#247 Could EVs + Demand Response Solve Grid Flexibility? | Joseph Vellone (ChargeScape)

What’s up, everyone! 

Today we’re sharing an episode with Joseph Vellone, the CEO of ChargeScape — a Joint Venture between Ford, Honda, BMW, and Nissan. 

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As the grid continues to buckle under the pressure of ever-increasing demand, it’s more important than ever to find ways to manage the existing load. 

However, it’s not all bad. One of the main demand drivers might be the core solution to these demand problems—namely, EVs, when paired with smart charging software. 

You see, all these EVs are essentially backup batteries. Currently, not all are equipped with bi-directional charging, but most new vehicles hitting the roads are. 

So, not only can a smart charging software, managed by utilities, alleviate demand on the grid, it can also pull energy from the vehicles when the time is right (again, when the hardware capabilities are present). 

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This fundamentally shifts our perspective on vehicles. Instead of a cost center, it could earn you money by purchasing cheap energy, or charging on solar for free, and selling back to the grid at peak demand times. 

This is the type of utopian future we work towards — and the best part, it’s becoming reality in front of us. 

Topics 

**01:35 Revolutionizing EV Charging

**05:21 Joseph Vellone's Journey in Renewable Energy

**07:47 The Unique Opportunity at ChargeScape

**12:00 Transforming the EV Charging Experience

**13:30 Make Money w/ Smart Charging

**18:04 The Future of EVs + Renewable Energy

**20:03 Building a High-Performance Team

**23:10 Managing Startup Intensity Without Burnout

**25:58 How to Successfully Sell to Utilities

**28:50 The Benefits of Having Automakers as Strategic Investors

**31:17 The Role of AI in ChargeScape's Strategy

**33:44 Understanding EV Industry Backlash

**37:59 Resilience of EV Charging Amid Political Pushback

Links

**Joseph Vellone | ChargeScape

**Connect with Somil on LinkedIn |

Chapters

• 1:35 Revolutionizing EV Charging
• 5:21 Joseph Vellone's Journey in Renewable Energy
• 7:47 The Unique Opportunity at ChargeScape
• 12:00 Transforming the EV Charging Experience
• 13:30 Make Money w/ Smart Charging
• 18:04 The Future of EVs + Renewable Energy
• 20:03 Building a High-Performance Team
• 23:10 Managing Startup Intensity Without Burnout
• 25:58 How to Successfully Sell to Utilities
• 28:50 The Benefits of Having Automakers as Strategic Investors
• 31:17 The Role of AI in ChargeScape's Strategy
• 33:44 Understanding EV Industry Backlash
• 37:59 Resilience of EV Charging Amid Political Pushback

Transcript

Joseph Vellone (00:00)
I thought it was very interesting that all of these automakers were actually kind of banding together. These are companies that compete against each other that actually realize that this is a really tricky problem to solve and no one can really do it alone. savings somewhere between 250 and $500 a year. What we call kind of like basic smart charging. So that's just like demand reduction when the grid is overloaded. We have a lot of EV drivers who have maybe got rooftop solar.

And so they'll actually charge up their battery with solar electricity, which cost them nothing. We estimate that some drivers are going to earn over $4,000 a year on vehicle-to-grid export.

Silas Mähner (00:36)
Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Clean Techies. Each week, Somil and I publish a discussion with leading climate tech founders and investors so you can learn from them and avoid making the same mistakes that they did. Today, my guest is Joseph Villone, the CEO of ChargeScape, a joint venture between Honda, Ford, BMW and Nissan to create EV charging software that simultaneously helps utilities to manage demand and improves the charging experience for the EV owner. and it also saves them money on their charging.

So I've known Joseph for over a year now, and I actually had the privilege of helping him build out the leadership team at ChargeScape through my search for Earth Tech talent. So I often feel like part of the team when I talk about them, and that definitely comes out in the show. If you're interested in the future of EVs, EV charging, grid demand, AI, and also want to sneak peek into how the current anti-EV rhetoric is affecting the industry, continue listening. All right, enjoy the episode.

All right, Joseph, welcome to the pod. It should have happened sooner, but it's finally happening.

Joseph Vellone (01:40)
Well, thanks for having me, Silas. Yeah, I'm it's happening.

Silas Mähner (01:43)
Yeah, super happy to have you on, So obviously we know each other for a little while here, but for people who don't, give us little bit of an intro. Who are you and what you're doing today?

