

00:28:07 Speaker 2 

So effectively you're taking data that could be manually handled and making it easier for customers to scale this out and grow their fleets. So where this where this becomes really powerful is as fleets grow, do you see that happening? Do you, how do you, how do you see those that growth happening? Is it all commercial or are you going to get BTC in there as well? 

00:28:26 Speaker 4 

No, we still grow. Yes, we grow a lot on commercial sides. That has to do because fleets are electrified, fleets are growing and I think another interesting bit is. 

00:28:38 Speaker 4 

That we do quite extensive CO2 calculations on what it means that you switch. So getting the right reporting for corporates in is super more and more important than super much needed and. 

00:28:51 Speaker 4 

There was one more thing. 

00:28:52 Speaker 4 

I wanted to say about that. 

00:28:55 Speaker 4 

Let me think for a SEC. Well, I'm going to pass it. I I had another thing on the electrification journey. 

00:29:03 Speaker 4 

But then on the personal vehicle side, what is quite interesting to also maybe mention is we keep growing in that way and that has to do with with our B2B customers that are CPO's and image B and what we see today is. 

00:29:16 Speaker 4 

If you put our algorithm up with the CPO. 

00:29:20 Speaker 4 

You can easily up utilization by 300 to 500% because you can route them over their CPO network and well what we see is that the vision scale where CPU's remain under pressure. So whatever you can do to to up that utilization is just much appreciated. Then on the e-mail. 

00:29:40 Speaker 4 

Each side we can really optimize for margins or for reliability. 

00:29:45 Speaker 4 

Or stare over the right networks and that can bring price of of a trip down by 40%. I think I mentioned at the beginning so we see more and more numbers coming in in a variety of use cases where we can really prove that it's not a nice thing to have. It's just really powerful and you can and you can really use it to make business decisions and start driving. 

00:30:05 Speaker 4 

Your business in a better manner. 

00:30:07 Speaker 2 

That's really interesting. The increased utilization obviously drives revenue, revenue drives the ability for the judgment operators to install more infrastructure, but at the same time, the customer actually being able to save money by routing correctly and optimizing their journey creates value for the driver. It's got a classic win win situation. I was going to throw you the question of what's? 

00:30:27 Speaker 2 

You know what's stopping someone just using an Excel sheet. 

00:30:29 Speaker 2 

For everything. You know what? Why do it? But I think you've just answered that beautifully by highlighting that the, you know, the cost savings, the cost opportunity for both parties is really valuable. 

00:30:39 Speaker 4 

Yeah. And then now I finally know my last point as well. If you look at commercial vehicles, what we see happening there is that. 

00:30:47 Speaker 4 

Now the energy costs are not much. 

00:30:50 Speaker 4 

Some people will disagree with me, but it's not at the forefront. The first worry the fleet manager has is can I keep my fleet up and running and we can make the claim that you never run out of charge because we can advise you when and where to charge. 

00:31:04 Speaker 4 

But then we can also work with the dynamic energy factor, so that allows you to also optimize for energy costs and that you start charging at the right moment in time and at the right location. So unfortunately it would be super cool that I could say we already have hundreds of customers using that. I think the market is heading there, but people become more aware that it's not. 

00:31:25 Speaker 4 

Only about keeping your fleet on the on the ground, but also do anything in a custom fashion manner. 

00:31:31 Speaker 2 

Yeah, that's really important to hear that last point there about operational implications being far more important than the marginal cost of charging on a particular charge point network. You know, having you guys out driving their vehicles is far more valuable to the fleet. 

00:31:43 Speaker 4 

Well, it's expensive for people are stranded, right? 

00:31:48 Speaker 3 

As as more and more fleets are coming online, right, you you talked about utilization, right? So there's utilization of anything in my depot that I have that, that gear obviously if I'm going to use external sources. 

00:32:01 Speaker 3 

You know, is there contention that you're solving for as well because now you've got fleets going for the same resources. So right now it's it's probably they're not that many fleets that are fully electrified. At least I don't believe there are. I think there's still probably more, you know, time available at at the charge stations. If you showed up you might be easier to get. But if it's every fleet. 

00:32:21 Speaker 3 

Comes electric. Those resources probably are gonna have heavy utilization just by demand. So are you also managing contention? 

00:32:29 Speaker 3 

For the device. 

00:32:30 Speaker 4 

Yeah. Yeah, so. 

00:32:32 Speaker 4 

Indeed, there's quite a lot of space and you see the the average usage of a station is definitely there's some room at the depot to to show up that. 

00:32:41 Speaker 4 

How we help fleets today or what we see happening quite well is to to do scenario planning. So what if you scale up to 100%, what if you go up to 50% which strips can you already do on a specific on a single charge. So you don't need to make. 

00:32:57 Speaker 4 

Sorry new but not use of the the public network yet, so you can run so many different scenarios. What happens when you have a this fleet in the winter or in the summer or in your peak week? How do all those scenarios look like and and what do you need to do or to what can you use your depot and when do you? 

