The EV ecosystem is a work in progress, and when it comes to charging infrastructure, there are some key pieces missing from the puzzle. There will surely be a need for some form of portable charging on demand, and this is the niche that SparkCharge is looking to fill with its new app platform, BoostEV. The company''s modular, portable system—called the Roadie—is designed to make DC fast charging mobile. Now, EV drivers can order a charge at the push of a button on a smartphone app the way you might order a rideshare vehicle—anytime, anywhere.
SparkCharge co-founder and CEO Joshua Aviv spoke with Charged back in 2019, when the Roadie was in pre-production, and the company was working with prototypes. Now SparkCharge has deployed its system with the first wave of customers. A recent appearance on Shark Tank that ended in a deal with celeb investors Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner brought the company an avalanche of publicity.
In February, the company officially launched its new BoostEV platform in select cities—it''s now available in Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, Raleigh, Richmond, San Diego, San Francisco and Santa Cruz. Launch partners include Allstate Roadside, Spiffy and others who teamed up with SparkCharge to create a quick and convenient charging service that can deliver a portable Roadie charging system to any location the driver desires.
"When SparkCharge appeared on Shark Tank, I knew they were on the cusp of something game-changing, and this is it," said Mark Cuban. "They have created a new, innovative EV charging infrastructure that eliminates the stress of range anxiety for all EV owners."
Charged recently sat down with Joshua for an update on BoostEV, which he describes as "the app that lets electric vehicle owners charge their EVs anywhere with the click of a button—like UberEats or GrubHub for hungry EVs."
Josh: Now we''re in full production, we''re rocking and rolling. The factory in Buffalo is shipping out units every day now. That''s basically fully operational. We can ship thousands of units a year now.
We realized that we had this amazing core piece of technology, the hardware, the Roadie, and that if we wanted to really solve the problem of infrastructure, we needed to be able to get it in the hands of as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. We looked at the way that other industries have gone. Almost every industry has gone with this convenience on-demand approach. And we said, "Well, we''re in the perfect position to do that for electric vehicles."
Josh: Customers on BoostEV would be EV owners, but our partner companies that join BoostEV are businesses. The quickest analogy to think of would be: if you downloaded Grubhub or Uber Eats, you see a bunch of restaurants, you see a bunch of businesses. With us, it''s almost the same thing, except you''re seeing all these businesses that are now servicing EV owners and they''re delivering range.
We don''t take any percentage of the fee and we don''t charge any of the businesses or the EV owners to join the app. It''s just pay-per-usage, no monthly fees or anything. We set it up to be exactly like you were ordering a burrito online. You just pay for what you need.
Our goal is to be the fastest-growing EV network in the country. With regular charging stations, or what we like to call legacy infrastructure, you have to get the permits, do the RFP, do the construction, put the pole in the ground, get it set up, order the utility, yada, yada, yada. With us, it''s basically take it out of the box, plug it in.
And we can be in any city that a business wants to operate in. So, right now, if you said, "Well, Josh, how quickly can you expand to the Tampa/St Pete, Florida area?" If Charged wanted to service EV owners in the Tampa Bay area (the location of Charged HQ), I could have your unit tomorrow, and then Tampa Bay is on the map. Now Tampa Bay EV owners can start getting range delivered.
The plan is to add new cities monthly, and our goal is to be solidly in about 20 to 25 cities by the end of this year. Anyone can request to start an area. We go through a vetting process—we''re trying to figure out how many EVs are in that area to decide whether you have enough demand, but any business can request to start operating in an area.
Charged: So for example, say I have a towing business and I want to sign up, what''s the process like? Do I buy the equipment? Do I lease it from you? How''s that work?
Josh: You can buy, lease, or finance the equipment from us. Basically, once you have the equipment, you''re on the network. You can start delivering range to anybody in that area.
Josh: We have people who go all out—they have roughly 12 units that they''re deploying on multiple fleets across a city. If you''re a tow-truck company, you''ve probably got at least two or three different trucks driving around. And then we have your mom-and-pops that are out there with maybe five or six units rolling around and servicing EV owners.
Charged: The last time we talked, the hardware had a CHAdeMO connector, and you were using the Tesla adapter for Teslas. Is that still what you''re working with?
BoostEV is not roadside-focused. If you run out of range, you can definitely have it delivered via BoostEV, but this really is an on-demand charging-as-a-service platform. It''s meant to be able to charge an EV whenever you want it—at home, at the grocery store, outside of Starbucks, when you''re at the mall, sitting on your couch in your living room. "Hey, Alexa, charge my car 50 miles." Someone comes and shows up in your driveway. We''re really focusing this on convenience charging. Yes, we work with roadside companies, but BoostEV is not a roadside-focused app.
BoostEV is not roadside-focused. If you run out of range, you can definitely have it delivered via BoostEV, but this really is an on-demand charging-as-a-service platform.
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