Joseph Vellone (01:50)
Yep. So I'm Joseph, the CEO of ChargeScape. What I'm doing today, well, I'm running ChargeScape as a business. So typically we have our executive team Monday morning alignment meetings at the start of the week. So I spent a lot of time with the team this week. We just had a board meeting last week. So a lot of outcomes from that and just kind of getting the team up to speed and clear on what we need to do to continue to grow and deliver as a company.

Silas Mähner (02:13)
Nice. And tell people what ChargeScape is, what exactly are you guys up to.

Joseph Vellone (02:17)
Yes, so ChargeScape is a joint venture of some of the world's largest automakers and we build electric vehicle charging software, specifically software that integrates electric vehicles into the country's power grids in a way that balances electricity supply and demand while saving EV drivers money on their charge.

Silas Mähner (02:35)
So you're working with the utilities to help them manage the charges. So you're selling to utilities, not to EV users.

Joseph Vellone (02:41)
That's

exactly right. Yeah. We make our money by licensing our software to utilities. Ultimately, it solves a big problem for them, which is how they manage this increasing demand for electricity coming from electric vehicles, which by the way is happening at the same time as an unprecedented demand coming from data centers for AI, which might also overlap with peak electricity demand from things like summer heat waves or winter cold snaps. And frankly, our nation's power grid was built over a hundred years ago and it just wasn't designed for this level of demand.

So our power grid is literally crumbling under the weight of all this electricity demand. And utilities have two choices. Either they spend billions and millions of dollars to rip up the streets, install new poles and wires and substations and power plants and all of that. Everyone's electricity prices go way up to pay for all of that. Or they can license software that will actually reduce some electricity demand during those peak periods to keep the assets from overloading and ultimately even leverage.

EV batteries to export power back to the grid when it's needed, which is a lot cheaper than building.

Silas Mähner (03:46)
So in other words, if you're ever having a bad day, just wake up and thank the Lord that you're not the CEO of a utility.

Joseph Vellone (03:51)
It's

not an easy job today, that's for sure.

Silas Mähner (03:54)
Yeah, exactly. So what percentage of their efforts are going into still investing in new infrastructure versus just of patching the issues that they're dealing with?

Joseph Vellone (04:02)
Yeah, I think it's hard to say it varies a little bit by the utility. Every utility is regulated by a state level public utilities commission that basically dictates what they can and cannot spend money on because they are a regulated monopoly and the public utilities commissions exist to make sure that utilities spend money wisely and that they don't spend money unnecessarily on things that's going to raise everyone's electricity bills. So that's really what the public utilities commissions are doing. Now, of course.

There can be a case to build new power plants in certain instances. certainly, I think that's happening in places across the country. We're seeing some new nuclear power facilities being built for the first time in decades. We're seeing tons of renewable energy plants, wind farms, solar farms being built and deployed across the country, even new gas-fired power plants as well in certain places. So that's definitely happening. But I think there's a widespread recognition.

that software and technology can actually take care of a lot of the problems that our power grid is facing and do so in a much faster and much more cost effective way. And Chargecape intends to be part of that solution.

Silas Mähner (05:07)
Yeah, no, that's good to hear. I was always curious about the amount of fixing that these kinds of softwares can do now versus like they still have to invest certain amount in the future because AI demand is coming. But we'll talk about that in a bit. I do want to talk about your background a bit. So what were you actually doing before you took this role with ChargeScape? What's your background?

Joseph Vellone (05:27)
Yeah, so I've been working in the energy industry my entire life. I would say that climate and renewable energy has always been my calling, my life's work. I started off actually as a consultant with the Ball State Consulting Group, BCG, working in their energy practice and advising utilities and also oil and gas companies on the build out of renewable energy businesses, distributed energy businesses. So distributed energy is like small scale assets like

rooftop solar panels, EVs, batteries, and other things that are not large power plants. So I've been in this game for a long time. And yeah, most recently I was running the North America business of another EV charging software startup called EV Energy. We were actually headquartered out of London and I was living there at the time and back to the U S to build out their North America business into actually one of the largest EV software businesses and then got tapped for this role.

Silas Mähner (06:24)
Nice. Did you always have an interest specifically in the renewable energy space? Did you go into that role in BCG intentionally or was that kind of just by accident?

Joseph Vellone (06:33)
I always did. Actually, when I was back in high school, so I grew up very close to New York City and I elbowed my way into the laboratory of a chemical engineering professor at Columbia University. Cause when I was like 16 years old, I was obsessed with hydrogen fuel cells and this idea that hydrogen could power things like cars and deliver clean transportation. So I actually like my high school science project was designing and building like a better fuel cell.

