Insider's Guide to Energy EV

26. Electrification at Scale: The Future of Fleet Charging - Expert Insights with Peter Cohen

• Chris Sass, Peter Cohen, Niall Riddell • Season 1 • Episode 26

Share episode

In this transformative episode of our podcast, Peter Cohen, a leading expert in fleet electrification, shares his insights on what he describes as the "inflection point year" for electric fleets. The discussion delves into the significant shift happening in 2024, where pilot programs are giving way to scaled operations. Cohen explains the unique challenges and opportunities that electric vehicles (EVs) present for fleet operations, highlighting the strategic advantages that proactive fleets gain by transitioning to electric. With a clear focus on how electrification impacts daily operations and long-term planning, Cohen provides a detailed analysis of the operational shifts necessary when moving from traditional combustion engines to electric models.

The conversation further explores the critical infrastructure needed to support these electric fleets, particularly the importance of efficient charging solutions. Cohen discusses the different charging strategies, including depot and public charging, and their implications for fleet efficiency and operational continuity. He emphasizes the need for robust infrastructure development to support the burgeoning demand for electric commercial vehicles, explaining how his company, Terawatt, is investing heavily in creating accessible, reliable charging solutions across strategic locations. This segment provides listeners with a deeper understanding of the logistical nuances and capital considerations involved in building a future-ready electric fleet.

Niall Riddell, another voice in the episode, brings perspectives on the broader industry trends and the varying needs of commercial vehicles compared to passenger cars. The dialogue also touches on governmental policies that influence and support the adoption of electric fleets, particularly in pioneering regions like California. Listeners will find the discussion not only informative but also indicative of the broader impacts of fleet electrification on environmental sustainability and business economics. This episode is a must-listen for industry stakeholders, policymakers, and anyone interested in the intersection of technology, transportation, and sustainability.

Meet our guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petergcohen/

Transcript 

 

00:00:00 Peter Cohen 

2024 is truly going to be an inflection point for heavy duty electrification. There's a lot of fleets that we talked to that know that electrification is the end game, but I feel that this is truly the starting point year where pilots are happening. People are figuring out what these vehicles mean for their operations and those that are waiting to see what happens I think are going to be on their back foot. So the proactive fleets that we're talking to, I think are really at an advantage relative to their peers. 

00:00:28 Speaker 2 

Broadcasting from Washington, DC, This is Insider's Guide To Energy. 

00:00:43 Chris Sass 

This episode of Insider's Guide to Energy EV Miniseries is powered by Paua. Paua helps your business transition to electric vehicles by simplifying charging, managing payments, and optimizing your charging data. All right, Peter Cohen, welcome to the program. 

00:00:58 Chris Sass 

It's a pleasure to have you here today and you're opening. You talked about 2024 being a transformation year for fleets. Help me understand what you mean by that? 

00:01:06 Peter Cohen 

Sure thing and thanks for having me. You know, we've been in this business for a couple of years now and we think that this is truly an inflection point year where there's been a number of pilots that have been run. Folks are figuring out what electric vehicles mean for their fleets. And now we're starting to see the transition and plans towards scaled operations. And so there's a number of reasons why. 

00:01:28 Peter Cohen 

Electric fleets are a little bit different to operate than their combustion counterparts. 

00:01:32 Peter Cohen 

And folks are figuring out what that means and starting to plan really for sizable deployments, which things that are learned in pilots, some things carry over, some things don't. But it's a really exciting year. I think as the industry is. 

00:01:45 Peter Cohen 

Really, on an upswing. 

00:01:48 Niall Riddell 

And we talked about earlier, Peter, about the fact that commercial vehicles have different needs to the passenger car. Can you give us some of the things you're considering as you look at commercial vehicles and what what should a commercial operator consider differently to a driver of an individual car? 

00:02:04 Peter Cohen 

Sure thing. I think the biggest and this is what our business is, is the charging. 

00:02:09 Peter Cohen 

You know. 

00:02:10 Peter Cohen 

What charging means for a fleet is a little bit different than for you and I with our personal vehicle, it's a mission critical resource versus you know, if we are trying to figure out charging, we're more flexible, it might be at the grocery store or overnight or some combination for fleet, the business to be done. You know the vehicle enables the business that they're trying to do, whether that's. 

00:02:31 Peter Cohen 

Moving of goods or moving of goods to sell them, whatever it might be, and as a as a result fitting in when and where to charge is paramount to their business, and that's different than just personal travel. And so as a result. 

00:02:45 Peter Cohen 

You know, folks like ourselves are engaged in, you know, charging up fleets as quickly as possible to make sure that they're back on the road, either earning revenue or delivering the goods that are providing the revenue. But as a result, it's a little different than you and I with the passenger vehicle. 

00:03:01 Niall Riddell 

And businesses that are now considering that adoption, what are the first things you're seeing them do when it comes to that charging journey? Is it all about public, is it all about overnight on the street or is it all about depot? 

00:03:13 Peter Cohen 

I would say it's all about whatever is the most efficient from a capital perspective and a resource perspective. Way to get the job done and the job is whatever their vehicle has to do. And I think if when we talk to fleets, there's a variety of use cases even within one company for what their fleet might be doing. And So what we've seen is a really successful strategy. 

