Plugging into the shared economy.
ampUp is a mobile app that allows EV drivers to find, reserve, and charge their vehicles on a shared network of public and private chargers. It is home to one of the most extensive maps of public and private EV chargers across the United States. Tom Sun and Tim Gavrilovic founded ampUp with the mission to make electric vehicles easier to use for the average person.
InsideEVs recently spoke with Tim Gavrilovic, Co-Founder and Head of Business Development at ampUp to learn more about this interesting new service.
Image taken from 2018 Wood Mackenzie research Report: EV Charging Infrastructure Development: Global Market Evolution, Major Stakeholders and Key Trends
How would you describe EV charging infrastructure?
Tim: “It is incredibly complex. I spent the last few years focusing on EV infrastructure and published several comprehensive research reports for Wood Mackenzie (formerly GTM Research). Most successful EV infrastructure projects involved multiple stakeholders and often took years to complete.”
“Electric Ray” & Tim
What does the EV charging infrastructure ecosystem consist of?
Tim: “The starting point is the charging host. Electric utilities provide the critical component – the electricity grid and the energy needed to charge. Government and regulatory entities support the ecosystem with funding opportunities and ensure a competitive market environment. Charging equipment represents all the hardware used in the process – chargers, connectors, adapters, communication devices, etc. Many services are necessary as well – installation, maintenance, insurance, and warranties to name a few.”
“The software layer is the most interactive aspect of the EV charging experience – such as charger search, payments, and data management. These are the features customers are comfortable with today and expect in the apps they rely on. We are encouraged by the research, certification, and standardization organizations work to improve the technology, interoperability, and communications. However, information plays a critical role. So we need media agencies, dealerships, EV associations and websites to provide new or prospective electric drivers with useful information for selecting, buying, leasing, owning and driving their EVs.”
Why did you join ampUp?
Tim: “Tom, ampUp’s founder, read some of my research and asked me to join as an advisor. I immediately thought to myself – reservations and peer-to-peer charging – this is a highly underserved market. More importantly, it has the potential to exponentially grow the EV infrastructure as it removes many complexities I mentioned earlier. It takes our users less than a minute to share their charger on ampUp.”
What do you see ampUp achieving in 2020?
Tim: “ampUp exists to support the EV driver and provide the most comprehensive set of charging options, enabling more people to drive EVs. To do this, our primary business objective is to grow the charging infrastructure ecosystem. EV infrastructure is a tough market and my research over the last few years has taught me that the best way to grow this market is through multi-stakeholder partnerships. As such, ampUp is actively seeking to work with best-in-class infrastructure providers, both in hardware and in software services. We are growing quickly through partnerships with property owners and EV charger manufacturers, so I’m hopeful we can offer a truly expansive EV network to our users in 2020”.
InsideEVs thoughts
One of the barriers to widespread EV proliferation is converting range anxiety that some EVs owners have to range confidence. ampUp will help EVs owners find, reserve and charge their vehicles easier, thus helping to ease an existing pain point for EV owners. We think ampUp is on to something here, and we’ll continue to follow the team’s progress.
You can reach out to Tim at [email protected] or go to https://ampup.io to learn more.
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