Inductive Charging with Thomas from HEVO
Hello. Hello. Hello. Welcome to the episode 42 of Techie DVD. Four two.
Gregg:In today's episode or today's subject is inductive charging. Listeners of this podcast might know that I've had a solo episode about it, you know, rather cynical. But I have since been looking for somebody in the industry to actually appear on the podcast and talk about it. And today's the day. Today we have Thomas Armstrong from Hevo.
Gregg:They're based in America, and they do have inductive charging pads, and you know, they're in use. So we had a short but productive discussion. There's lots of things we went through but before we get to that, I said on the last episode if you have any questions or comments, please send me an email, and there's been quite a few people who've sent me an email, thank you very much. For instance, Virgil. Hi Virgil.
Gregg:There's been people on Mastodon also, you know, following me, so, if you if you're not there, check it out. And anyway, without further ado, is Thomas from Hevo on with the show. Thomas, if you introduce yourself and you know, who you're working for and what we're gonna be talking about.
Thomas:Thanks, Greg. Hey, everybody. My name is Thomas Armstrong. I'm the business operations lead here at Kevo. Kevo is a wireless EV charging company based in Brooklyn, New York.
Thomas:We make both the hardware and the software to enable wirelessly charging your car. So if you ever wirelessly charged your headphones, I see you get some wireless headphones on, Greg. If you ever wirelessly charged your phone, all of that is done through magnetic resonance or inductive charging. We're able to do that with your car. So it's pretty remarkable technology that we have out here in Brooklyn.
Thomas:As the business operations lead, I primarily focus on helping our team with their processes and tools, but I also do some business development work with fleets. So working with particularly last mile delivery, working with transit fleets, or working with fleets for disabled drivers. So happy to talk about that today.
Gregg:Okay. And how how much do you wanna talk about technical details or or is you know?
Thomas:Yeah. I'm happy to talk about technical details.
Gregg:Yeah. Because people are always curious about I mean, first of all, you know, the the way like I said, loads of people are familiar these days with like Qi charging and and and similar things. We just basically have two devices, you know, close to each other, aligned on a pad and Mhmm. Basically get it, you know, from a tech like, from electronics point of view, you've got you get a transformer, essentially. Mhmm.
Gregg:So you get two coils that's, you know, kind of talk to each other or Mhmm. So the you know, this is one of those technologies for EVs that everyone's talking about as a sort of the future of of, you know, of of charging. Obviously, there's two camps. You know? Some people are cynical about it and not very not very open to it.
Gregg:They they still prefer to to plug in, and it's fine. Where where do you see this kinda taking off? Like, what what is the sort of do do do you think the cars in the future will have an integrated pad under the, you know, some part of the car? Or do you think it's gonna be always an add on? Because these days, I think it's just usually an add on.
Gregg:And who do you think would be the the the the typical customer or user of this?
Thomas:Yeah, all good questions. So first, maybe I can just describe how wireless charging works.
Gregg:Sure.
Thomas:In layman's terms, I'm not a technical person, so I'll describe it how I understand it. There's really two different components. One is the component that goes into the vehicle. It's often called the vehicle assembly. And that has a receiving pad, which looks a lot like the transmitting pad.
Thomas:It's that coil, that transformer as you described, that's receiving the electricity over the air. And then there's some sort of battery adapter or rectifier that takes that power and integrates it into the battery management system or onboard charger of the vehicle. So there's that vehicle assembly that has to get integrated into the car. And there's a lot of work that has to go into in doing that integration with automakers, to make that successful and make that reliable. On the ground side, that kind of infrastructure deployment is similar to level two charging.
Thomas:So it's similar to any kind of charger that you'd see, juice box, wall box, any of these things that you see out there in the world where you have some sort of box, some sort of power station and then you have some sort of cable connecting to a ground pad that's then transmitting that electricity. So for HEVO, we really sell the both of those components, the ground assembly and the vehicle assembly. What we see is that that primary customer group, that early adopter is gonna come from fleets.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:And for some people who have a Tesla and they have a Tesla in their garage and they're fine with plugging it in, so be it. They might not be the early adopter. But for fleets, they really need it. And we hear a lot from fleets that say, cord maintenance, cord management, all of the human components around plugging in are incredibly cumbersome and incredibly expensive. There's a recent survey where 75% of fleet operators said, I don't think I can hit my sustainability targets because of the charging infrastructure that's out there.