00:03:33 Peter Cohen 

Is looking at what's the easiest lever to pull? So that's maybe the vehicles that are traveling the least amount of distance or are at a depot where they have a long dwell time. And both of those mean that it's the least amount of charging, which means it's probably the easiest charging to. 

00:03:48 Peter Cohen 

Accomplish and starting from there and growing outwards, we don't see a lot of focus on public charging. I think part of that is reliability, availability and then also cost. Obviously this is you know case by case dependent and public charging may play a role in certain fleets, but especially as you start looking towards the heavy duty vehicles. 

00:04:08 Peter Cohen 

They just can't fit. You can't fit a Class 8 truck into a public charging stall. It's not going to be a very fun experience for anybody. 

00:04:17 Peter Cohen 

So as a result, then there's an even differentiated need for either private charging at their own depot fleet charging at a shared charging center such as terawatts, or some combination of of of both. 

00:04:30 Chris Sass 

So that implies you know the the Class 8 vehicle. A lot of infrastructure around that. Where are we on that journey? 

00:04:36 Peter Cohen 

MHM. 

00:04:38 Chris Sass 

Any of the infrastructure, I mean you're in California where I think electric trucks are coming sooner than other parts of the country. So how's this journey going? 

00:04:47 Peter Cohen 

California is definitely epicenter. I think it has the strongest push and pull from a from a government perspective in the sense of policies to encourage adoption as well as to help with the cost of adoption. But it's definitely early days as well. You know, like I mentioned earlier, 2024, I think is truly the the inflection point where pilots are becoming scaled operations. 

00:05:08 Peter Cohen 

Folks like ourselves are having sites that are coming online to bring the whole ecosystem up. 

00:05:13 Peter Cohen 

But it's definitely been a experimentation phase to date with a number of early adopters paving the way. But it's still it's still what is that use case, and how do you accomplish it? And what's the best playbook for figuring out where and when to charge? It is still something that's being figured out by fleets. 

00:05:33 Peter Cohen 

And their partners. 

00:05:35 Niall Riddell 

And and does that use case scenario mean that certain business types are more appropriately aligned to the early transition and therefore do you see certain groups leading that charge? 

00:05:46 Peter Cohen 

Yeah, definitely. And that's that's a great point. And and I think that's what we're seeing where kind of back to my point about the the shortest amount of distance to be traveled in the longest dwell time within the trucking world. Those are definitely the use cases that are being, you know, sought after first as well as I would say ones where there's predictability of the route. 

00:06:06 Peter Cohen 

Because I think there's just with with electric vehicles. 

00:06:09 Peter Cohen 

You know, police or figure out what does this mean in my daily operations in business, how many miles can I get out of the vehicle and what does that look like from a, you know, a use case when you have a predictable daily operation, you can, you know, calculate what that looks like on an Excel sheet or a model and then put it into plan and actuality and see what happens. 

00:06:29 Peter Cohen 

Adding in more variables on top of that makes things more complicated, whether it be differentiated types of routes and distances or you know business that changes in terms of what the truck is doing from a day-to-day perspective. So you know the food and beverage industry is seeing a lot of adoption, package delivery, obviously and those are also. 

00:06:48 Peter Cohen 

Have lighter and you know me to do vehicles helping. But for food and beverage, you know there's models where they dwell for 12 hours and that's a great period to charge up your vehicle, especially if it's returning to the same base every day. 

00:07:00 Peter Cohen 

That does not mean, however, though that you can just charge at the same warehouse every day if you don't have space or power at that warehouse. Or maybe you lease the facility and the landlord isn't willing to, you know, invest in the infrastructure or your lease duration doesn't line up. So it's still a number of variables that mean that it's not the most straightforward thing, just to say, oh, I'm in the food and beverage. 

00:07:21 Peter Cohen 

The street my truck sits overnight. I'm. I'm good to go for charging and then that's where we come in sometimes. But it's definitely a promising business division for where electrification is seeing a lot of advancement. 

00:07:37 Niall Riddell 

So I'm getting a fairly clear view on the fact that you segmented this market. You understand who's doing what and where. But where does your business come into this? What are the services that Terra, what provides and how do you help these early pioneering customers make that transition? 

00:07:52 Peter Cohen 

Yeah. So we've raised a billion dollars of capital to develop charging centers across the country. The reasons for doing that are to make the lives of our partners that we engage with easier and our partners can be anybody who is either moving goods as their primary business or moving goods to enable somebody else's primary business. You know, selling of the goods. 

00:08:13 Peter Cohen 

And what we're trying to do there is alleviate these pain points where like I mentioned, if you want to engage in electric vehicle charging, you need to figure out where you're going to have the space and the power and the capital and then probably some patients to develop it all. And if any one of those levers is not fully pulled, then you're going to. 

00:08:33 Peter Cohen 

Have to figure out a new plan. So we are developing these charging centers amongst our customers locations as well as intermittently space throughout. 

00:08:42 Peter Cohen 

Routes that they're engaged on to provide charging at scale. So in a perfect world down the line, terawatt charging centers will be all across the country, everywhere that a fleet needs when they needed either a top up charge or a a longer dwell charge. But for now a lot of our focus is in California given that's where we're hearing demand from the market. 