And I did that for a few years and I did like all these science fairs across the country. I got to meet the president and like members of Congress. So I've always been just obsessed with renewable energy. I think it's a really difficult but interesting problem to solve. We know that we need to reduce our CO2 emissions as a planet. We know that energy and transportation are the largest sources of emissions. know, increasingly they're intertwined. And so how do you decarbonize these sectors while

not completely disrupting commerce and people's jobs and sort of getting us onto a path towards a more sustainable future. It's, think from an engineering perspective, it's very interesting, but I think also from a societal perspective, it's an interesting problem to solve.

Silas Mähner (07:47)
Obviously, with that really cool background, you could have probably done a lot of things, but what specifically led you to take this role as CEO of Chargecape? Why did you think that you could make the most impact here? Why did you go?

Joseph Vellone (07:58)
Yeah, look,

I've been working in the EV charging industry for a while. And I think the more I worked in this space, the more it became clear that EV charging really can only be solved by the automakers themselves. They are ultimately the ones producing these vehicles, these pieces of hardware that are consuming so much electricity. They manufacture the software as well and control the software to optimize it.

And they have the most direct relationship with the end user, which is the driver. And so I thought it was very interesting when I was approached by the company that is now Chargecape, that all of these automakers were actually kind of banding together, right? These are competitors. These are, these are companies that compete against each other that actually realize that this is a really tricky problem to solve and no one can really do it alone apart from Tesla. And everyone else has got to sort of band together to come up with a solution.

That rivals really what Tesla has built out. ⁓ And so there really is no other sort of startup or company in the sector that's doing what Chargegate does. And so I thought it was just such a unique opportunity to be able to lead and grow an organization that actually had a real chance at making.

Silas Mähner (09:15)
Hey everybody, quick interruption. As I mentioned at the start of the show, I helped Joseph build out the leadership team from the business development to the product team to the policy team to operations. So if you are a clean tech startup looking for top talent, reach out today. I charge about half of what other traditional search firms charge and have over five years experience doing this. So to get in touch, can email us at hello at earth tech talent.com. That's earth with no way. E R T H tech talent.com. Okay, back to the show. Did you think that the automakers was the

only way to do it before this so you were kind of surprised when that came to be.

Joseph Vellone (09:49)
I mean, really thought just looking at Tesla, right? Like Tesla is miles ahead of everyone else on charging and it's because they invested a ton of time and money in.

building out the charging experience both in public with their supercharging stations and their supercharging network, but also at home with a really great app and software experience for EV drivers. look, 80 % of EV charging in America happens at home. Tesla was very smart, I think, to focus on home charging as well. And so I saw what could be accomplished with the right level of investment as well as vision and of course, time. I think...

It was anyone's guess if the other automakers were actually going to step up to plate and try to do something themselves, rather than just let Tesla continue to take the lead. But I think across a number of fronts you've seen, these other automakers really start to catch up to Tesla, both on sales, both on the quality and variety of EVs that are being offered now, definitely on price and cost competitiveness, and increasingly on charging. that goes for Chargecape, which is focused really on at-home residential charging.

but also for our sister joint venture, IANA, which is founded by a lot of the same automakers, which is focused on building out public charging network of 30,000 really high quality DC fast charging stations across America.

Silas Mähner (11:08)
Yeah, I think it's quite fascinating to see them come together because you know as a bystander I was always like yeah It seems like the the other automakers are generally a little bit resistant to this whole trend But I think what it really was they're trying to figure out how to play in it properly because the game that they had played for decades was completely different that than the game than the game they were about to play and I'm actually like really excited to see this this happening obviously maybe a little biased to it, but so let's talk a little bit more about the problem So if I if I get this right just kind of recap what you said before

The big challenge is there's so much demand on the grid and they're just breaking infrastructure. So the utilities need to find ways to try to flatten out these demand spikes. And they can do that through having a large number of EVs charge at different times of the day. So that way they're not adding to the pain that's already happening at peak times of the day. Is that correct?

Joseph Vellone (11:54)
You got it completely right. I can retire now and can just...

Silas Mähner (11:58)
I've only made that pitch a few times. the other thing is I want to understand, isn't there also some aspect of the user? I don't own an EV, so I'm just kind of curious, have the users been complaining about the experience of having a car? Will this also improve that?

Joseph Vellone (12:12)
Look,

I think it definitely improves the charging experience for sure. And I drive an EV myself and I will tell you that charging the EV is the biggest part, I would say, of driving an EV in terms of the experience. It's something that you have to think about and it's something that could also like, look, it does take more time than filling up a gas tank right now. So it is a big part of the EV experience overall. And so I think in solving that you're definitely delivering a better

overall experience for the driver. The other thing is that EV charging, I would say, is probably the main driver of total cost of ownership of an EV after the MSRP sticker price. EV drivers don't really spend much money on anything related to their car. There's really no maintenance. There's very little that you ever need to replace. think the only thing I've ever changed on my car is the windshield wiper fluid when that ran out. And I've had my car for three years.

