How does ADS-TEC Energy position itself in the EV charging space, and what are the benefits of your battery-buffered charging offering?
ADS-TEC Energy is not a charging company that solely focuses on charging. Our mission is to play a role in the transition of the energy system itself. With EV charging and millions of cars needing charging infrastructure, we will see peaks in demand on the grid and not everyone can afford to wait 6-8 hours to recharge their EV on a low-power grid.
Mobility is freedom. It's all about availability. People want to drive and they don't want to wait hours to charge their vehicles. That is why we think that one of the driving factors to the criticality of ultra-fast charging and in turn, demand of peak power in the grid, will be driver frustration.
We will see a new level of demand for power because these new cars use high peak charging power rates. The Porsche Taycan was the first EV that could take close to a 300kW charge but now more and more cars are charging at 200kW and 250kW, and the existing grid is not able to support that everywhere. That is why our ADS-TEC Energy battery-buffered platform is the ideal solution. It can take the electricity from an existing grid connection point which may have only from 39 kW available in the EU and in the US 50kW or 110 kW available, and then buffer the electrons in the internal battery storage.
As soon as the car shows up, our system takes what it gets from the grid and adds what is already stored in its battery, boosting the available charging power up to 320 kW, which makes it very convenient for people to charge their vehicles in minutes instead of hours.
We’ve just launched our battery-buffered, ultra-fast ChargeBox at a condominium complex called Marina Palms in Miami. It’s an interesting project because it gives an impression of what we expect will be the standard in five to ten years. In Miami, you have a lot of charge points throughout the city – you can charge at Wawa gas stations and Tesla stations – but for the residents living in a condo it's very inconvenient to drive 15 minutes through traffic jams to a charging station, wait 20 minutes to get recharged and then return home.
Now, luxury condo developers and property managers have two options to consider when installing EV chargers for residents. In the case of a condo with 400 parking spots, option number one is to equip shared or resident-dedicated parking spots with slower Level 2 chargers. The challenge here however is, that new parking spaces for shared spots are often not available, expensive to electrify and the aggregate power demand of 70 Level 2 parking spots requires utility grid upgrades. In addition, of the 400 cars owned by residents, let’s say around 70 are EVs, often expensive, high-powered ones such as Taycans and Teslas. For a slow charger the parking spot would be blocked for several hours. With the second option of the new ChargeBox, residents can get an ultra-fast charge with up to 320 kW, while the condo only needs two parking spots to serve 100 cars a week and the grid fees are limited to 100 kW power draw. The spots are not blocked, installation requires no cabling, no grid expansion, and people can charge in minutes.
In this very small ChargeBox there is the inverter, the cooling system, the heating system and the battery, all in the one box. It contains a 140 kWh battery and can be connected to two dispensers, each of which can be up to 300ft away from the box. We can do 20 to 30 charging sessions a day or more, because the internal battery buffer is always recharging from the grid. In one week, we have deployed 7 megawatt hours of charging which is amazing. That is what an e-truck park does. So, the box is really a supplement or replacement for this kind of grid expansion.
How is your business model different from other EV charging companies?
It's a difficult situation right now for charging companies, but we have a different business model. We are offering a platform system, similar to what Apple provides with smartphones – they take care of the operating system, the security, the back-end connection, everything, and that's what we do. We provide the platform, and we give you services for your business model for 10 to 15 years which we are able to ensure since everything is developed in-house within ADS-TEC Energy. We provide it all – the replacement spare parts, software upgrades, remote management and security patches over the air, for example.
Which customer segments are you targeting with your battery-buffered charging offering?
We're targeting different segments, including multi-family properties, car dealerships, gas stations and convenience stores.
Car dealerships will require fast charging capabilities for their operations but also to showcase the EV charging power to customers during test drives. We have gas station projects up and running in Germany with Avia in Berlin and with Esso in several cities. We expanded the business of conventional gas stations by adding the ultra-fast charger.
We support convenience stores, and we also see a big market for office buildings, hotels, and other privately-owned businesses that want to serve their customers.
In the future, more and more company vehicles are going electric, and fleets are going to change and push the limits of new technology. It will be a standard, and these companies will want and need to provide a fast-charge. I have spoken with family-owned businesses which are planning to equip all of their sites with at least one ultra-fast charger, because if there is a customer there, they cannot afford to wait six hours or take the car 10 miles to a charge park and wait an hour. So, that is a big game changer.
I'm convinced that in ten years from now we will laugh and say: “Ten years ago we were talking about where ultra-fast charging might be installed, and now it's everywhere.”
Who will be the power providers for EV charging in the future, will it still be dominated by utilities?
Utilities are the frontrunners because they already have the business today, but we also see automotive OEMs now kicking in.
We are also now seeing new corporations that just have a digital business model. We call them the future power companies and they are taking care of a very volatile data-driven operation. They can’t be counted as a utility because they only run servers and software, but they are trading electricity.
Which regions are the main markets for ADS-TEC Energy?
The company focuses on Europe and North America. We also have some units in Australia. We are not in Asia. The majority of our business is all over Europe and we now have more than 100 installations – and growing – in the U.S. In the U.S., we had a little bit of delay compared with Europe because we entered the market much more recently, but we have been deploying chargers in Europe for more than a decade.
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