⚡Tesla Powershare, Cybertruck and Chargemap CPO portal

Happy Wednesday. This is Electric Avenue. The e-Mobility newsletter that provides you curated news and concentrated insights. Think of us as the tasty apple juice that you drink when you don’t feel like eating the whole apple 🧃

Here’s what we have for you today:

• EV Driver Community Engagement ⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Tesla Cybertruck Specs - Tank on the Road 🪖

• 3 Links 🔗

• Meme of the week 🤡

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Let's dive in!

EV Driver Community Engagement ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Chargemap, a French E-Mobility Service Provider (MSP) launched their Chargemap Partners tool this week. On Julius’ EV road trip through France this summer, Chargemap was a reliable companion as an EV driver.

Let us quickly explain to you how this works and for whom the new tool matters:

As an EV driver, you can choose the Chargemap App and website to find a charging station. Additionally, the app / RFID card allows you to start a charging session at the majority of charge points. More importantly, users can leave photos and reviews, which are divided into 4 areas:

1. Reliability = Easy to start a charging session / power delivered / conditions of the station / operable screen

2. Value for money ratio = Pricing to alternatives in the region

3. Relevance of location and nearby services = easy to find and access the location / useful services and amenities

4. Convenience and safety of the site = Roof / lightning / well-travelled or remote area / size of parking / cleanliness

While this is helpful for the Chargemap community (more than 1.5 Mio. users), the generated insights are also extremely valuable for charge point operators (CPOs). In the newly created partners tool, CPOs can get insights down to a site level, interact with the community, and initiate maintenance based on review insights.

Quick Thoughts 💭

• In our guest article, ⚡Why MSPs must adapt to survive, we illustrated the challenges that MSPs will face with the new, mandatory regulation of direct payment methods (e.g. credit cards) at charging stations. Through an engaged community, an MSP builds a two-sided platform with network effects.

  • EV-Driver 🚗: The information for locating the most appropriate charging station is most up-to-date when a higher number of users participate on the platform.

  • Charge Point Operators 🔌: Based on this data CPOs can cut OPEX costs and ensure optimal utilization of their regional or even national distributed charging station network. Thereby, the MSP creates a value proposition for the CPOs beyond the pure roaming agreement.

• Along those lines, Google's beta for charging station reviews went live last week. Given the vast user base of Google and the familiar UI of this app, it's set to become a challenger to existing EV community apps like Chargemap or Plugshare. It remains to be seen whether EV communities with integrated MSP functionalities for charging can retain a competitive edge in data accuracy and up-to-dateness. Also, we are not sure if and how charging network operators can access this information for their purpose at this time. We are not aware of a Google Maps portal for CPOs (yet).

Tesla Cybertruck - “Watch out, there’s a tank on the Road” 🪖

Friends of fine military equipment and bulletproof vehicles had a great time last week. The Tesla Cybertruck was officially released and the vehicle is indeed as extreme as the concept that was presented back in 2019. Here are the highlights on pricing and tech specs:

• 🤑 Pricing much higher than originally announced in 2019. Single motor $60k instead of $40k, dual motor $80k (was $50k) und tri-motor $100k (was $70k).

• ⚡️800V battery voltage (first for Tesla), and 48V on-bord electric system (first for the automotive industry!).

• 🔌 250kW peak charging rate - at least on 500V-limited v3/v3.5 Superchargers. Tesla achieves this by splitting the battery pack in half during charging at low-voltage chargers (see⚡️ High Voltage - Low Charging 😕)

• Up to 350kW peak charging on 1000V-capable DC chargers.

• 🚘🔋🔛🏠 The biggest news in our opinion: AC V2H backup up to 11.5kW and V2L! These features are branded as Tesla Powershare, which makes us think that these will become available on other Tesla models in the future!

If you only have 30-min time to watch a single Cybertruck review, make it to this video by Jason Cammisa and Hagerty Media. They got unfiltered access to Tesla staff, the production facility, and crash testing:

3 Links 🔗

• Mercedes x BMW CPO in 🇨🇳: Electrifying news from Mercedes - again! Just this year we’ve already seen Mercedes open the first sites of its own charging network and joining the 7 automaker charging joint venture in North America. Now, Mercedes-Benz also announced that it’s teaming up with BMW to build a joint high-power charging network in China. The joint venture aims to establish a network of at least 1,000 high-power charging stations with ~7,000 chargers by 2026. The network will be open to the public, but Mercedes and BMW drivers will be able to enjoy exclusive features, such as plug & charge and online reservations.

• Better late than never⌛: It’s been almost exactly a year since we wrote about the big plans that PG&E (the local utility provider in Silicon Valley) had for its Vehicle-Grid-Integration (VG) pilot in⚡️ V2X - Utility pilots vehicle-to-everything in Silicon Valley. Now the pilot is finally moving ahead with the announcement that the Ford F-150 Lightning paired with Ford’s Intelligent Backup Power system has been approved as the first equipment set eligible for participation. The pilot is open to up to 1,000 residential customers who will receive $2,500 for enrolling, and up to an additional $2,175 in participation-based incentives.

• Uber vs Range anxiety🪫: Ride-hailing app Uber surveyed 16,000 of its EV and non-EV drivers in North America and Europe in 2022 and reported that “the majority of survey participants worry that not enough EV charging exists to enable them to start using an EV.” To address these feelings of range anxiety among its drivers, the Uber product team implemented the Smartcar Telematics API to integrate EV battery SoC data into its Driver app. Once drivers have been given the necessary data-sharing permissions for their vehicle, this feature ensures that EV drivers are only assigned rides that they can complete within their remaining state of charge.

Most-clicked link last week: Video of the first Mercedes Charging Hub by Kyle from Out of Spec Reviews (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⚡ Tesla V4 Supercharger Insights 🧐 and wrote:

“Great insights of a customer journey!"

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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 discussed7