⚡ EV Roadtrip: Charging in the USA from a European Perspective 🇪🇺→🇺🇸

Happy Thursday. Welcome to Electric Avenue, the EV newsletter that’s more fun than Saturday morning cartoons. Step aside, Ninja turtles…

Here’s what we have for you today:

• EV Startup Funding News 📈

• EV Roadtrip: Charging in the USA from a European Perspective 🇪🇺→🇺🇸

• 3 Links 🔗

• Meme of the week 🤡

Not subscribed yet? Sign up here 👇🏼

Let's dive in!

This Issue Is Sponsored By…

…No one. But it could be you.

Here's the deal: We've created a way for you to get your message in front of our readers - people just like you - right here in our weekly newsletter.

This will help us keep the newsletter and community work going. Our goal is to include only relevant messages about EV charging products and services. Expect to see some newsletters without ads, as we'll be selective.

If you run a charging or EV-related business and want to reach over 2,000+ engaged EV experts and industry professionals, contact us today!

Janek & Julius

EV (Startup) Funding News 📈

Guess what day it is? It's our monthly “Transaction Thursday” 🤑 - Here's who secured the bag in recent EV startup transactions💰 and which startups you should keep an eye on 👀:

• Gireve: The French e-roaming platform Gireve secured €20 million in funding from European investors, aiming to enhance its interoperability services for CPOs and MSPs across Europe. Link

• emabler: This Finnish startup, focusing on simplifying the EV charging process through their cloud platform announced a significant Seed investment round led by Rethink Ventures. Link

• EcoG acquires part of Switch: In a strategic move, EcoG, a German startup specializing in EV charger embedded Software, has acquired the embedded Software division of UK-based company Switch. Link

• FLO: Canadian charging network FLO secured $136 million in Series E equity funding led by global investment firms to expand their charging infrastructure across North America. Link

• Ekoenergetyka: This Polish company, specializing in EV fast charging solutions to charging networks including IONITY, received a substantial €170 million credit line to fuel their growth and expand their product offerings. Link

• Heimladen: The German startup Heimladen, which provides home charging solutions for multi-tentant apartment complexes, completed a Seed Plus funding round with an undisclosed 7-figure amount, backed by angel investors including Adrian Zierer, the founder and ex-CEO of Charge Construct. Link

• Tritium: Exicom is set to acquire the business and assets of Tritium, focusing on the manufacturing facility in Tennessee, USA, and the engineering center in Brisbane, Australia. It is still uncertain if Exicom will take on the service & support responsibility for the 13,000 DC charging stations sold by Tritium, which are used across 47 countries by CPOs like IONITY and Shell, and equipped with custom hard- & software developed by Tritium. Link

Know any E-mobility companies that raised recently? -> Reply to this email or send us a link to [email protected]!

Charging in the USA from a European Perspective 🇪🇺→🇺🇸

Hi EVeryone, Julius here with another personal EV trip report. 👋

After last year’s summer trip through France (check it out if you haven‘t already), I took the opportunity of a visit to the USA to go on an electric road trip. 🇺🇸 ⚡️

We drove a total of 700 miles (1,130 km) from New York to visit Cape Cod and Boston before returning to NY. I will focus on our experience renting a Kia EV6 from Hertz, as well as the good and bad of US charging infrastructure from a European perspective.

Before jumping into the charging experience itself, I want to briefly touch on the renting experience with Hertz.

Renting an Electric Vehicle ⚡️🚗

In 2022 Hertz announced a deal to order 100,000 Tesla vehicles and operate 25% of its fleet electric by 2024. In contrast to the reports that Hertz dumps its electric cars, the company still offers a good variety of EVs (also besides Tesla) at comparable or even lower rates than ICE cars. I chose a Kia EV6 long-range RWD which has a decent range (254 miles / 410 kilometers) and proper fast charging capabilities - 191.6 kW average charging speed from 10-80%. I chose the KIA with it’s CCS chargeport because I didn‘t want to rely on the Tesla charging ecosystem which is known to be the benchmark in the US 😄.

We received the vehicle with 97% state of charge and the return policy states that EVs can be returned with 75+% without additional costs. For vehicles returned with <75%, Hertz charging is billed at $1.35/ kWh, which is highly overpriced! (public charging prices are between $0.25-0.59 /kWh). Inside the vehicle, there was no cable to charge the vehicle using a household plug and no AC charging cable. At first, I was concerned about the lack of an AC cable, which is usually required in the EU. But in the US, Level 2 AC chargers have an attached cable which is quite convenient. Surprisingly, also the Vehicle-to-Load adapter was included in the rented Kia EV6.