⁓ Maybe you need to rotate the tires occasionally, I should probably do that. But that also means that your main expense as an EV driver is on charging as well. And so if you as a manufacturer can make EV charging more affordable or even free for EV drivers, that ultimately makes it a much easier sell in the dealership.

Silas Mähner (13:30)
I don't know you guys have numbers on this, but I was always curious if there's a particular expected savings number that you think EV users will see over the lifetime of ownership through having Chargecape software operating in the background.

Joseph Vellone (13:42)
Yeah, the answer is it varies a lot depending on where you live, right? Electricity prices vary so much by location. There are states like California where electricity is very expensive and so charging costs can be quite high and therefore the savings quite large. And there are other parts of the country like Florida actually where electricity is like fairly cheap and so maybe the savings will be a little bit lower even if they're the same as a percentage or relative basis. But generally, you what we sort of see from our different utility programs across the country is

Yeah, consumer savings somewhere between $250 and $500 a year for what we call kind of like basic smart charging. So that's just like demand reduction when the grid is overloaded. That'll mean like a temporary pause of your charging. If we're able to still deliver your full charge by the time the driver specifies, or it could also just be like shifting your charging schedule to a slightly better time for the grid, maybe during overnight hours.

Then for EV drivers who have got a vehicle that is capable of actually exporting power back to the grid through vehicle to grid, there's a lot more money to be made, right? Because suddenly you're a power plant and you are actually exporting power back to the grid. And we have a lot of EV drivers who have maybe got rooftop solar. ⁓ And so they'll actually charge up their battery with solar electricity, which costs them nothing, right? It's just coming from the sun. And then export, they'll maybe do that at 12, 1 PM and then export their power back to the grid.

during peak hours after the sun sets at let's say 5, 6, 7 p.m. And they're actually making a lot of money from that. And we enabled that in the background. You know, we estimate that some drivers are gonna earn over $4,000 a year on vehicle to grid export. when you compare that to the sticker price of a Nissan Leaf, which is capable of that power export and only costs $28,000, you you do that for seven years over the lifetime of the vehicle, the vehicle has paid for itself.

Silas Mähner (15:22)
That's crazy.

Yeah, this is really interesting. This is like the fascinating future stuff we should talk about because it fundamentally changes the way you view a vehicle, right? Like it's no longer just an expense, right? My dad was always telling me, yeah, vehicles are just money pits, But not anymore necessarily, right?

Joseph Vellone (15:51)
And I think technology is changing that in a lot of ways, right? There are things like Turo that people use to just rent out their car, right? And make money from it. People use their car to be Uber and Lyft drivers and make money from it. And even if you're not willing to do any of that, frankly, you can make money from just smart charging your car, typically while you sleep and have a software like Chargecape just kind of handle the complexity for you in the background and just make you

So yeah, I definitely got the same talk from my dad when I was a teenager. And I think that was true for a long time, but I think with EVs, the story is changing and people are actually making real money from their vehicle.

Silas Mähner (16:29)
What's also really fascinating, basically what you're saying is like, if there might have, this might actually also drive adoption of solar panels, it sounds like, because if people have all this infrastructure, you know, they have to maybe invest some upfront, but a lot of times it's financeable in a really like easy way, you can actually see more solar going on the grid too. So I want to go back to this a little bit that we talked about the problems that grid is facing and you, I, at first I was thinking, okay, this is only a patch until they, you know, eventually build infrastructure. But what you're saying hypothetically is that.

If we have enough vehicles using this bi-directional charging where they can send energy back to the grid and more people have solar, we actually might see it solve a lot of the long-term problems the grid is having anyways, right? Because we have so many batteries, these batteries on wheels basically. Is that accurate to think?

Joseph Vellone (17:14)
Yeah, that's exactly right. And you think of having a solar panel on your roof and that's great. And you can use the solar panel when the sun is shining, but ultimately you want to have a battery as well that can store some of that solar power. So you can also use it when the sun sets. People used to have to buy a separate home battery, which costs a lot of money to store that. But when you've got an EV, you've already got a battery inside your car that can store that electricity. so now, look, you're starting to see automakers like Honda.

actually bundle EV charging and rooftop solar solutions. Honda's got a division called home electrification, where they are now selling solar panels to customers because they realize the two are complimentary. That makes a lot of sense. They can expand their business beyond vehicles. And ultimately it's going to make the whole proposition for owning or driving an EV a lot cheaper.