00:33:17 Speaker 4 

Need to move to the. 

00:33:18 Speaker 4 

To the public domain. So yes, it's it's we definitely help them with that. 

00:33:24 Speaker 4 

And try. 

00:33:26 Speaker 4 

And also I think what is important that you're also honest that for certain routes it's just better right now to not electrify and that's maybe not a very favorable opinion to to have. But we we you can rather electrify the routes that are really ready for it and start with. 

00:33:39 Speaker 4 

It than not do it at all. 

00:33:41 Speaker 3 

Does this eventually just become auto magic where I don't know it's doing this, it just does it somehow behind the scenes because right now it sounds like there's still. 

00:33:49 Speaker 3 

Some human intervention of of taking the data you respond to? Or is this all just done through software and? 

00:33:55 Speaker 3 

Like, how do I decide what? 

00:33:57 Speaker 4 

No, that's a good. That's a good question. Then I would I would not sleep at night. No, it's it's an algorithm. And and to come back to your previous question is we're an API first product shall we integrate with dispatching systems or fleet management systems and if we make it very practical what that means is that the routing system will calculate the trip that is going to be driven. 

00:34:18 Speaker 4 

More and we will give the input that needs X amount of battery. 

00:34:23 Speaker 4 

And and that's it. So it's not more, but it's an automated API connection and calculation. There's definitely no humans in there. 

00:34:31 Speaker 3 

OK. But so let's say I need 40% battery capacity tomorrow on this particular vehicle. So is a report then going to the depot, is there someone that says Ohh well I need to go plug that in or is is? 

00:34:43 Speaker 4 

Yeah. So then it often goes like, for example, there's load balancing systems around, right? So then that can be feeded into the load balancing system that then doesn't need to charge up to 100%, but can pick out the moments where it can charge the most beneficial to up to 40%. 

00:34:59 Speaker 4 

And but it's. 

00:35:00 Speaker 4 

There's no one huge case for a fleet, so they all have a different setup and that makes it always a little bit complex to talk about because each and every fleet very different. 

00:35:10 Speaker 2 

So if I was a diesel protagonist, I could at this point turn around and go well. Clearly this electrification thing is too hard. You need all this additional software. I presume you've made it super simple. So the one the customers goes. Yep, I have a I'm a logistics last mile delivery company. I have a a routing and planning system. They literally just plug this in. 

00:35:31 Speaker 2 

And it enables them to take a diesel fleet and switch it to an electric fleet over. 

00:35:35 Speaker 4 

Yeah. So indeed we can plug everything in and there's even one step before that. And that says that we just give them a front end, they can upload historic ICE data fulls of your car, data, selective vehicles. They consider switching to and then they get everything. What it would mean to switch to that that EV fleet. So that's a step before that's really. 

00:35:56 Speaker 4 

Yeah, for dummies, I would say, but very powerful and yeah, you get a clear overview of what it means and it's quite yeah, we see more and more interesting show for, for example, but I didn't expect from consultancies using that too because it does not calculate an average mileage per kilometer but really calculate. 

00:36:16 Speaker 4 

What happens on that specific trip? So if you have 100 trips, is a very clear consumption on each and every of those trips. So you're really allowed to move away from, oh, if you drive a vehicle, it's always each amount per kilometer too. This is what it means for this specific operate. 

00:36:33 Speaker 3 

And regionally, are there differences? So you you've mentioned earlier we've talked several times about North America versus Europe. Is it differences in the software or is the same tool applicable for both Europe and in North America? 

00:36:49 Speaker 4 

Well, obviously the metrics are different. That's that's that's one thing. On the other hand, one of the key factors is temperature. I think here in Europe, we have a little. 

00:37:00 Speaker 4 

Last peaks in temperature. However, it depends a little bit on the country, but it does take all those factors in consideration. So it looks at Rd. elevation, but also road conditions temperature, but that all cloud applies to every region we work with. So we're active in Europe and the US, but for example New Zealand, we also have customers there. 

00:37:20 Speaker 4 

We only then need to get access to public charging network and what that looks like because that's not something we have by default, but the operation the the the algorithm can run anywhere. 

00:37:30 Speaker 3 

And the vehicle information you get from the OEM's you get from the vehicle manufacturers directly or is that something you have to ferret out yourselves? 

00:37:38 Speaker 4 

Yeah. So we've worked with something. I think that's fairly known in the industry. It's called EV database that gives you the general specs, but that's also from a very much calculates with the range of the OEMs. And I don't want to offend anybody, but we all know they're a little bit on the optimistic side sometimes. So then we build. 

00:37:58 Speaker 4 

Consumption models in house. 

00:38:00 Speaker 4 

And the fun part is that we do have OEMs working with that directly again. 

00:38:05 Speaker 2 

So you've got some like really mechanized data inputs, vehicles, weather roads, you know, incline, you know, really sort of like mathematical physical characteristics. How do you handle the soft squidgy human that sits behind the, you know, the machine and like pumps accelerate a little bit faster cuz? 

00:38:24 Speaker 2 

They want a little. 