Ever wondered how rental companies charge their vehicles? Hertz is doing this quite pragmatically at their JFK station by using one X-Charge DC station, and the rest of the vehicles are plugged in via a domestic outlet. 😅

Digital Charging Experience 📱

When it comes to finding charging stations, the go-to apps for the US are PlugShare, ABetteRoutePlanner, and Google Maps. All provide a comprehensive set of charging station location data, dynamic availability (not for Electrify America and Tesla), and user reviews. I preferred PlugShare because it also provided cost information. The information provided in the Kia EV6 navigation system wasn't helpful at all in finding a charging station. Therefore, I relied heavily on the Apple Car Play version of the mentioned mobile apps.

Authentication & Payment wasn’t a problem at all because all chargers provided credit card terminals. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to download any Charge Point Operator‘s apps as they are not available in the German App Store. I wouldn‘t want to imagine traveling in Europe as an American person who can not download CPO or MSP apps. 🙈

Destination Charging 🛎️

Slow charging at the destination (e.g. hotels or parking lots) was key for the trip. The EV6 provided sufficient range to cover the trip from NY to Cape Cod / Boston to NY which gave us the freedom to rely on charging stations at our destinations. Therefore, bigger batteries on rental cars are a big plus for me personally as it means fewer (required) breaks on the route, and more importantly it’s cheaper and mostly more convenient to charge at the destination.

The first notable difference between the American and European charging landscape is that on-street charging is much less common. Most chargers are located in parking lots/garages or at hotel parking lots. Interestingly, the prices depend on the location type. At charging stations located in garages where parking is billed separately, energy is billed as $/kWh with no blocking fees. So far, business as usual. However, some public charging stations are billed by time $ / min when the charger is located on the public property of municipalities. This gets tricky when there is power-sharing at the same AC station, which gives you more or less energy depending on whether another car is charging with you or not (more about power-sharing later).

All of the destinations we visited (4 in total) were powered by Chargepoint Level 2 AC hardware with attached cables (very convenient!), which was a coincidence. They all worked on the first try and the experience with the Chargepoint app, particularly the authentication through NFC with the virtual EV Charging Card in Apple Wallet, was simple and quick. The biggest benefit of using the Chargepoint App was that I was able to see the charging progress and total cost during the charging session. This gave me confidence that the charging session is progressing, as I didn’t have remote access to the KIA’s battery state of charge via something like a KIA companion mobile app. This experience is reserved for the Tesla vehicles in Hertz’ fleet (see Hertz x Tesla Digital Key via QR code).

The biggest pain and another difference to the European charging infrastructure is that the power level provided is much lower. I am used to getting 11 kW (or even 22 kW) at AC charging stations in Europe. However, all of the AC Level 2 charging stations we visited provided a maximum of ~6.6 kW because they usually run on a 208-240V system with ~30 amp circuits. AC charging stations in Germany typically operate on a three-phase system with 16-32 amps per phase. The theoretical maximum power of 6.6 kW was further reduced to 3.3 kW by power-sharing when two vehicles were plugged into the same station. This makes it incredibly slow and even inefficient because the vehicle's onboard system has to "stay awake" while charging. Therefore, public charging when visiting cities was mainly advantageous to get a nice and cheap parking space, and “real recharging” was done at (nearby) hotels. 🙂 

Fast Charging ⚡️

Although the view was limited because we didn't need to charge along the route (mostly the 95 Highway), there were plenty of opportunities to charge the Kia EV6 at rest stops. The main CPO was AppleGreen which usually provided two CCS1 chargepoints with 150kW power output priced at $ 0.59 / kWh. The big awakening came when we tried to recharge at Electrify America at JFK Airport before returning the vehicle. When we arrived at the station, six vehicles were already waiting in line for the chargers. On top, out of the ten stalls, only eight were working. After waiting for 20 minutes, we plugged in and received just 44 kW instead of the expected 150 kW that the charger can deliver (Kia’s EV6 can handle about 230 kW at 20% state of charge). Initially, I thought this was due to the site's load management and expected the power to increase once another driver unplugged. Unfortunately, it didn't. So, we had to move the vehicle to another stall, which provided 90 kW—better, but still not the desired charging speed. We ended up spending 1.5 hours instead of the expected ±20 minutes and had the worst charging experience so far. Besides the bad experience there were three key findings I made through talking to fellow people charging at the location:

1. Utilization through Ride-Hailing 🚗: Most people charging were ride-hailing drivers (Uber, Lyft). New York City launched the Green Rides initiative which demands that 5% of trips in 2024 (15% in 2025 and 100% by 2030) need to be conducted by either zero-emission or wheelchair-accessible vehicles to ensure a smooth and efficient transition to a cleaner, more accessible fleet → Most driver charge at public DC fast charging stations and provide an incredible utilization rate for the CPO!

   

   Charging queue of ride-hailing drivers at JFK

2. Pragmatic Way to Solve Congestion 🚫: Electrify America and NY City are aware of the congestion problem at this station. Firstly, the queue is nicely organized and there is no discussion about who comes next (see the queuing space in the picture above). Secondly, signs are showing that “charging beyond 80% is strictly prohibited”. I have seen drivers who freed up stalls and reparked their cars to wait for their next rides. Generally, drivers seemed to be aware that their charging rates dropped significantly beyond 80%. Interestingly, the station is not in Electrify America’s pilot program where charging is limited to 85% SoC (we reported in our article Can Blocking Fees Help Solve Charging Station Congestion? 💰).

   

   80% Charging Limit Sign at JFK Airport

3. Reward Program for Ride-Hailing Drivers 💳: EVolve NY has a reward program for participants who own or operate fast charging-capable vehicles that travel at least 300 miles per week, and commit to using JFK station for at least half of their EV charging needs. By participating in the program a rebate of 20 cents per kWh is being granted. Not sure if the program is still running but it the incentive seems to work.

   

   EVolve NY Reward Program - User Flow

I really enjoyed the trip as it showed that also with a rented electric vehicle in a foreign charging ecosystem, electric road trips are feasible and enjoyable. Challenges remain, but the future of electric road trips in the US looks promising. 😊🇺🇸

Safe travels on your electric adventures! ⚡🚗🌍

Julius

📣 I am in New York until the end of August and would love to connect with people in the US EV charging ecosystem. Hit reply or DM me on LinkedIn!

3 Links 🔗

• TCO Calculator for Electric Trucks 🧮 : In a white paper, consultancy P3 describes a developed tool to calculate the total cost of ownership (TCO) for electric trucks versus conventional diesel trucks. The whitepaper outlines two reference cases whereby electric trucks have a slight cost advantage through lower energy costs and reduced toll rates.

  • regional-haul scenario (60,000 km annual mileage, 100% depotcharging) → 4% cost advantage in the six-year holding period.

  • long-haul scenario (100,000 km annual mileage; 50:50 depot and highway charging) → advantage of 11% in costs, equivalent to 13 ct/km

• Tesla Supercharger with >300kW ⚡️: Tesla lead engineer Wes Morrill has confirmed on X that Tesla is running trials on “V3.5” Supercharger stations (V3 cabinet + V4 charge post) to provide more power output. From the plaque of the V4 Supercharger, we already know that they are capable of 350 kW charging, and the video showcases a Cybertruck charging with 320kW/900a for a short period. It looks like Tesla is trying to get more power output with existing V3+ setups which is good news as its additional capacity before new cabinets need to be deployed.

• Xpeng’s 800 kW Charger 🔌 : Xpeng's new S5 liquid-cooled supercharging station will launch in Q3 2024, offering up to 800 kW of charging power, announced Chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng at a recent tech event. The S5 supercharger delivers up to 800 A and 1,000 V, allowing a one-second charge to provide over one kilometer of range.

Most-clicked link last week: Was the application form for our EV Product Community (Link).

Meme of the Week 🤡

🤣🤣🤣

That's a wrap for this week! Let us know how you feel and leave some feedback (We read every single one of these 🙂 ):

Reader Review of the Week

Selected ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️ Freakin’ awesome on⚡No connectivity, no problem - How Heycharge is solving underground apartment charging and wrote:

“Love me some peanut-butter-filled pretzel snacks”

Someone forwarded this to you? Subscribe now - it's free!

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. The Electric Avenue team may hold investments in or may otherwise be affiliated with the companies discussed.