00:09:02 Peter Cohen 

As well as we've announced, we're electrifying the I-10 corridor. So from everywhere from LA to Texas, we have stations along the way and coming a lot coming online this year and it's the next few years where it's gonna be really exciting to see that happen. But the main goal is just to relieve the the relieve the. 

00:09:20 Peter Cohen 

The pressure of developing all of this for yourself when it's not your core business and making our fleet partners lives a lot easier. 

00:09:27 Niall Riddell 

So so when you describe the charging centers there, you describe them as strategically located public charging that any commercial operator can access. But you also describe them as. 

00:09:40 Niall Riddell 

Building within the compounds or the locations of your customers and therefore more like semi private charging, how do you define that and and how is that going? 

00:09:50 Peter Cohen 

Yeah. So we call them, I guess semi private is a good is a good terminology shared amongst a few fleets. The key reason there is back to you know the mission critical asset of charging this needs to keep the vehicles moving every day and as a result the vehicle fleet owners want you know certainty of availability. So we have a reservation system that manages our sites to know that. 

00:10:11 Peter Cohen 

I'm fleet A and I'm showing up at 10:00 AM and I need a stall available and I'm Fleet B and I'm showing up at 1:00 PM. We want to carve out space to know that they're coming and that the charging is available for them because if they show up and the charger is unavailable or it's not working, that's that's lost time and lost revenue. 

00:10:29 Peter Cohen 

So that's quarter our mission and that will be how we figure out, you know if we're around 5 warehouses or if we are where a couple fleets strategically need to be on their routes, we can work with them to make sure that the operational schedule meets, you know the charging and and everything in between which is really great and it makes it more efficient. That's another piece is. 

00:10:49 Peter Cohen 

The shared charging center means that we can spread the costs of all of our infrastructure development across a few fleets as opposed to putting that burden on any one particular operator, which brings the cost down and really helps with TC. 

00:11:00 

So. 

00:11:01 Chris Sass 

You mentioned before that you have infrastructure from LA out to Texas on high ten quarter. So is long haul trucking actually at the point where folks are considering sending long haul routes. So those going from the port in LA all the way to Texas is that kind of the vision? 

00:11:18 Peter Cohen 

That's the vision I think it's it's it's earlier days relative to the other business models of where EV's are being applied, but we want to prove that it's possible. So taking our stake in the ground to show, you know, we're building this infrastructure and charging will not be the reason why this is not possible. 

00:11:33 Peter Cohen 

To meet our partners halfway and make sure that you know if they want to accomplish moving freight from LA to Texas, we'll be a partner to do it along the way. With them. It is a little bit earlier days in terms of where the vehicles are from a range perspective and a charge time, but we're seeing some really exciting movement along that path to to you know pave the future for. 

00:11:53 Peter Cohen 

What's? 

00:11:53 Peter Cohen 

Capable. 

00:11:54 Chris Sass 

And then there's been some talk of kind of emission free quarters where where transportation would be there. How do you play into that? 

00:12:02 Peter Cohen 

In terms of the government announcement from recent. 

00:12:05 Chris Sass 

Yep. 

00:12:05 Peter Cohen 

Yeah. So we're really excited to be a part of, you know, in the phase one corridors which are targeted, the I-10 where we are developing is is part of that. And I think it just gives a lot of confidence. You know, you mentioned earlier California being the epicenter and what happens outside of. 

00:12:21 Peter Cohen 

California. The rest of the country, there's a lot of country outside of California. I think it just gives confidence for everyone to figure out where to focus, where to align efforts and resources to make sure that you know we're we're building In Sync. This is a large ecosystem. Infrastructure is part of it. But the shippers and the carriers and everyone involved in it is is a really, you know, nuanced interaction so. 

00:12:41 Peter Cohen 

Having alignment in terms of where to focus and invest resources just gives everyone help to you know de risk what they're working on. No one wants to be. 

00:12:52 Peter Cohen 

Isolated in terms of where they're putting a project such that there is more opportunity to to engage in either commercializing your fleet or getting custom fleet partners to to carry your goods for you. 

00:13:05 Chris Sass 

Alright, if face failure this makes sense and it seems relatively easy and a billion dollars sounds like a big number to the average person. 

00:13:14 Chris Sass 

But this is a pretty tall order, right? I mean, there it seems like there's a lot of steps. So what are kind of the chicken egg problems that you're trying to solve here? 

00:13:23 Peter Cohen 

Yeah, definitely a billion dollars at first glance would seem like a lot of capital is definitely the also the tip of the iceberg. This is going to be a a new industry, a new asset class that needs to be developed truly and for us that goes towards real estate, real estate acquisition, securing power from the utilities, investing in all the charging resources and developing and constructing our sites. So there's there's a lot there. 

00:13:45 Peter Cohen 

Even for any particular one site. 

00:13:47 Peter Cohen 

But in terms of what we need to do as an industry to move forward, the chicken and the egg which gets thrown up a lot, it's just everyone needs the confidence and it's kind of a three party arrangement. It's the the folks that are. 

00:13:59 Peter Cohen 

Moving. 

00:13:59 Peter Cohen 

The goods, the folks that are actually providing the trucks to move those goods and then the charging to make it all happen. So it's it's. 

00:14:07 Peter Cohen 

It's kind of a lot of that Spider Man meme reference pointing at each other to figure out who does the first step, but you know, we are committed to being at least. 

