BOSTON—Shortly after appearing on season 12 of ABC's “Shark Tank,” SparkCharge is now building a mobile and scalable EV charging network to provide electric vehicle owners on-demand access to charging wherever their vehicle is parked.
“Our company was created with the goal of remove the hurdles of owning and driving an electric vehicle,” said SparkCharge CEO Josh Aviv in this YouTube video, where he unveiled the company’s Roadie, a portable EV charger.
“We’re building a completely new type of EV charging infrastructure,” said Aviv. “It’s mobile, on-demand and for the first time truly gives EV owners freedom and control to charge” their EV where and when they want.”
Companies like Allstate Roadside and Spiffy have teamed up with SparkCharge to service EVs by delivering a portable Roadie charging system to any location the driver desires. This service offers EV owners another option to the current charging infrastructure, whether at home or at convenience stores, gas stations, residential complexes, places of work, etc.
“With SparkCharge, Allstate Roadside is able to protect more customers by expanding roadside service and protection to those with electric vehicles,” said Joan Trach, COO of Allstate Roadside.
SparkCharge also caught the attention of Mark Cuban, who is now an investor in the company.
"When SparkCharge appeared on Shark Tank, I knew they were on the cusp of something game-changing, and this is it. They have created a new, innovative EV charging infrastructure that eliminates the stress of range anxiety for all EV owners. The EV market is growing so fast and having a network completely free from the legacy issues of old infrastructure is huge. As an electric vehicle owner myself, getting my car charged while I do other things is priceless," Cuban said.
Aviv noted that he believes mobile, on-demand charging will help grow the EV market. “We’re building amazing programs that utilize BoostEV with large OEMs, utilities, fleet, hospitality, and several other industries,” he said.
BoostEV Charging as a Service (CaaS) is available in Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Raleigh, Richmond, Va., Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and Santa Cruz.
Current EV Infrastructure
NACS Daily reported last week that only 40,000 public charging stations have been registered with the U.S. Department of Energy, compared to around 150,000 U.S. gas stations. The White House has set a target of half a million charging stations, which means charging infrastructure investments should top $13 billion between now and 2026. There are ample opportunities for commercial charging stations to bring customers to retail locations much like fuel pumps bring customers to convenience stores.
Meanwhile, the Fuels Institute has prepared an EV market evaluation from the consumer perspective, including total cost of ownership, recharging infrastructure requirements, anticipated consumer recharging behavior and the relationship of EVs to competing technology in terms of consumer adoption. Visit “Electric Vehicle Adoption: Focus on Charging” to learn more. Also, the Electric Vehicle Council soon will be publishing three new reports pertaining to EV charging infrastructure options, regulations and consumer behavior.