Silas Mähner (18:04)
Are there any other, I mean, if you look into the future and you say, imagine the vision of like every utility using Chargecape software, we've got all these EVs and solar panels on the, like what does the future look like in your mind? Like what are the really exciting things that kind of drive you every day to work so hard?

Joseph Vellone (18:20)
suppose the future that I envision is one where there are EVs everywhere. There are no barriers to EV adoption. People are not worried about charging their car or range anxiety or affordability. That EVs are just the default option. Frankly, they're better performing and also safer vehicles to have on the road. it's one where everyone has access to autonomy and to transportation.

Whether that's having their own vehicle or having some sort of shared vehicle or ride share, but it's electric, it's powered with renewable energy and it's not increasing the pollution in our area.

Silas Mähner (19:01)
Yeah, I think this is really exciting. mean, this is part of the reason I've enjoyed being in with you guys so much about this is it's just such a really cool and tangible future. It's not like dreaming about going to Mars, right? Yeah, there's a good chance we get there, but it also seems like a very obnoxious dream, if you will. Whereas this is like, it's not that hard, it's just execution, basically. We have all the technology.

Joseph Vellone (19:24)
It's not that hard and also it's solving real issues for real people and improving people's everyday lives. Going to Mars is not going to improve anyone's day to day life. Having a clean, reliable vehicle that you can use to take your kids to school and not cause pollution in the school parking lot is something that will absolutely improve people's day to day lives in a very tangible and immediate way.

I've always been interested and attracted to very kind tangible real solutions and I do think ChargeScape is one of

Silas Mähner (20:02)
Yeah. I am curious in your mind, how would you categorize the core, let's say components required to build a company like Chargecape that can succeed in actually delivering the solution? Because my understanding is there are other companies who have tried to do this but have done it unsuccessfully or have really run into barriers. So I'm just kind of curious what you think are the core things that would lead to success.

Joseph Vellone (20:25)
Yeah, it's a great question. mean, look, I've been working in this industry for a while and I've seen companies fail. see companies now that are really struggling. Yeah. I think what is needed and Chargecape has got these, otherwise I wouldn't have taken the job if I didn't think I was being set up for success. know, look, firstly, capital. This is a long-term game. It does take a while to build out a really good product. It also is going to be a while before...

our country transitions to a fully electric future. so charge gape is capitalized to kind of last a very long time until we are at that point where maybe Norway is where like almost all new car sales are electric. So look, I'm not going to beat around the bush. I think that's the most important thing. Of course, money's not enough, Secondly, you've got to have a great product.

And that product needs to actually be useful to the stakeholders in your ecosystem. So for us, that's utilities and that's EV drivers. And it's the automakers as well. It's got to work with their vehicles. It's got to work for their customers. It's got to be easy to use and save them money. It's got to be convenient, set it and forget it. They don't have to think about it. And ultimately utilities, it's got to be solving the grid reliability issues that they have in a more cost effective way than building out new infrastructure.

So I think that's number two. And I think the third one is, is always going to be talent. It's going to be the people. You could have the best idea in the world. You could have all the money in the world. If you don't have the right team to build it, it's still.

Silas Mähner (21:53)
Yeah, I'm glad to hear that. Obviously we looked at that. I guess out of care, we can shift the discussion at this point to talk about talent. What is your thesis around team building in general?

Joseph Vellone (22:03)
Yeah, so

I've, I've always been a big believer in performance management and having a high performance culture. I think when you're working in tech, you know, you do have to move really fast and you need a team that is able to, you kind of keep up with that pace, which requires not only like grit and hard work, but also accountability, ⁓ the process for learning and self-improvement. I think the desire to take a little bit of risk as well.

you've got to take risks when you're innovating and ultimately accountability for failures, right? Because when we take risks, sometimes they don't go well and you have to take accountability for when things fail and make sure that you learn from them and you improve next time. So I think as CEO, that's probably the number one thing that I try to emphasize is a high performance culture and performance management. That means holding everyone accountable. That means

praising and elevating those who are performing at or above expectations. And also frankly, it sometimes involves getting rid of folks who are not performing to expectations and could drag the business down.

Silas Mähner (23:10)
How do you balance, I guess, the need to drive really hard, and especially in a company where you have a very strong mission orientation, and it is a startup, so there's a lot of work that has to be done without burning people out? Do you have a way that you've seen to try to manage that balance? Is it just all about hiring people who have the right mission in mind? How do do that?