Thomas:A lot of things that average people don't think about on any given day. Yeah. There's a number of work regulations about who can plug in the car and who can't.
Gregg:Oh, wow.
Thomas:Similar to who can fuel or refuel a car and who can't. Number of different rules by state, by country. If drivers aren't able to plug in the vehicle, these fleet companies have to hire charging attendants, which is incredibly expensive. Yeah. So rather than hiring the charging attendant, we can have that person do something a little bit more productive for the fleet.
Thomas:And then as you may have seen in the news, there's incredible amount of vandalism for cords. These connectors break, these cables break. The US Department of Energy did a recent study where they said that just that cord and cable management is about $400 a year.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:So for fleets, if we can remove the human error, if we can remove the the workplace, not just regulations but also safety concerns there, all the costs, all the pain points around cords and cables, we make we make a pretty good business case for fleets. So we target those fleets, that could be logistics, that could be transit. We're doing a really big project at Hevo with one of the dollar van companies in New York City called Dollar Ride, it'll be the largest wireless charging project in history. So there's transit and then also for disabled drivers. A lot of the people who say, why do we need wireless?
Thomas:I can just plug into my car. Well, for a lot of people they can't plug in their car. And they have certain mobility restrictions that make it really difficult to navigate around the vehicle and to carry a 30 pound, 40 pound DC fast charging cable. And so if we can make that charging really hands free for people, that's a that's a remarkable opportunity to open up EV adoption to what's typically about 10% of drivers. So we think in the beginning it's gonna be those fleets, those transit, logistics, disabled driver accessibility and then over time, we'll work with the automakers to build in wireless so that when you and I and and everyone else in our lives wants to buy a car right off the shelf, right off the factory floor, it comes equipped for wireless.
Thomas:That'll likely take a couple more years.
Gregg:Those are all very good points that, you know, are not made very often. And the I've had a couple of people who are disabled, or one person in particular, on this podcast in the past, you know, two years ago or a year I can't remember how long ago. It doesn't matter. But he's got mobility issues and, you know, I mean, he's happy to walk to the charger, but like you say, it it is difficult for some people to lift lift the heavy cable. You know, one day, some of us might have that problem when we're older and, you know, I think it's what it's it's quite a large piece of population that actually has mobility issues, especially older people.
Gregg:So you're right there. The so I mean, the the the it's a great point about the the cables actually breaking as well because, you know, we've all seen DC cables. You you you know, you you drive to a station and you're trying to plug in and the cable is broken. But somebody just cut it off because they wanted to get a couple of dollars for a for a bit bit of copper, which is, you know Mhmm. It's just yeah.
Gregg:I And don't know what the solution to that is other than, you know, wireless charging. But just going back to the the the basics of of wireless charging, the you kinda nicely described it as a as a as a, you know, just a pad. You you live in New York. What what do you do about it when when there's debris on it or under the car? You know, obviously, that snows in in New York.
Gregg:You know? A lot of these companies are in California, and they have you know, I always kinda laugh. It's like, they don't know the weather like we do. And the you know, you you you guys have all seasons, obviously, in New York. Right?
Gregg:Unlike unlike people on the on the other side of the country. So what do you do about, like, you know, weather proving it? What if there's snow on the road and it will obviously attach itself to the the part under the car or on the ground? Mhmm. Leafs and things like that.
Gregg:Is that an issue?
Thomas:Yeah. Yeah, it's a good question, Greg. It took years to get to the point where we have something that is durable, that is weatherproof. And we spent years trying to comply with one of the main standards from Underwriters Lab or UL, which rates equipment for this kind of durability and safety. And so we've tested, we've put our pad in a kiddie pool.
Thomas:There's a great photo of our team from a few years ago with a fully submerged ground pad in a kiddie pool. We've done chemical tests, salt tests. We've really beat this up to make sure that it can withstand the weather, it can withstand real world elements. And so our system is rated the same as a manhole cover. And you can put that ground pad above the ground, you can put it flush with the ground, you can put it under the ground and it still maintains that efficiency of about 91 to 95%.
