by Jesus Garcia - 09/30/2023
MOVE America
2023
The silicon
sprawling city of Austin recently hosted the MOVE America tech mobility and
start-up conference. This event assembles vendors, start-ups, and companies alike
to showcase their ideas and products for the highly competitive field of
electric mobility.
Armed with a
paper notepad and clicky pen, I used my media pass to chat with engineers and
PR representatives to understand what's coming down the silicon grapevine when
it comes to electric transportation.
After a full
day of shaking hands and asking, "How does it work?" of various
professionals, I noticed a clear and defined theme – convenience. Convenience
is the new black when talking about electrified mobility. Many companies at the
event showed solutions for the near future that instilled optimism in
tomorrow's potential.
With the
electric vehicle market growing like weeds after a rainstorm, the common issue
is figuring out how and where to keep them charged. Several charging station
companies were there showcasing their latest Level 1,2 and 3 chargers.
For a brief
explanation, a Level 1 charger is a slower, standard plug-in used for at-home
charging. A Level 1 charger can take hours to top off a half-depleted EV
battery. Level 2 chargers, which you typically see in public parking lots for
EV owners to top off while they shop, feed the battery a bit faster but can
still take about four hours to charge to 80%. A Level 3, or DC fast charger,
can get you to that level in less than an hour. They are the biggest, rivaling
the size of gasoline pumps with a more futuristic or authoritarian aesthetic,
depending on how to view things.
FLO EV Charging
FLO, a charging company with roots in New York City, has been addressing the issues with EV
charging on all fronts. Its company ideology for building chargers starts with
the basics. Make it work, make it reliable, and then focus on making it as
convenient as possible. For example, one of the common issues with public
chargers is arriving only to find out it's been vandalized or out of order. FLO
maintains its growing network of public chargers in New York City with a
full-time maintenance crew whose only job is ensuring all company chargers are
in working order.
Natan Yang, FLO's chief product officer, showed me the design of its latest Level 3 charger. What stands out is the size. These chargers stand five feet tall and boast LED lighting, are pre-wired for video and audio surveillance, and provide a mechanical mechanism to make lifting the often-heavy charging handle easier. FLO's market research showed that people felt unsafe charging at night because these massive level 3 chargers can make it easy for someone to hide behind or lurk in its shadow.
Making chargers
shorter makes them appear more welcoming and accessible for maintenance. FLO
does not have any chargers in Texas, and when asked what the leading factor in
advancing the electric charging infrastructure here was, the answer,
regrettably, lay in the slow grind of bureaucracy at the city, state, and
national levels.
Mercedes Pay
USA for Me Connect Profile
Companies tied
to OEMs like Mercedes Pay USA aim to turn your vehicle into a trusted device.
Late-model Mercedes-Benz vehicles allow customers to create a "me
connect" profile. Like using an OEM app, this profile stores personal
preferences and settings. Mercedes Pay USA is launching a new feature to help
drivers find a parking spot and pay for it without ever touching an app on
their phones.
Owners can
store their banking information in their me-connect profile, as with their
personal laptop or smartphone, to make digital purchases seamless. Moreover,
Mercedes Pay USA is PCI certified, meaning it is licensed to collect and secure
sensitive material like credit card information. The product will be added to a
long list of standard Mercedes-Benz features.
WiTricity
Wireless EV Charging
One of the most
eye-opening technologies on display was the WiTricity wireless EV charger. This
product functions similarly to a wireless charging pad for your phone. It's a
large pad placed on the ground that activates when an EV drives over it in a
parking space. Showcasing the product was a retrofitted Ford Mustang Mach 3
with WiTricity's resistor. The hope is that this will become a factory option
for OEMs to include as a "tech package" for customers.
WiTricity is
working with companies to provide wireless charging pads as they switch to
electrifying their vehicle fleet. The potential and straightforward delivery of
this device is what caught my attention. The resistor is about the size of a
medium pizza box. Imagine a future where an entire row of parking spaces with
wireless charging pads allows EVs to park and charge without fussing with
cumbersome charging cables.
CarValoo AI
Fleet Management
While on the topic of fleets, CarValoo is an AI company aimed at taking the stress out of fleet management. Using a sensor box the size of a wristwatch, CarValoo provides users with real-life 360 data analysis. If a vehicle strays from the routine, meaning if it's involved in a scenario where the vehicle is damaged, the CarValoo AI sensor instantly records it.
Moreover, this
service does not track a vehicle's location. It only records a time stamp when
damage is alerted. CarValoo does not hold any information on the driver or
vehicle itself. It's merely a tool to help maintain transparency in fleet
management by removing doubt from the equation. CarValoo was established in
Europe and is available in the United States as of 2023.
Beep
Autonomous Ride Sharing
One company actively working to reduce congestion in urban areas is Beep. A Florida-based
shared mobility network using Level 3 autonomous vans that can shuttle around a
circuit route. These electric vans are autonomous 95 percent of the time, with
someone at the controls in case there's an obstacle blocking its mapped path.
Beep
representatives mentioned that Level 4 autonomy-capable Beep vans are coming in
2025, which won't require a physical person at the controls and reach speeds of
25 mph. It's easy to imagine the benefit of having a few of these compact
self-driving vans shuffling people from one block to another in a downtown
district, reducing the number of cluttering cars.
With companies like these already making headway in the transportation industry, one can only ponder how radically different the urban landscape will look in two to three years, especially in Texas, where progress in electric mobility is more tortoise than hare - unless you live in Austin.
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