00:14:16 Peter Cohen 

Building the infrastructure such that that's not one of the the steps that's not taken, but it's very exciting just to have alignment with really forward thinking partners that are along this mission with us and figure out what is the business model. Maybe it's different than what traditional fueling looks like and there's new ways to engage at least in the early days of figuring out what this industry is. 

00:14:37 Peter Cohen 

But it makes my job really exciting that every day we're talking to, you know, forward thinking partners that are on this mission. And at the end of the day, we're doing good for the planet. So that makes it all really exciting. 

00:14:48 Niall Riddell 

Can we talk a little bit more about the the physical requirements and the setup at these charging stations? I've had the the pleasure of sitting in and driving an electric truck. They're big vehicles and you referenced Class 8 trucks earlier, which had to look up, but they're the really big ones. How do you design for these much, much larger? 

00:15:07 Niall Riddell 

Vehicles. Are you looking at huge power capacities? Are you looking towards the MW charging standard? You know, what are your considerations when you actually build one of your sites? 

00:15:16 Peter Cohen 

Yeah, definitely. It's a balance between, you know, what is. 

00:15:20 Peter Cohen 

The. 

00:15:20 Peter Cohen 

Best outcome for the fleet in terms of cost and power. So for us, we're putting in pull through stalls at our at our sites which take up more space, but definitely give a lot more operational flexibility for the fleet. And So what I mean by that is they can be a truck. So the Class 8 actual where the driver sits as well as the. 

00:15:38 Peter Cohen 

Trailer that gets, you know, has all the goods inside of it, pulled with them, and that's that takes up more space because the trailer is a lot longer than the truck. 

00:15:44 Peter Cohen 

Itself, but it means that we can charge vehicles while they're on shift while they're moving along the way, as opposed to just while they're parked not doing business. And that ultimately is where we think the industry is going in terms of shorter charge times, more intermittent charging throughout the day, not just sitting for a long charge and that really. 

00:16:05 Peter Cohen 

Is more reflective of how freight moves today with, you know, current diesel fueling. So MW charging which you allude to is definitely going to be a big unlock for the industry and bring charge times down to more similar to what folks see with with diesel fuel. 

00:16:18 Peter Cohen 

And I think that will just make it a lot easier to do business right now. It's definitely a bit of this, this transition in terms of where the best charging is and what the time is to sit and you know and and. 

00:16:31 Peter Cohen 

Find. 

00:16:31 Peter Cohen 

That, but we're excited that technology is just really advancing at a pretty rapid clip and that vehicles are getting further range. 

00:16:39 Peter Cohen 

Faster charge times. The Chargers themselves are getting cheaper and faster and better, so it's only going to be easier from here. And as us as an infrastructure developer, we want to build for flexibility. So in terms of our design of our sites, we're future proofing. We're putting in faster charters in the trucks, can take on the market today to play our part in the ecosystem. 

00:16:58 Peter Cohen 

We're thinking about how do we upgrade our sites overtime. We're taking those big bets because we really believe in this mission and we want to just make it simpler for everyone else to come. 

00:17:07 Peter Cohen 

Along the ride with us. 

00:17:09 Chris Sass 

Is there a change in the way trucking has been done that's going to come as the as the paradigm shifted, right? I mean we have all these truck stops and there's no junctions. You know, if you're 8 hours from a port or a certain distance or what you can drive or whatever the the regulation is. 

00:17:23 Chris Sass 

Is that going to change with with electrification of those heavy vehicles? 

00:17:27 Peter Cohen 

That's a good question. I mean, you think you see trends overtime of the life of long haul trucker and what does that look like and with charging does it mean that there's a more of like a pony express model where two drivers meet halfway and then go back to their separate homes? I think the IT it it provides a new page in the book to figure out what is possible, what is the best? 

00:17:47 Peter Cohen 

Outcome. It all comes back to what is, what is the job to be done. You know what is the most efficient way to get goods from point A to point B which in the US is a really substantial part of our economy. 

00:17:59 Peter Cohen 

And I think it just means that people are taking a new approach to figure things out, knowing that it's not just an iteration on existing technology. It's a new technology. And that means that with that comes new standards and new rules and practices. And I think that it's really an inflection point truly in a number of ways for the industry figuring out what does this mean for us going forward? What is the the best way to get the job done? 

00:18:20 Chris Sass 

Now also, if if what you're talking about you're working with fleet owners, how about independent owners and operators are are they gonna be in a position? Cause if these are semi private or power charging stations go with the vehicle? 

00:18:35 Chris Sass 

When or does it get to the model where we still have independent owner operators that can then take advantage of this infrastructure? 

00:18:41 Peter Cohen 

Definitely. And we're talking fleets of all sizes. So you know we have some sites in Los Angeles that are closer to the port and the port is serviced a lot by these independent operators or smaller drainage providers. And you know we want to service the entirety of the industry, so. 

00:18:56 Peter Cohen 

Maybe they are a little bit later to the adoption curve relative to who's purchasing these vehicles because they are a little more expensive right now, but ultimately we see the market evolving where this, you know the reservation model as we described it maybe is a really good service for medium or larger fleets. And then maybe there's a different model for how to engage with those smaller those smaller businesses. 

