Creating A Seamless Charging Experience with Driivz

This episode is sponsored by DriveItAway. Whether you’re looking to rent, buy, or simply test out an EV, DriveItAway puts you in the driver’s seat. Visit driveitaway.com for more details. OTC: “DWAY”

Links

Connect With Eran Rozenfeld

Transcript

Elena: Just a little bit more about you, and a little bit about your background, your story. What brought you into this electrification industry?

Eran: My name is Eran Rozenfeld and I’m managing the activities for Driivz, which we’ll talk about in the US. I am actually an Israeli and I moved to the States around seven years ago with my wife and two boys. And working with a software software as a service the SaaS for many years, I think, over 15 years. As soon as I had the opportunity to join these great revolutions that we see around the US around the mobility and the energy, I was so excited to join and now you know, after almost two years in the industry, I’m still very excited because you see around us, you know, how things are evolving. So this is great, and I’m happy to be part of that. Because as we’ll talk about, you know, it’s a it’s a, it’s a great it’s a big ecosystem that we need to support an ecosystem that we’re all collaboratively figuring it out and working together. 

Elena: An ecosystem that we’re all collaboratively figuring it out and working together. So I love that what is its mission? What is it doing? What are the super cool things that are happening at Driivz?

Eran: Perfect, so Driivz and I’ll do the quick pitch, Driivz is the company that started almost 11 years ago, we saw that two revolutions were coming one was the energy revolution that we see around us and we’ll talk about you know, some of the concern challenges around green and to support the EV charging revolution. And the other one is the mobility one and we see around us you know, people are going, going green going EVs and the big companies, the big OEMs are committed now to EVs and so on. We saw that and we decided to go with a digital platform. So our founders coming from the telco revolution, that telecommunication one, so they saw what happened back then 20, 30 years ago, and we knew that in order to support that effort of huge amount of EV chargers, you will need a digital platform that will be able to support the scalability, the stability, flexible enough to support the different places where people will charge. So essentially, we’re an operating platform for those large EV charging networks to allow them to support the drivers wherever they charge, residential multi-dwelling units, gas stations, gas, oil, utilities, public charging networks, and any other large fleets. Anyone that will manage charges will need the ability to be in a good way to be able to operate those huge amounts of chargers because those are not just gas stations anymore. It’s totally different. We’ll talk about the different things that we see.

Elena: I love to storytell on the show and bring out the examples and the stories around the technology. So of course with public charging, let’s just take public charging infrastructure. Let’s just like pull on that thread, a little bit more. Some of the challenges that you’re seeing, I know the stories that I’ve heard, now like over the years I pull up to this charging station, it doesn’t work. What am I going to do? I got 10% battery left. Walk me through the challenge but then also to how you see the solution coming to light.

Eran: Absolutely. I like the the example you gave about I have only 10% charging and so we are working very strongly in the Nordics for example. If you are in the middle of the winter and you have 10% – There’s an issue. That’s an issue, right? So that’s why that’s why at Driivz we started with the operations part of things right. We developed abilities and capabilities to support large amount of chargers, but also developed for example, a self healing mechanism and algorithms. So we know how to fix about 80% of charges issues automatically remotely for sure right away before we even notify the operator that is using drafts platform that hey you got an issue if we know how to solve it automatically. We just do that automatically. Now how do we do that? I mean, self learning, of course, algorithms, healing, healing those charges. With the experience that you gain over the years, you learn about those different issues. Now it’s not only hardware issues. It could be communication. It could be billing related, and other things. So we know how to fix them and fix them and then we allow the operator to remotely look Hey, I’ve got an issue with the charger way before the driver arrived. Then remotely reset things this way or another right take different action remotely even push firmware to update the charger itself via the Driivz platform. So those are some of the things that we start with in order to allow the driver a seamless journey. Because the driver right now they know you know gas stations going in couple minutes. Here’s some interesting things that I just realized recently in every gas station, right even if you have 10 pumps, you have a person, a physical person to support it. But now if you look at public charging networks, you know Driivz is working with the largest DC fast charging network in the US. I don’t know that there is a person there isn’t physically at a charger. So you need to develop those tools in order to allow them for a better real, reliable network.

Elena: I love that you tell that story because then that brings it back to the consumer brings it back to the end user customer that was sold on the fact that owning an easy is going to be easier. Right? But then it’s in the wild and it’s out there and I live in life. And I really actually want it to be easier. I know at your session at move America you you talk about a little bit about grid resiliency. Are we ready for this additional input of electric vehicles your take on what that is?