Thomas:It's really remarkable. The only caveat here is that if there is a ferrous material, so think about a wrench or something metal that's sitting between the ground pad and the vehicle pad, the system will shut off.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:And it will notify the charger, the user and say, there's something metal between here, this is not a safe situation, we stop the charging session, please remove that object and restart the charging session. And the main concern there is that that metal object's gonna heat up
Gregg:Yeah.
Thomas:As we wirelessly charge that car. And so that that's our main concern. It's not a concern for for living vehicles or for non ferrous materials or anything like that, but if you have a wrench, a tool, piece of metal, somewhere like that, you'd want to remove that before you continue the session.
Gregg:Yeah. I mean, induction as a technology is actually used in in the I'm gonna butcher this word, metallurgy, metallurgy, I can't say that word. You know what I mean? Whenever you wanna basically soften a metal and an alloy, you can put it in a coil and, you know, there's plenty of pictures online for anybody who Yes. But that's essentially what happens when you when you run current through a a piece of ice.
Gregg:So you don't want that you want that on the the part.
Thomas:That's right.
Gregg:What about the the snow and kind of, you know, debris of other kind, like wet debris on on is that a problem? Or do you have some sort of a heater that actually will melt the snow if it's or is that not a problem at all?
Thomas:It's not a problem at all. Actually, water increases the efficiency, which is a a fun scientific fact for you. Interesting. If you have water ice on this charger, it it actually increases our efficiency by a couple percent. But no, the weather is not a concern.
Thomas:Again, rated like a manhole cover, that efficiency stays the same. So there could be snow, there could be ice, there could be anything on top and it won't be an issue. And once it's charging, our system is gonna be warmer than the air if it's snowing.
Gregg:Yeah.
Thomas:It's gonna be warmer than, I guess you're in The UK, so zero degrees
Gregg:Yeah.
Thomas:Zero degrees or less for you. So our system will actually melt the snow or melt the ice Yeah. That's above it. It's underground.
Gregg:I mean, yeah, because you mentioned it's 91 plus percent efficient. So that's, you know, 100 minuteus 91, that 9% has to go somewhere and it's heat basically. That will Yes,
Thomas:exactly. Exactly.
Gregg:In terms of the power, you know, I've seen some companies announce that they have a in lab system that can do rapid charging or fast charging, you know, anything basically above 50 kilowatts. But I is your system capable of that or is it just up to 11 kilowatts?
Thomas:So our system today is eight kilowatts.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:And we're coming out with a product a little bit later this year that'll be 11 kilowatts. So that's our primary product. In our roadmap, we have higher power levels, 25, 5,350, etcetera. And those systems can are compatible with bidirectional charging, so being able to put power from the ground into the car, but also take power from the car back into the ground. And then also dynamic charging where you can charge as you drive.
Thomas:So we have those things in our product roadmap for twenty twenty four, five, six, beyond. We have great partnerships with the Department of Energy, with other players to develop that technology. But right now, our sweet spot is that level two charging, that overnight charging. And that's really 80 to 90% of the market. There are millions and millions of level two chargers out there.
Thomas:The market for that next couple of years is about 30,000,000 chargers. It's a huge huge market for people who need to charge at fleet depots, school buses that are idle for twenty two hours a day, for people who charge at home, charge at their workplace, that car is sitting there for hours and hours and typically 11 kilowatts is sufficient.
Gregg:Yeah. I don't know what the stats are in The US, but in The UK it's something like that average driver does only about 25 miles a day. Mhmm. I mean, everything's closer in The UK, so obviously, you know, it's different. But also, the car sits there like 90% of the time just idle, doesn't do anything.
Gregg:So you're right. You know, if you're do most of your journeys in the area, you're not gonna need charging for more than couple of hours overnight. And, you know, a little top up is efficient.
Thomas:And 11 kilowatts, you're gonna get 25, 30 miles. It'll certainly depend on your vehicle and the conditions of the battery and everything else, but you're gonna get 25 plus miles per hour of charging.
Gregg:Yeah.