00:19:16 Peter Cohen 

Over time, you know, we're trying to figure this out and just best serve the market and see where there is demand. And as that opens up, we want to be open to, you know, truly servicing this industry. So I think it'll be interesting to see what happens. 

00:19:29 Peter Cohen 

Over time, as just more adoption yields more investment and more focus on servicing this industry in its entirety. 

00:19:39 Niall Riddell 

So Peter, I can hear that you're super passionate about this space. Do you mind if I ask how you came to join Terra? What what was the beginning of your journey on this sort of electrification? 

00:19:48 Niall Riddell 

Of mobility space. 

00:19:49 Peter Cohen 

Yeah, that's a good question. So I've been focused on mobility in general, mostly on the light duty side of things. So I worked at some ride hailing companies and food delivery companies in my past. 

00:20:00 Peter Cohen 

Life and knew actually the investors who started the idea of terawatt. We were both on a fellowship, which is brings together folks on internships that were just interested in new technologies. And so as a result they approached me and said, hey, we have this idea, it fits really nicely with your background and since then it's been a great ride. 

00:20:20 Peter Cohen 

So it's been almost three years for me personally working at tarot, and the industry has come a long way in that time. So obviously the light duty side of the industry, which we didn't talk too much about today but is is core. 

00:20:31 Peter Cohen 

For us has come a really long way in that time and there's more devices in the road and both from a passenger and a fleet perspective in the heavy duty market, it's truly been newer for me, but to some extent exciting industry to learn about from the perspective of it's everywhere. And and I'm meeting companies who are I probably touched with respect to they deliver my goods or I. 

00:20:51 Peter Cohen 

The food that I eat at a restaurant, but it maybe never heard of before. 

00:20:55 Peter Cohen 

Multi billion dollar industry that I you know, learning so much about, but really just meeting exciting people who are trying to solve this interesting problem together which like I said makes my job really interesting. So I'm excited to see what happens this year, next year and into the future. It truly is going to be a really exciting ride. 

00:21:14 Niall Riddell 

And and I heard you differentiate quite strongly there between the heavy duty and the. 

00:21:17 Niall Riddell 

Duty. Do you see a space for some of those? Maybe not as small as passenger cars, but larger commercial vans and the like. Using this infrastructure because they face some challenges that passenger cars maybe do not when they're charging. 

00:21:32 Peter Cohen 

100% and I think that's the result also is similar to the heavy duty market of you have a fleet that operates in and around a base of operations or has certain routes and the question being well, where can you charge those, I think different from the heavy duty market, those vehicles are closer if not already at cost parity. 

00:21:52 Peter Cohen 

To their diesel counterparts, and so as a result, you've seen them being deployed all across the. 

00:21:57 Peter Cohen 

Country versus you know, just in a market like California where there's subsidies on the vehicles, but as a result also then now you're getting to the point where if you have 100 locations to deploy your vehicles at and you found that 10 that have power and space and you've started there, OK, maybe now you're starting to figure out where, where do I have a pinch point in power in space or is this the most effective way to actually charge those vehicles now that I've had more? 

00:22:20 Peter Cohen 

Effort with them. Can I rely on public and or off-site charge really charging? So I think it's it's. It's also coming along in the sense of what is the best and most efficient business model to engage again back to it all comes to the simple point. The job to be done is to move things on a vehicle from point A to point B, whatever that looks like and charging is just a means to an end. 

00:22:42 Peter Cohen 

What is the most efficient way to do that from a cost perspective from an operations perspective, there's now increasingly a new number of options to do that, and it just means that folks are opening their eyes to saying, OK, well, maybe I've done things a certain. 

00:22:55 Peter Cohen 

Right. But maybe I can do them a different way. And what does that look like? 

00:22:58 Chris Sass 

You mentioned a lot this learning curve that we're going through and the data points you need, but I kind of a little skeptical because route planning has been done forever. People optimize based on the old infrastructure. So what kind of software and tools are available or do you need to have better insight to make this efficient? 

00:23:18 Chris Sass 

Moving forward. 

00:23:19 Peter Cohen 

That's a great question, and it seems like so far at scale, EV has, you know, maybe lived on a side project with respect to the number of vehicles in a fleet and and what that looks like for their operations. OK, here's my EV side of things. And here's the rest of my business and how do they integrate? I think that's a great point sense of. 

00:23:38 Peter Cohen 

What does it need to look like for matching the existing business from a routing perspective? I think that it it's still being figured out, so there's a lot of simulation that gets done ahead of time, but no one really knows what's going to happen with the vehicles until they hit the ground and start moving goods. And so you are seeing a lot of testing in different climates and different altitudes to see what's the. 

00:23:57 Peter Cohen 

Impact on range and and you know charge time. So a lot of data that's being aggregated and there's a lot of organizations out there that are putting out the findings of these datas from you know trial runs and pilots and programs to make sure that education is distributed. But police are definitely figuring out, OK, how do I optimize the most mileage out of these vehicles. 

00:24:19 Peter Cohen 

Most efficient usage of the asset to make sure that they're getting their business done. 

00:24:24 Chris Sass 

I also see on your website you have calculators for diesel versus electric. How important is that price in this decision? Is that really one of the drivers that fleets are looking at or is there other considerations that outweigh the cost of fuel? 