Eran: Absolutely. So if we are starting, as we said before at the operation, right, allowing the driver to have a seamless journey to charge and so on, then you need to look at, do we have enough energy to support that right? And when I’m talking at conferences like MOVE America, you know, sometimes I’m amazed by the fact that some of their colleagues, you know, not really understanding the challenge, right? You cannot just decide that outside of it. I’m going to place 200 chargers. No, it’s not supported, then you know what good luck with the working with utility. It will take you, you know, maybe two years to change the infrastructure to build it and it’s very costly. You know, it’s very expensive. So what do we do when we going to a site, right and there is not enough energy. So on the software side that drives platform, looked at it and decided to come up with different solutions. For example, one of them is the ability to create a survey per site and build the topology of the site on top of the software. This is live data that our customer gets set aside to see the water charges over there. What’s their capacity? What is the renewables that are available? Maybe there is some solar wind, is there a battery storage over there to support this site? Right. What are the other consumers that are already there like buildings and so on look like? What’s the core assumption look like? And what is the limitation of the grid when we know all of that and we put it on the software, then you can assign smart energy policies. So for example, if you want to put 20 chargers over there, but you cannot exceed X amount of kilowatts, or megawatts per site, you can assign those policies via the Driivz platform and say, Hey, do not exceed XYZ or spread evenly the amount of kilowatts or maybe first in first out, even prioritize. Remember, some of the thing with the software the greatness of the software. You can even create priorities for the drivers. So the drivers have the drives white label app, right? And then if they have a high priority, maybe they can get energy better than or before others. We have of course reservations that can help with that as well. Those are software items. That we added over the years. So building the topology allows to do that. You will see more and more battery storage supporting sites for several reasons a, I don’t have enough energy. But what about the energy costs? The energy cost into you as the demand charge is high? So nobody want to get to a high peak. So with those policies and energy policies, you can also shave the curve and lower the costs. We can do that as well. So we allow that and different other smart algorithms to support having those charger and with the limitation and constraints of the grid support. Remember as the last part, are dealing with technologies we have already and we already drive since we are pioneering this industry with vehicle to x to vehicle degree vehicle to battery and bi directional of the electricity. And the other part is of course supporting spot pricing. Because even in the US you’ll see that the time of use the different cost of energy so we can make a decision, how support our drivers but also when to charge a battery storage on site when to discharge it and so on. Maybe buy it at off peak and then sell it when the peak hours. We allow our customers to drive to be able to work at the flexibility market the entirely meaning to support back the utilities to stabilize the grid if you will.

Elena: I’m glad that we talked through that because it is such an important component that you’re right a lot of times it’s overlooked and maybe a little bit taken for granted maybe not here in Texas because all the like the the crazy things that happened to Texas with power but that’s another episode. Eran, tell me more about what are you really excited about in this Evie ecosystem in the next year in the next five years?

Eran: Thanks for the great question. I think that when I see the innovations around not only drives everyone right, you look at a better models of EVs electric vehicles, right? A cheaper one that people can afford. You see the technology around battery, right? A better range, you know, work on the regex ID and so on. We see the innovation from from our side from the dress platform. So we talked about of course reliable network and operations etc. But also looking at that driver. What else can we do for the driver so it will be easier choice. So if we can allow the driver an easy way to charge supporting them with an app, right? But then you don’t want to download 20 different apps right. So at the roaming competence over there, so drives within the largest roaming agreements for example, Evie, go charge for it and many others. Notice instances that was like five years the driver should use one app and then roll and seamlessly charge the education around driving an Eevee right now I think is that excites me as well. So I think that even conversation that I have with friends that are going Evie right now to explain to them hey, maybe only when you will get your first electric vehicle you will understand. So for example, we see you know over 90% of chargers charging will happen at home and only later on you know workplaces and then other places while traveling and so on. So the education part is interesting. And you can actually actually see right now the interest is shaping the behavior of the consumer. That excites me a lot and I’m happy to be part of that with a very innovative company that I work for.

Elena: I couldn’t agree with you more on the EV education and you’re doing your part today on evey education because this is going to be published and 1000s of people are going to be listening to this. So thank you for your insights. Thank you for for being a part of this industry and bringing your talent and your expertise. I love it. Any other really cool things at this conference that you’re looking forward to seeing or doing?

Eran: I think that the conference is great. It’s great to meet a lot of you know, customers, colleagues, partners, prospects and so on. So this is great events that we have, that you see how the industry is being shaped, and I wanted to thank you because what you do is part of the ecosystem. as well. So thank you for having me here.