Thomas:So if your car is sitting there, when you go to the gym for a couple hours, when you go out to eat, when you park at work for eight hours, you're gonna get plenty of recharge time.
Gregg:Yeah. And and 91% efficiency is actually better than I thought because the when I read about wireless charging in the past, you know, it it would always say 80% is kinda like, you know, the the expected rate. Mhmm. So I I suppose it depends on how you how you calculate it, but the I'm I'm sure regular cable and plugs and all that, they have they're not 100% efficient either. Right?
Gregg:There there is a
Thomas:No. No. It's a big misconception with wireless charging, and part of that is because of the efficiency of the Qi chargers.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:And so if you've ever Qi charged your phone, you're getting about 60 or 70%. Yeah. And so people think, oh, that's inefficient. Well, what if I had 60 to 70% on the Amazon fleet or something like that? That obviously wouldn't work.
Gregg:Yeah.
Thomas:But this is a different technology. This is a different coil design, everything like that. We're getting 91 to 95%. That's comparable with plug in.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:Plug in is is around that range, maybe 92 to 96. Again, it depends on whether you're getting AC input, DC input
Gregg:Yeah.
Thomas:All of these different factors, temperature, battery, everything else, but we're we're comparable with that.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:And so what we tell our customers is, for the same efficiency, you're getting a significantly improved charging experience.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:You can remotely operate your charging session. It's not something that you can do with plug in.
Gregg:Well
Thomas:You can pull over a pad, you can turn off the car, and your car can start charging. If your car is over a charger at work, at home, at the airport, somewhere else, and you forget to charge or you check your phone and you're worried about your battery, you can go on your phone and start the charging session.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:That's that's miraculous. And so for the same efficiency, you can get those benefits. And that's really appealing to these early adopters I mentioned. And eventually, once it's built into the EV platforms of vehicles, you'll see that. And this week, we just announced an exciting partnership with Stellantis to demonstrate our wireless charging.
Thomas:So Stellantis, think of brands like Ram and Dodge and Chrysler and Jeep and Peugeot and all that. Working with them to demonstrate wireless charging at this level two eleven kilowatt kinda level. But over time, work with them to build in wireless charging so that it's in their makes and models.
Gregg:Yeah. I think I think there will be much more, use utilization of it if if it was built in the car.
Thomas:Mhmm.
Gregg:The you you mentioned that Qi chargers are, you know, notoriously inefficient. Well, one of the reasons for that is misalignment, obviously. Mhmm. And, you know, it is a big worry with the with wireless charging for cars because, obviously, you have to park your car quite precisely. And, you know, I don't know about The US, but in The UK, if you look at how people drive and park, they're not exactly always within the lines.
Gregg:No. No. So how difficult is it to actually align yourself with the pads? You probably have an app to do that, but is any slack or is there anything in the pad and the car itself to kind of to move the pad in the position, either of the pads, so that they're aligned very well?
Thomas:Yeah, good question. So the ground pad is going to be in the ground, either on top, flush or under under that surface. The vehicle pad or the receiver is gonna be on the chassis between the front two tires.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:So if you're thinking about driving, you would pull up over that ground pad, driving straight on over it and once you get aligned and turn off your vehicle, that charging session would start. And we give two different prompts for the user, two different visuals. One is on our power station on our charger itself. It'll show you an LED display of where your car is in in relation to that charger and show you when you're in an optimal area. And if you're not, it'll ask you to repark.
Thomas:We also do the same thing on your phone. If you're using an in app display or using the HMI, the screen within the car. Yeah. So either of those work. There is a a misalignment tolerance.
Thomas:You don't have to be directly over it. And so we have tolerances that are set by SAE, the Society of Automotive Engineers, which creates the standard for wireless charging all over the world that says we have to be 85% efficient or greater and we have to allow for certain tolerances back and forth, up and down, etcetera. So x y z access and we've tested and exceeded all those standards. So there's no pressure to say you have to hit this exact pinpoint or it's not gonna work.
Gregg:Yeah.
Thomas:You have a little bit of wiggle room and you're always gonna be above 85% efficient or we're gonna tell you to realign your car so that you get more efficient and ideally get up to that peak efficiency of 91 to 95.