00:24:39 Peter Cohen 

It's it's all, all things. So it's it's it's the vehicle is a big part of it. Obviously it's a starting point without a vehicle, there's no EV, but then the charging infrastructure and the fueling cost. So for our business model of really big unlock is you know we have a site call it down the road. 

00:24:54 Peter Cohen 

Fleet their options are either to invest in CapEx, which means upfront capital for them to develop put in at least even 1 charger at their own site that's capital upfront and they have to amortize that over however many years if they use our site, they pay an operating line item. So it's just a fueling expense, a monthly payment, more akin to you know most people go to a truck. 

00:25:14 Peter Cohen 

Stop or a gas station to get their fuel. They're not building their own gas station on their own site. Sometimes people do that, but you know, just for simplicity. So it's it's all about this total cost of ownership, that TCO that that gets thrown around a lot and figuring out. 

00:25:28 Peter Cohen 

What does that mean for my particular business? How am I what? How many miles am I putting on the vehicle every day? And how am I returning the investment I'm making on that asset? Fuel is a huge part of it, but it's not the entire story. So we put that out as a resource to say, OK, if I'm thinking about what EV's mean for my business, I obviously have to charge them. And what does that mean? 

00:25:48 Peter Cohen 

Relative to I, you know, if I go to my truck dealer or my vehicle sales representative, I can understand the cost of the. 

00:25:54 Peter Cohen 

But that's not the operational cost. So it's the pillars I would say are the vehicle costs, the infrastructure and then operating and maintaining it and there's variations in terms of what that might mean to a particular business based on how they use that vehicle in their business. 

00:26:09 Chris Sass 

And I also noticed in your example that you're a nice warm places. La, Texas. How does this work in colder climates? If I'm driving a truck Rd. on an ice Rd. in Alaska or something of that nature? 

00:26:22 Peter Cohen 

It's definitely going to be, I think, a little slower on the adoption curve for exactly the reason of, you know, the battery range and what it means, but. 

00:26:29 Peter Cohen 

As long as the vehicle can get the job that needs to be done, you know, done the vehicle should be just fine. So if you know, maybe a range gets impacted by 15% or something, I don't know the exact figures obviously depend on the, the, the environment. But if that still gets the job done that you need it to great, that's all that you need to do. 

00:26:48 Peter Cohen 

So I think. 

00:26:49 Peter Cohen 

Range and what it means relative to climate is something that folks are figuring out for their business, but it still means that these are very viable vehicles and there's been a lot of advancements with respect to battery technology and installation of the battery and impacts on range there too. 

00:27:05 Niall Riddell 

There's a a concept I've been introducing recently to public charging in the UK, which is what I'm calling total cost of charging because we quite often hear about total cost of ownership. So the logical jump to total cost of charging isn't huge. What we hear people say is Oh well, it only cost me £0.20 to charge at my depot, but it costs me. 

00:27:25 Niall Riddell 

80 pence to charge in public. 

00:27:27 Niall Riddell 

So I try and spend a lot of time explaining what the difference is between the cost of building out the infrastructure and thereby creating a total cost inclusive of infrastructure, insurance, space, grid connect and all the stuff that comes with it. Do you see that debate emerging as well between people going, oh, it's really cheap to charge at my depot and then invest in their own infrastructure. 

00:27:47 Niall Riddell 

Versus the public charging dynamic that you're obviously presenting where theoretically overtime it will become cheaper because you're sharing it over many users? 

00:27:56 Peter Cohen 

Definitely because I think you know in both cases someone has to pay for the energy. And so for when you use an off site charging solution, there's an added cost for the infrastructure and the operation maintenance and the team to build it all. And so I think it's a question of are fleets evaluating, first of all the the resource drain and the headache that it might be to deviate from their primary business. 

00:28:17 Peter Cohen 

To build charging at whatever scale that might be and. 

00:28:19 Peter Cohen 

Maybe that works? 

00:28:20 Peter Cohen 

For one to two chargers at their own facility, but we do see a lot of now the page turned in 2024 again of. 

00:28:27 Peter Cohen 

A lot of early adopters have gone through that process themselves with partners for sure, but maybe not necessarily. Someone managing the whole process for them or whatever that might look like. And now I've turned the page say, OK, well, I did that once. I learned a lot. 

00:28:40 Peter Cohen 

I'm going to. 

00:28:41 Peter Cohen 

Offshore it or I'm going to work with a partner or some kind of combination to focus on their core business because they do value at least that resource. 

00:28:49 Peter Cohen 

Perspective of the the the human capital and then on top of that, yes, the capital expense upfront to invest in these assets is a large one. And so something that we feel strongly that sharing across multiple. 

00:29:01 Peter Cohen 

Brings that total cost of ownership down pretty dramatically. And so we've done. 

00:29:05 Peter Cohen 

A lot of. 

00:29:05 Peter Cohen 

Work to educate our partners and and look through. OK, well, option A maybe is to do it on your own site. Option B we need. 

00:29:12 Peter Cohen 

To. 

00:29:12 Peter Cohen 

Work with us. Here's the tipping point where that makes a lot of sense, because I like to say if you put in two charters at your. 

00:29:19 Peter Cohen 

Own site well. 

00:29:20 Peter Cohen 

You're paying for 100% utilization of two chargers and you can only use 2. 