Joseph Vellone (23:30)
Yeah, look, you absolutely need to have mission alignment. what I've seen and I know from experience is believing in the mission that you are trying to accomplish is just an intrinsic motivator. And you will be able to push yourself and work harder with than you otherwise would have if you were not aligned with the mission. So I think that's a very important one. That being said, we're all human beings, each with our own physical and mental limits. And it does no one anyone good, any good to.

push people beyond their limits and burn people out. So I've always been a big believer in allowing people to just kind of set their own time management and boundaries for themselves. I think every individual has the best idea of how to manage their own time to deliver what they need to in order to deliver for the company, deliver on their job expectations and ultimately succeed.

And, you know, I think sometimes that's, that's not the case. And sometimes that can be coachable, particularly for, for younger folks who are, you know, just out of college or like, this is their first or second job and they're still learning. But, you know, ultimately I'm, I'm not a micromanager. don't think micromanagement really works at a startup. I don't think any of us have time for micromanagement. And so if a member of the team has got to be able to.

set their own priorities and manage themselves to deliver however they want. And by the way, that often involves like taking a break in the afternoon to pick the kids up from school. Sometimes that means starting work a little bit later in the morning to make sure you got your morning workout in and you're able to fire on all cylinders the rest of the day. For some folks on my team, that involves working past midnight because they're night owls and that's when they do their best thinking and not scheduling early morning meetings with them because they need to sleep in.

Every person is different. need to understand what works for each member of your team and do everything you can to kind of enable the right conditions for them to succeed.

Silas Mähner (25:28)
Yeah, it's super important to remember the human aspect of human capital, Because not everybody is created the same. They're not robots, right? And I think that it's so difficult. I'm somebody who struggles with ADHD pretty excessively. And it can really be hard when you have really structured bosses who just want a specific way of doing things. I had one boss at one point didn't want me listening to music while I was working. I like, I hope you don't mind me getting nothing done. So that's been some crazy experiences. But no, I really appreciate that perspective. It's really refreshing to hear people kind of approach it that way.

There's a lot of other people who listen to this podcast, other founders who are selling related kind of softwares to utilities to help solve some of these other problems that they're greatest facing. What are your advice or kind of the things that you would say need to be done in order to successfully sell to utilities? Because you've done this for a while.

Joseph Vellone (26:14)
And look, I'm not going to sugar coat it. Selling to utilities is not easy. They move very slowly. They're very risk averse organizations by nature. They have to be. What does it take to sell the utilities? Look, I think the number one rule in sales is make sure that you're actually solving a real problem that they have. So make sure that the product you've built or that you're building is solving a real problem. If you're solving a real problem for them, you're already 80 % of the way there. And I think once you're clear on that, look, mean, it...

Just comes down to really finding the right people in the organization. Utilities are very large. They're very complex. Often you have to sort of navigate multiple departments, multiple stakeholders who may hold the budget or the decision. You have another sort of set of stakeholders in the form of the public utilities commissions at the state level, who are often also decision makers or if not decision makers influence the decision. So a lot of, think, kind of like stakeholder mapping, stakeholder management, and that takes a long time, right?

And think probably then like the third ingredient I would say is it's just patience and persistence. B2B SaaS is, you know, that takes time no matter what. And I think in the utilities industry, it takes even more time. ⁓ you know, I've previously worked on deals that took two, three years to close and come to fruition. So you've got to be in it for the long run. And I think as long as you're clear that your product is truly solving a problem for them and is, is differentiated from any other products or solution that they could acquire.

both in terms of features, in terms of cost and cost effectiveness, then it makes it very easy to just sort of stick with it and be patient because you know ultimately that your product is gonna deliver the best outcome for the client.

Silas Mähner (27:56)
Yeah, that's really helpful. think it's just always interesting to think about the fact that utilities aren't necessarily there for risky business. They don't want to try new things, right? They want to try, they want to use things that are proven that they're not going to break the system because they have a very strong incentive not to have things bust, you know?

Joseph Vellone (28:12)
And neither do automakers. I think that's one of the great parts of Chargecape is, you know, sort of on both sides of our platform, we've got the automakers and we've got the utilities, two very risk-averse organizations who have got to work together on EV charging. have no other choice. And they do see eye to eye, I think, on that. And so what that means is that Chargecape has had to build a very high quality platform with an incredible amount of data security, data privacy, data integrity. That's going to meet

the needs and also alleviate any concerns that a power utility or a big automotive company might have when it comes to EV charging.

Silas Mähner (28:50)
What

are some of the other I guess benefits of having automakers as your backers as your your funders? Because I can assume that there maybe sometimes things have to move slightly slower because you have to make sure you're in with them But I'm just kind of curious like what are the overall perks of it?