Gregg:Okay. Do you have do you have envision anything being in a pad? Because presumably it's very hard to do it in a car, and we're still way off from cars parking themselves very precisely on their own. But do you envision the wireless pad could have something that moves inside basically to kind of reposition the coil in there? That too hard to achieve?
Thomas:We typically don't do that. There are some players in the industry that do robotic charging or have some kind of mechanical mechanism to get the charger closer to the car. We actually find that drivers do a pretty good job.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:I remember my first day at the office, I tried it out myself, got it on the first try. It's not too hard, it's just like pulling into a parking spot. What we do see is the potential to partner with technology companies that are working on automated parking or working on automated driving. We did a really cool pilot project with a company based in Detroit to pair their automated parking with our automated charging. And there's a great video out there that I can share with you where the car drives itself to the parking spot, charges itself, and then drives itself out of the parking lot.
Thomas:And you can imagine going to a football match, going to a soccer match, going to a baseball game, a concert, any kind of venue, and you can just drive up to that venue, get out of your car and the car can navigate itself to a parking spot and charge and come back to you at the end of the event. It's pretty remarkable. Yeah. So that works. That's tested.
Thomas:That's not necessarily lab technology. That that's pairing together the automated parking that I'm sure you've seen in vehicles where these cars can parallel park themselves.
Gregg:Right? Yeah. I've seen that.
Thomas:But instead of just parallel parking itself onto the street, you parallel park it over a HEVO charger and then it will wirelessly charge for you.
Gregg:Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Have some scary experiences from cars trying to park themselves in the past. When you sit in a car as a driver, you look you and the car just does something.
Gregg:It's very uneasy, but the to to It is. But, you know, I'm sure this technology is getting only better. And since you mentioned the partnership with Celantus, you could perhaps, you know, ask them to integrate that with the car as well. Some sort of alignment technology would be because most drivers are quite capable, but if you think about some people who you've mentioned disabled people, It it's much more difficult for them to operate the steering wheel or or whatever. It might be any any anything that helps them might be might be good because especially for especially for a a domestic market cause you know, we've talked about fleets and and so on, that's all great.
Thomas:Right.
Gregg:These people are professional drivers, they're capable. But Mhmm. Yeah. Is there anything that I because I'm I'm conscious of the time. I don't know how much time you've you have.
Thomas:Yeah. I I think one thing that I would add is is just the convenience factor for everyday people.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:I think we've seen stories of people who park their EVs in creepy garages at night because it's the only place they have access to a plug in charger. We've seen people pull into charging stations and there's no cover on them and it's pouring rain. Yes. And people are worried about not just the discomfort, but but is it safe and can I plug in now? And we're always taught as kids, don't plug anything in when it's wet.
Thomas:Right? And we're almost having to rewire our brains to do that. So I think the convenience of saying, I can just pull in and go about my day and not worry about plugging in. It doesn't matter what the weather condition is, it doesn't matter if I have my kids running around, it doesn't matter if I'm with my older parents and they're using a walker and are they gonna trip over it. Just that convenience of I can just operate my car as I drive.
Thomas:Or operate my car and charge it as I drive wherever I go.
Gregg:Yeah. The is is it you're you're based in The US and the product is probably made in The US as well.
Thomas:That's right.
Gregg:Do you ever see it being sold outside of The US?
Thomas:We do. Actually, our biggest market is The UK.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:So we have customers in The US, The UK, South Korea, and Australia. That
Gregg:could
Thomas:be fleets, could be automakers, that could be installers who work with a number of different people, but those are our four primary markets. There's a ton of opportunity out there. We've recently partnered with an installer named Via, which is out of Detroit. They cover territory from Canada to Brazil. There's a lot of global expansion for HEVO that we're hoping to have in the next couple of years.
Gregg:Amazing. Is there any way somebody could get that for the house? Like if, you know, if I said, here's a chunk of money, come and install it on my car and in my house, is that possible at the moment or are you only working b to b at the moment?
Thomas:It's primarily b to b. It's not to say that it's impossible, that it's technologically infeasible or anything like that. It's just our primary market's b to b. We typically work with automakers to make sure that our communication is speaking to their communication systems. Yeah.
