Alan Adler & Jonathan Colbert Talk ZEVs at The Future of Supply Chain

At The Future of Supply Chain in Cleveland, I sat down with Alan Adler, Midwest Bureau Chief at FreightWaves, to chat about recent developments in the ZEV space and how Voltera is helping fleets smooth the transition to carbon-free transportation. Read the highlights or watch the conversation here.

‍

We call the end solution charging-facility-as-a-service, but the goal for us is to provide fleets maximum uptime in their operations and to enable a seamless transition to zero-emission vehicles.
Jonathan Colbert, VP of Marketing at Voltera 

An Evolving ZEV Ecosystem 

Responding to Alan’s question about where Voltera fits within the zero-emission vehicle ecosystem, I took us back to the beginning, when the ecosystem was really just charging networks for passenger cars. Now, many of those charging network providers are moving into the fleet space, which is where we’re focused. But their model is quite different from ours. For the most part, charging network providers are offering solutions for fleets to charge their vehicles at existing public charging facilities. In some cases, they’re offering to provide charging-as-a-service solutions at the fleet’s existing location.

It’s widely known now that neither of those solutions is scalable for every type of fleet and every use case, and that’s why we see new companies like Voltera entering the market. I categorize these new entrants into broadly three groups:

1.     Those like Voltera that are providing a full turnkey suite of services

2.     Companies providing both vehicles and charging (what’s often referred to as fleet-as-a-service)

3.     Companies with large real estate portfolios looking to develop charging infrastructure at those sites

One way to look at the ecosystem is that the various models for serving fleets and the companies providing them are competitors. But we prefer to think about the other ecosystem players as prospective partners. We don’t necessarily need to ‘own’ the customer; when we’re working with a fleet, they own the end customer and rely on Voltera to support their operations. Even though the end solution we call charging-facility-as-a-service, the goal for us is to provide fleets maximum uptime in their operations and to enable a seamless transition to zero-emission vehicles.

Another New Charging Standard?

Ford, GM, and Rivian have all recently announced that they will be switching from the Combined ChargingSystem (CCS1) charging connector to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) charging connector. “Is that game changer for the industry?” Alan asked. “Should the charging network providers and others be concerned?” My answers were yes, and probably not.

To start with the latter question, I am confident that other charging network providers will follow ChargePoint’s lead in adopting NACS. Because those decisions should be driven by the customer. Manufacturers looking to provide the best experience for their drivers are adopting the connector associated with Tesla’s Supercharger network, widely considered the most accessibile, convenient and reliable. Similarly, end providers – whether infrastructure providers or charging networks – will do what customers are asking for.

That big companies with huge market share are switching toNACS does represent a game-changer for the industry. The industry had finally seemed to agree on a single standard – CCS, with CHAdeMO falling out of favor –but now we’re back to two. Many people think CCS will go the way of CHAdeMO as more automakers, charging network providers, and charger manufacturers adopt NACS. Making that more likely, SAE International announced plans to develop an actual NACS connector standard on an “expedited timeframe” to “establish a consensus-based approach for maintaining NACS and validating its ability to meet performance and interoperability criteria.”

And of course, the Megawatt Charging System (MCS) is still in development. The industry group CharIN, of which Voltera is a member, is helping bring entities together to ensure the MCS works for customers and manufacturers as well and thinking long term so we don’t end up in a situation like we’re in right now on the passenger car side with competing standards.

‍

We see a future where transportation is carbon-free. The easiest way to get to that is supporting our customers in whatever type of fueling they require.
Jonathan Colbert, VP of Marketing at Voltera

‍‍

Electricity and Hydrogen

Alan asked me about megawatt charging, as there have been some recent announcements (including by Schneider and NFI) that “provide a glimpse of the future of megawatt charging.” At Voltera we’re developing at-scale charging facilities in the range of 5 to 10 megawatts or even more, designed to serve 25 to 100 BEVs depending on the class of vehicle. Putting in megawatt chargers would change the dynamic of the site. There’s certainly a practical use case for megawatt chargers, but it’s likely longer-haul trucking.

And that’s why Voltera has included hydrogen facilities in our approach. (In May we announced a strategic partnership with Nikola, whereby we will develop up to 50 hydrogen fueling stations throughout North America over the next five years.) In many of our public initiatives, and any dedicated facilities where our customers ask for it, we could put hydrogen refueling infrastructure as well as EV charging infrastructure.

We see a future where transportation is carbon-free. The easiest way to get there is supporting our customers in whatever type of fueling they require. What the levers are and the mix is, we’ll see as the technology improves, but hydrogen will be here for the long term. So in our business model and even at some of our facilities hydrogen and electricity will coexist. (Alan agreed, noting that “it used to be either electricity or hydrogen but now it’s electricity and hydrogen.”)

Smoothing Fleets’ Transition to Zero-emission Vehicles

Circling back to the start of the conversation about the evolving ZEV ecosystem, Voltera is unique in that we’re purpose-built for fleets. We’ll buy the property and work with our customer to build out the exact infrastructure they need. A great example is our work with AV rideshare fleets. They offload an extreme amount of data every day; in several cases we’ve put data centers on-site so they don’t have to physically transfer the hard drives off-site and back again.

Broadly, being purpose-built for fleets enables us to really smooth their transition to ZEVs – to make operating ZEVs as close as possible to operating ICE vehicles. It’s why we developed a turnkey charging-facility-as-a-service solution. Alan was right when he said, “You’re probably hearing from fleets that they’re not really sure if they want to retrain the whole outfit to support electric charging.” Indeed, on the fleet operations side, we want to make sure it’s as seamless a transition as possible. We don’t want customers to have to think about this as the whole business is turning on its head.

That’s one reason why we brought on Tom Ashley as VP of Government & Utility Relations. He’s focused on smoothing the transition from the strategic 30,000-foot view, working with government entities and utilities to help steer them in the direction we know our customers are looking for. Smoothing the transition is also the rationale behind our new Playbook series in which we explore the challenges associated with developing and operating EV charging infrastructure facilities, and showcase how we’re solving those challenges.

Being purpose-built for fleets enables Voltera to smooth fleets’ transition to ZEVs – to make operating ZEVs as close as possible to operating ICE vehicles.
Jonathan Colbert, VP of Marketing at Voltera

‍