Joseph Vellone (29:02)
I think the perks is that you're working with the companies that are actually building the hardware that you're looking to control and the hardware that becomes part of the fabric of our nation's power grid. And so what that means is that at Chargecape, we have this unparalleled access directly to the product and technology teams at these automakers. And so when we are building out a vehicle to grid virtual power plant solution,

we can talk directly to the chief technology officer at one of these huge OEMs and tell them, this is what we need your product to do in order to make this work. And it might go into their backlog and it might take a couple of years before it actually happens. But then suddenly hundreds of thousands of vehicles across America have this design, this feature design that we designed at Chargecape and only we

can actually leverage to deliver our solution for the power grid. So I think that's been probably one of the coolest things is just this unparalleled direct access to the auto manufacturers.

Silas Mähner (30:11)
Yeah, it's got to be a pretty cool experience to be able to do that. It's a very good moat of a business, If you build it right. I guess, is this going to be open for other companies that want to, you know, because you've got four automakers now, right? What if other automakers want to be involved? Because I'm assuming if somebody drives a vehicle that's not from one of those four, they can't participate currently, correct?

Joseph Vellone (30:30)
Not necessarily. So we've got this for automakers as our founding investors. So their cars work with our platform and then they also have to take in separate corporate investment decisions to invest in this joint venture. Now, apart from that, we work with actually quite a few other automakers who have not invested in Chargegate, but are using our platform as the way to deliver the smarter EV charging to their customers. So one of them is Tesla and there's a couple more that we're going to be able to announce over the course of this year.

And certainly the intention is for this really to become an open platform for all automakers to use and potentially even invest in if they choose, because this is a platform that is built by automakers for automakers. And certainly BMW, Ford, Honda, Nissan, who invested initially don't want to limit it just to themselves.

Silas Mähner (31:17)
Yeah, that's what I was curious about, if there's going be some kind of a protocol that anybody else can build for because I imagine if it's two years to change the development, they probably want to the requirements now so they can get involved, right? How is AI impacting the business? I would be remiss if I didn't ask about this.

Joseph Vellone (31:31)
Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's impacting us in a couple of ways. Firstly, the unprecedented electricity demand coming from data centers has made EV charging management even more urgent for utilities than it was before. Frankly, no one saw this coming two, three years ago, and it caught all of us by surprise. And suddenly now we have these data centers that are operating 24-7 across the power grids and consuming huge amounts of electricity.

that was just not there before, that demand wasn't there before. And then you've got EVs on top and you've still got the air conditioners. You've got all this other sources of electricity demand. And so I think that's definitely increased the urgency for our products from utilities, which maybe has made the sales process a little bit easier than it was a few years ago. And then I think the other thing is, know, look, building a new platform from scratch in 2024, meant that we were able to build an AI first platform.

This isn't a platform that was just sort of designed for basic regressions. And we kind of forced AI in later on. We actually built this with AI in mind in the system architecture from day one. And so what that means, I think, is that we as ChargeScape have had a huge competitive advantage in that from the first time we started operating our platform, it already had AI algorithms embedded into it.

working to optimize EV charge management on a second by second basis. ⁓ And we've sort of built all of the architecture to support even more advanced use cases and deployments of artificial intelligence in our platform to ultimately make this as intelligent, but also as kind of easy and simple as possible for the end user, the driver, such as AI is doing all the thinking for them. All they need to do is plug in their EV, go about their day, go to sleep, whatever they do, come back to a fully charged vehicle.

and have saved a bunch of

Silas Mähner (33:26)
Yeah, that's quite interesting. hadn't thought about that. I'm not super deep into actually the weeds of building a software business. So I never thought about that because before they would have had to constantly basically re-engineer everything to fit it in, like you said, but now you can design it from the ground up. That's pretty fascinating time to be working on a business like this. One thing that I think is very important we talk about is, and probably a lot of people are wondering this if they haven't done some research on it already, is are there, are the negative headwinds against EVs right now?

real or do they just kind of get blown out of proportion on Twitter?

Joseph Vellone (34:00)
Yeah, look, I think frankly, the press in general has been kind of overstating maybe the negative news on EVs for the past year or two. It's been a pretty kind of consistent narrative that it's all doom and gloom for EVs. Look, mean, the fact of the matter is that the numbers speak for themselves. EV sales are at a record high, higher than they've ever been. In Q1 of 2025, EV sales in 2024 were the highest ever.