Thomas:We're fully integrated with their vehicles. There's no concerns about warranty, about safety, about anything else. And then working with installers to make sure that we can we can install these systems through dealerships, through electricians, through a pretty wide network of providers. So we're typically not doing one offs, but if you did wanna buy one and you wanted to retrofit it to your car, it would certainly work.
Gregg:Okay. Is there any restriction on models or makes of of cars? Or you because yeah. Just, you know, is it is it is it basically any car that has an AC charger currently capable of of of having your system installed? Or do you have to work with specific, you know, make and model to actually have instructions or I don't know, a certification to actually get that installed?
Thomas:So the short answer is we need to work with the automakers to make sure that we're speaking the car's language and the car is speaking our language, that we're compatible. And we've done that with a number of car companies, we've worked with many of the major automakers to make that happen. And there's a new standard from SAE, from the Society of Automotive Engineers that sets the standard for how we need to communicate and how we need to integrate our systems so that it's interoperable.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:And it's interoperable in both senses of the word. We can use our equipment with any make or model of the vehicles, but also we could have our ground pad and that would be compatible with the vehicle pad from another wireless charging company.
Gregg:Okay. That's awesome. So you
Thomas:wouldn't have to have the ground and the vehicle components from HEVO. You could have the vehicle component from HEVO and the ground pad from somebody else or vice versa. So those those standards are set out, that's what we're implementing with Stellantis right now, those SAE standards and the other automakers will get there over the next couple of years. Once they all comply with that SAE standard, it's truly plug and play.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:Any make or model. Right now, it's more based on who we've established that relationship with and that's a handful of automakers, many that people have, but it's not all of them and that integration will take a little bit more time.
Gregg:Yeah. I suppose that makes makes a difference when, you know, we're just going back to the other question about the private users getting it installed. It makes it difficult for somebody to install it on any car they they just bought. And quite often people, you know, I mean, EVs become more and more prevalent out there. The quite often people just get whatever is the newest model from whatever OEM that they prefer, and you wouldn't you wouldn't necessarily have that enabled in a particular car.
Gregg:So Mhmm. But that
Thomas:that NCE standard is huge for this industry. And if you've been reading the news recently around plug in charging in different vehicles and the White House trying to convince Tesla to open up their network to other vehicles and that whole battle of, well, can I use CCS, but what if I have a J1772 and what if I have a etcetera?
Gregg:That that
Thomas:has been settled on the wireless charging side in part because of the leadership of SAE to say, this is how the integration has to happen.
Gregg:Yeah. I I think it's
Thomas:And auto makers, if you adhere to this standard, charging companies, if you adhere to this standard, you're truly interoperable.
Gregg:Yeah.
Thomas:And EVO is one of the only companies in the world to adhere to that standard, so it's it's a big deal for us.
Gregg:Yeah. I think it's a quite a quite an old standards as well. Like, I mean, it's not it's not recent, basically. It's it's it's in India. It's interesting the the problems you guys have in The US, with the charging standards.
Gregg:It it it is not a problem much of a problem in the in Europe these days, but, you know, that's a good that's a good thing that you guys are are, you know, compatible with different so to say because OEMs obviously quite often have their own preferred ways of doing things to to keep it cost effective, And they wouldn't necessarily wanna buy something from a third party company.
Thomas:One thing I'll mention is is more of a long term vision. This isn't something that can necessarily come to fruition today. But over time, as these wireless chargers are placed throughout your community, when they're at McDonald's, when they're at Starbucks, when they're at the gym, when they're at Target, when they're at your office, when they're at your apartment garage, you won't have to have as big of a battery because you're constantly topping off your battery as you go about your day. Yeah. And that is a huge deal, not just for passenger vehicles, for commercial vehicles, for heavy duty vehicles that spend a tremendous amount of money on batteries.
Thomas:Think about how much you pay for a Tesla to get that extended range. Think about how expensive some of these new EVs are in large part because of how big their batteries are. And some of that is due to battery technology and the battery supply chain and plenty of other reasons for that and there are reasons why that cost will likely come down in recent years. But if you could have a range of a 100 miles because you're constantly charging, that could cut the cost of the vehicle significantly.