00:29:24 Peter Cohen 

Once if we put in 20 charges at our site, well, you can use two maybe today and then maybe if you scale your vehicle fleet up with 10 more vehicles, we still have more charters, but you're still only paying that volumetric rate for what you consume. And so it's a much more efficient and scalable solution and it's been really exciting to engage with our partners and start to see that market. 

00:29:44 Peter Cohen 

Mature. 

00:29:45 Niall Riddell 

And I guess the other big thing that you're starting to see in that dynamic is the future proofing element. We've seen transitions from 400 Volt vehicles to 800 Volt vehicles, higher powered charging speeds, things like the ISO 15118 plug and charge standard. I'm assuming you're tackling all of that and helping customers on that journey. 

00:30:04 Peter Cohen 

Yeah. And that's another added benefit. So we have a dedicated hardware lab or interoperability testing, all the infrastructure we put at our sites, making sure that the firmware from the charger works with the firmware from the vehicle. 

00:30:16 Peter Cohen 

Constantly iterating on new technologies, new ways to connect, and that's something that our fleet partners get to benefit from when they work at our sites because ultimately it just needs to work. We put in a lot of time and resources to make sure that when. 

00:30:28 Peter Cohen 

They show up. 

00:30:29 Peter Cohen 

It just works and simplifying that down means that we're doing a lot of work on the back end to accomplish that. 

00:30:36 Peter Cohen 

To just relieve that headache from ever being something to cross someones mind. 

00:30:41 Niall Riddell 

Yeah, I was laughing with someone earlier today about the complexity that we are disguising from our customers because all they want is for it just to work. But the levels of complexity involved in making sure that the the handshake with the charger works, the charging system, then you know builds the right people, you've got the reliability, the accessibility requirements all handled. 

00:31:00 Niall Riddell 

It makes a massive difference to customers to ensure that we're getting that simplified experience. If you were to like, roll out a case study customer or case study example of someone who's really gone through that experience, what's your sort of like hero customer that you talk about day-to-day? 

00:31:18 Peter Cohen 

In terms of like a specific name or just a profile of what they've done. 

00:31:23 Niall Riddell 

Hi there. 

00:31:24 Peter Cohen 

I think I think we've seen is there's, there's been a few folks who have been pioneers in this space and they've tried different environments, different business models, charging on site, charging off site and they've kind of iterated on all the pain points to understand, you know, the knowledge of what charging means for their particular business. 

00:31:44 Peter Cohen 

And are distributing information to their partners. There's some great meetups of the industry, you know, it's a humongous industry, but I think for electrification purposes, it's still a small one where people are talking to each other and engaging, which is great to share that knowledge. 

00:31:57 Peter Cohen 

So we've seen a few pioneers in the space that have tried this, you know, extensively themselves in the last couple of years and now are turning the corner to scale up operations, but also give that learning to the rest of the market that doesn't have to hopefully go through the pain points of figuring out themselves. They can avoid the. I realize this is hard because I tried it myself. 

00:32:17 Peter Cohen 

And and, you know, stumbled through it for a year versus, OK, I've learned from my peers and trusted them. And I can go the much more efficient route. So we commend the The Pioneers in the space and the first movers and appreciate the work that they've done to you know, pave the way for everyone else to kind of follow. 

00:32:32 Peter Cohen 

Them and are excited to be working with both those early adopters as well as the other players who are now entering the. 

00:32:38 Peter Cohen 

Space. 

00:32:39 Peter Cohen 

As they can enter much more efficiently. 

00:32:41 Chris Sass 

The two questions come to mind as you talk about scaling. 

00:32:44 Chris Sass 

Up. 

00:32:44 Chris Sass 

You know, proof of concepts are one thing. Scale up is different. The the first question that comes to mind is how hard is the zoning and the regulatory requirements to put one of these pieces of infrastructure in place. Because if we're going to need. 

00:32:57 Chris Sass 

A lot. 

00:32:58 Chris Sass 

Of these that that that's going to need to be almost frictionless to do this. 

00:33:01 Chris Sass 

Very quickly and at scale. 

00:33:03 Chris Sass 

So. 

00:33:05 Chris Sass 

How hard is that transition? Or is it already kind of solved? 

00:33:08 Peter Cohen 

No, it's definitely not already solved and it's it's it's you know, to to Neil's point about when there's a total cost of charging. I hate to give the answer, but it's it's it depends. It truly depends and it's so localized in the sense of what it might mean and to put up even 1 charger at a facility is going to be. 

00:33:28 Peter Cohen 

It's not the easiest thing to assess from the outside of. OK, well, I know my power availability. I know what the permitting process is going to be like. There's a lot of variables. 

00:33:37 Peter Cohen 

That just make it a little more challenging in terms of timelines and cost permitting and zoning is 1 where you know in Los Angeles for instance, where there is a lot of activity. I think people are more familiar with what a charging site means and what charging stations require because other folks are already doing it. But when you get outside of. 

00:33:54 Peter Cohen 

California. 

00:33:55 Peter Cohen 

It's still newer territory. 

00:33:57 Peter Cohen 

For folks, especially on the commercial side, where I think you know, if you're going through the permit process, you might be the first one in your jurisdiction to do that. And so I think the, the, the government funding piece we raised earlier, I think brings a lot more confidence also for folks to engage in these activities. 