00:38:25 Speaker 2 

Grill coming off the lights, are you able to adapt this to driver behaviour and individuals? You know Chris might be a little bit heavier footed than I am. 

00:38:32 Speaker 2 

You know, so can you adapt and go well? You know, this is a high high energy consumption user and a low energy consumption user. Or do you do behavioral change nudges to get people to be a bit more efficient? 

00:38:44 Speaker 4 

Oh, this is a very interesting topic and question all for the reason that yes, we can do it, but then you come to the factor to is Chris really honest on what his driving behavior is? Because I know that my mom always says that she's not a speedy driver, but. 

00:39:01 Speaker 4 

Her name is Tiny and we call her tiny airlines because when the ETA is 8 hours, we're sure she arrives within 6 1/2 hours. So. 

00:39:10 Speaker 4 

Yeah, you can trust the human, but to a certain extent. So what we can do is track data. And indeed, when you talk about commercial vehicles then. 

00:39:19 Speaker 4 

I think you can get much more into tracking of data and and building those profiles for B2C customers. We see there in general not that keen on on on getting tracked, right? So then it's one of the variables what how we cover it for the BC use cases that you can adjust your mileage. We have a suggested mileage on a vehicle. 

00:39:39 Speaker 4 

And you can adjust that. So if you're a very speedy driver and you know that your range is always shorter, you can adjust that, but we. 

00:39:46 Speaker 4 

We try not to interfere too much because. 

00:39:49 Speaker 4 

You're never going to get a completely honest answer. 

00:39:52 

Yeah, I was. 

00:39:53 Speaker 2 

I was blown away by one business that told me that they were running vehicles where some drivers would get twice the range from the vehicle that other drivers would and it wasn't payload. It wasn't roots, it was literally just driver behaviour so that. 

00:40:06 Speaker 4 

Yeah, maybe fun, fun story. And unexpected is growing up in logistics company my summer job. 

00:40:13 Speaker 4 

For seasonal drop would be that we had one peak season that was like four or five months and. 

00:40:19 Speaker 4 

With track every week how much fuel the trucks would consume and send text messages to the drivers like, hey, you've been speeding too much, you hit, you have a heavy feat, please slow it down because it's costing us money and then I would track them over the entire season and I would get them see better and therefore also save fuel and. 

00:40:41 Speaker 4 

But that was. Uh. Yeah, so I know precisely what the impact is because I needed to measure. 

00:40:45 Speaker 4 

That every week. 

00:40:47 Speaker 2 

And presumably you saw huge differences between drivers, all based on behavior and attitude, probably so fascinating space comparing people like that. So you've taken us on quite a bit of a journey through your your own growing up in the world logistics, your your small attempts to escape and the reality that you've been brought back in. 

00:41:06 Speaker 2 

I was particularly taken by the 300 million commercial vehicles figure at the beginning. That's a mega market you're seeking to serve, but it was also fascinating to hear about the CPU. 

00:41:15 Speaker 2 

Jungle. I like that I'll be using that again in the future and then some of the capabilities that charge trip offer fleets to both. What if analysis their their future and their scenarios around how they could behave, but also to optimise what it is they have on the ground today and save quite significant sums of money. One of the things I always like to ask at the end of these conversations is. 

00:41:36 Speaker 2 

What's your personal experience with Evie? How do you? How do you get around today? You know what? What can you tell us about your personal driving? 

00:41:45 Speaker 4 

I live in the Netherlands. 

00:41:46 Speaker 4 

So I have an electric bike. 

00:41:50 Speaker 4 

For move which is. 

00:41:52 Speaker 4 

Good news because one is still up and running, but I saw yesterday that they got it quiet. So yes, I do have some experience driving obviously in V. 

00:42:03 Speaker 4 

And I and I love it. And I think it's the best way forward. But living in a. 

00:42:06 Speaker 4 

City, an electric bike remains. 

00:42:08 Speaker 2 

But this is this been fabulous. 

00:42:09 Speaker 3 

Isn't bike parking in Amsterdam kind of tough? Have you ever? I've been to Amsterdam and you just see the piles of bikes everywhere. So it's bike park. 

00:42:16 Speaker 4 

Yeah, but I I live just outside of the city, so it's like a 25 kilometer bike ride and doing that twice per day is a bit heavier on a on a regular bike. 

00:42:30 Speaker 2 

This has been fabulous, Cecile. Thank you for taking us on your journey with you. That's been a real whirlwind through some of the originations of Evie roaming, but also how we can optimize and operate our commercial fleets today. 

00:42:42 Speaker 4 

Thank you so much, Neil. And and Chris for having me. It was a pleasure. 

00:42:46 Speaker 3 

Well, it's been a pleasure. We hope you as the audience have enjoyed this conversation as much as we have always interesting to figure out what's going on behind the scenes. All the software that makes the energy transition possible. And if you do like this content, don't forget to subscribe. Follow us on YouTube, follow us on our LinkedIn group and we will see you again on another episode of Insiders Guide To energy EV series goodbye for now.