Gregg:Yeah.
Thomas:And now you're not only making the charging experience more accessible, but you're actually making owning the vehicle, being able to own and operate that vehicle much more accessible. So that's really the long term vision and the long term business case for a lot of customers is to say, look, by implementing wireless, we can actually cut down the battery size, cut down the weight, cut down all these factors that contribute to cost and make this much more attainable for the for the world.
Gregg:Yeah. I think I think the weight is the the biggest one because obviously, it shortens your range because you have to log around the the big battery with you.
Thomas:That's right.
Gregg:But, yeah, I mean, these days, we have cars out there that, you know, are capable of 250 plus miles. And that's a that's a lot that's a lot of driving. Even in The US, you know, you have to sit behind the wheel for quite a few hours to do 250 miles. So, you know
Thomas:That's right.
Gregg:You do have you're gonna have to stop anyway. Right? So
Thomas:Yeah. There there's definitely different psychologies depending on where you are in the world. When you talk to a lot of drivers in The United States, they say, well, I don't know if I can buy an EV because what if I drive across the country?
Gregg:Yeah.
Thomas:The the common follow-up question is how often do you drive across the country? But but that's the mindset is I need to have my car be able to drive a thousand miles. What if I wanna drive from Michigan to Florida? What if I wanna drive from Illinois to Arizona over the winter? People are thinking that way.
Thomas:They're not necessarily thinking that way in East Asia.
Gregg:Okay.
Thomas:They're not thinking that way necessarily in in Northern Europe. And so we have to really adapt our message and adapt the use case and the business case and everything about what we communicate with customers depending on where they are. It's it's been really interesting as we travel around the world selling these chargers, what matters to people, what stories we hear, what concerns they have. And it's certainly a market for everybody but it it's always interesting to hear what people come up with.
Gregg:Yeah. I mean, yeah, that sounds interesting. It's in in The UK, it's a it's a there are certain people who will say, okay, I I need to drive from I don't know I don't know how good you are with the geography of of of The UK, but the there's people who say basically, I need to drive from, you know, South Of England, the coasts to to to the Northern Part of Scotland, and that's like a ten hour drive. Mhmm. You know, that's 800, 900 miles, and nobody drives that in a day.
Gregg:Like, it's just impossible. But, yeah, that's that's the common concern that people have. You know, I need to drive to work every day to Scotland. No. Don't.
Gregg:Mhmm. Nobody does that on a daily basis.
Thomas:No. No.
Gregg:It sounds it sounds sounds quite exciting. I mean, you know, the the points you've you've made made about the the kind of utility of it are are, you know, are very, very good ones that I don't think I've heard anybody else mentioning before. So
Thomas:Yeah, it's exciting. I think a lot of people out there believe it's research project. It's people in a garage, early Apple, early Google days and that's not true. We have customers out there all over the world and our competitors do as well. This is a real technology, there's global standards around it, there's competition around it.
Thomas:It's becoming much and more much more accessible to people and much more price viable. And so that's exciting for us. We wanna get it out there. We think it makes a huge difference in the market, whether it's for these commercial customers who are concerned about plug in or whether it's the 40% of drivers who are disabled, elderly, living in urban communities that don't have access to plug in. This is a huge huge market that's shut out because plug in charging doesn't work for people.
Gregg:Yeah.
Thomas:And so we we believe we have a better way to do it.
Gregg:Thank you very much.
Thomas:Awesome. Thank you, Gray.
Gregg:Well, there you go folks. What did you think? Send me your feedback, there's gonna be loads of things in W dos, you know, with links from Thomas and Hivo, all the sort of videos and photos that he mentioned, you'll be able to see it. Also, go and visit their website, it's hivo.com. And let me know what you think.
Gregg:Give me all your feedback you have. Happy to like listen to anything. Bad, good, whatever. Takeitvgmail dot com takeitvmastodundo social on the good old Mastodun as well. We've been there since April, and you know, it's been going pretty well.
Gregg:Yeah. And if you see me in person, just you know, say hi and give me a high five or something. Anyway, thanks everybody, and I'll see you on the next one.