00:34:12 Peter Cohen 

In a you know area where there's more or more more engagement going on, which just makes it easier for everybody if there's, you know, a few, a few different parties asking for the same thing, it should increase the wheels to make the process simpler for everyone, hopefully. But it is still early days, especially in the in in what? What this looks like at scale even for our site like ours. You know, there's not that many. 

00:34:32 Peter Cohen 

Examples to point to in the market. So hopefully as time goes on that does become less of a bottleneck for the for the for the process. But it's been exciting to engage with the local partners, everyone really. 

00:34:44 Peter Cohen 

About what the end result is, which again, is clean transportation, it's it's doing good, it's bringing emissions reductions to and oftentimes disadvantaged communities. So the desired outcome is there. It's just a question of how do we bring everyone together to make it happen quickly. 

00:34:59 Chris Sass 

Now the second part of my question, you kind of already segued into is? 

00:35:05 Chris Sass 

Is is there a speculative land grab from companies to try to grab this infrastructure because the business model you described is working with fleets and that seems like you're building on demand. But to get a massive growth, it almost seems like you would have to speculate that people, if you build it, they will come and that somebody would want to be a clear winner there and they would be racing to. 

00:35:25 Chris Sass 

Get a land grab here. 

00:35:26 Chris Sass 

Is that start of the race started yet? 

00:35:29 Peter Cohen 

I think it's already yet started a a while ago and we've been acquiring land and so you know, we're focused in many states to make sure that we're ready when the market is ready and and making sure that that timing matches up nicely where we bring a charging site online the day before the fleet needs to start doing their business. But charging development takes a long time. So it's a bit of proactive and reactive matching. 

00:35:50 Peter Cohen 

Where we're listening to the market and where what we think is the next area where there's be focus. But those development timelines can take 12 to 18 plus months depending on power availability and different process permitting and zoning. As we alluded to. 

00:36:02 Peter Cohen 

So it's it's a really interesting dynamic where it's the chicken and the egg, but it's like we're building the nest more or less to figure out or that the chicken coop and that takes more time than vehicles can be delivered pretty quickly or their mobile charging is finite. So definitely we think that space and power in point A and if point A is where you need it to be is more valuable than point. 

00:36:24 Peter Cohen 

If point B is not where you need it to be, so we're trying to be really advantageous about the capital that we've raised and it gives us the ability to go and start seeding this industry with charging where fleets need it and bringing it online when fleets need it. So we're very excited to play that. 

00:36:39 Chris Sass 

And my last question before we go into the close is I can't help but thinking Transformers have a backlog, you just can't get Transformers in the US today and and those dates you just, I mean I I think even if you're fairly well respected, it's about a 12 month backlog right now for transformer. And I think it's. 

00:36:55 Chris Sass 

Been longer so. 

00:36:58 Chris Sass 

That doesn't seem to jive with what you just said. How are we going? 

00:37:00 Chris Sass 

To. 

00:37:00 Chris Sass 

Put all this infrastructure in place when we have that backlog or do you see that not be? 

00:37:06 Chris Sass 

A gate. 

00:37:07 Peter Cohen 

I think planning is the really important piece, so this is all we do. Every day is build, charging centers. And so given that focus we can acquire infrastructure and resources and use it in the future. So you know, we acquire chargers and spare parts to to maintain our sites. We can do similar things on the development side with more medium and heavy duty infrastructure. However, there is still a lot of that. 

00:37:28 Peter Cohen 

That's specialized to the specific site, so in all of that planning is key and working with our partners, working with the governments, working the utilities to make sure that we can carve out a road map for multi years to give everyone the confidence. So I think you know. 

00:37:40 Peter Cohen 

To the the the Joint Office or release about the charging corridors. Again, it gives confidence, it gives alignment, it gives focus where people can start planning for processes that take multiple years and sometimes, but knowing that everyone's focused on the same thing. So I think that alignment is really key because there are certain things that just truly backlogged to your point and it might be. 

00:38:02 Peter Cohen 

Transformers today it might be something else tomorrow, but making sure that we're all swimming in the right direction, it definitely helps. 

00:38:08 Chris Sass 

Peter, I I asked all our guests one final question. It's to get your crystal ball out. You made some bold statements at the beginning about 2024 being transformative. What is going to be different in 2025 that you can predict and go go lean into this? 

00:38:21 Peter Cohen 

OK, I think 2025 from a year we see big vehicle orders coming through in the heavy duty market where folks are confident that they, you know knowing they're charging provider, they know their operational schedule and they can go lean in to get 100 vehicles or you know deploy a lot of vehicles in one place. It's been really exciting to see that happen. 

00:38:41 Chris Sass 

Awesome. Well, I want to thank you for coming on the podcast today. It's been a great conversation. I've enjoyed it very much. Thank you. So. 

00:38:46 Chris Sass 

Much for your time. 

00:38:47 Peter Cohen 

Thank you both, it's been great. 

00:38:49 Chris Sass 

For our audience, we hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Insiders Guide to Energy EV series. If you have, don't forget to like, subscribe and follow us and don't miss out on our YouTube channel. It's a great place to catch this content. We'll talk to you again soon on the insiders guide to Energy EV series. Bye for now.