Bloomberg is forecasting 2025 EV sales will beat even the 2024 numbers. And that's with all of this regulatory uncertainty. within the, it's the cuts in funding for, for EVs and EV charging. And look, I mean, the fact of the matter is like, we've just reached a point in the market where EVs are largely cost competitive, you know, by themselves. Uh, and the product that EV manufacturers are putting out is just superior to gas powered vehicles. And so.

Americans are very rational consumers. They vote with their wallets and they are also largely drawn to value and to quality. And that's what we're seeing coming from some of the largest manufacturers like Ford and BMW and Nissan and Tesla. And I think that trend is only going to continue. I think the only thing that has been negative has been really just like the press and the narrative. And then sometimes that

that feeds into customer conversations and even hiring conversations. But ultimately, the results will speak for themselves.

Silas Mähner (35:34)
Yeah, I think it's very difficult to parse this stuff out because you sometimes don't know until you look at the data and then you see it. I was going to ask this earlier, especially if the current administration is all about energy abundance, you would think that if you have ⁓ a method where we can actually solve a lot of the issues on the grid by having all these backup batteries and we can have a better experience for the auto owners, why would we go away from pushing this as a solution? Because it's a...

large solution to many problems.

Joseph Vellone (36:04)
It is look, I think ultimately that will be reflected, if not in policy, then in the way that the private market shakes out. If you look at the deployment of renewable energy in this country, it's happened over a number of different administrations, both Democratic and Republican. And ultimately it's just been market driven. And so I think the same thing is going to happen for EVs. doesn't really matter who is in the White House.

You know, there may be blips in sales and manufacturing and other things, but, you know, look, the fact of the matter is automakers plan on multi-decade time horizons. And so when these automakers pour billions and billions of dollars into EV battery plants and new assembly plants in Ohio and Tennessee and South Carolina and all of that, you know, that's done with the intention of sticking around EV manufacturing in America, regardless of which party is in power.

Silas Mähner (36:59)
Yeah,

I was just say to me, feels like, again, I'm in the sticks here in Wisconsin. And to me, feels like there is no stopping demand for EVs. seems to be like everywhere I see them just increasing and increasing. So it's like the pendulum is swung and it's going very fast regardless of the tax credits. And especially if you just told me I can buy a vehicle and if it's got bidirectional charging, I can basically get the vehicle for free after a certain number of years. That's a no brainer. Why would you buy anything else?

Joseph Vellone (37:27)
Yeah. look, it's going fast in states like California and it's fast in states like Texas where we're headquartered. And motivations for Americans buying an EV might be different, right? Some buy them for the performance and cause they're kind of like sports cars, affordable sports cars. Others buy them because they're good for the environment and the planet. I think EVs have so much kind of bipartisan appeal that again, this is what's driving the, just the increasing month on month, quarter on quarter sales volumes that we're seeing. And I don't.

really see much sign of that's slowing down anytime soon.

Silas Mähner (37:59)
And so broadly speaking, guess, if I this correctly, there is, even if there is pushback against renewable energy, you know, as the way to generate energy right now, we're supposedly going to drill, maybe drill, whatever. It doesn't, it doesn't seem like it's going to affect charge gate because you're still, there's, the utilities are still going to have these issues regardless, correct?

Joseph Vellone (38:17)
Yeah, look, it's largely a demand issue for electricity. It's not necessarily a supply issue. Now, look, I think renewable energy poses its own unique challenges to the power grid. Renewable energy can be intermittent, right? The wind is blowing and then it stops blowing. The sun is shining and then it gets cloudy. So I think that does pose additional challenges to the grid that flexible demand resources like EVs can definitely help solve. But look, frankly, we just need more energy in this country.

One form of energy storage is electric vehicle batteries. so ultimately, whether we're talking about supplementing gas-fired power plants with EV batteries that can be exported on demand in a virtual power plant, or we're talking about more solar and wind farms, doesn't really matter. We have a need for electricity and for power and for energy in this country to fuel our economy, to fuel our re-industrialization.

And I'm certain that EVs are going to be a part of that solution.

Silas Mähner (39:16)
Yeah, certainly seems so. seems like it's moving too fast to stop now. But I really appreciate you coming on, Matt. Is there anything else you want to chat about or any other kind of observations that you've had through your time in this role?

Joseph Vellone (39:27)
I

think you asked some great questions. Great chatting with you, Silas, and thank you so much for having me on.

Silas Mähner (39:31)
Yeah, thanks for coming on, man. This has been a pleasure. I'm very fascinated by this. To me, I've always been a technologist and to be able to work with you guys and help build a team out and see what's happening with a team that's actually got a real path to genuinely changing the way we look at the future, it feels very cool because I've always been a fan of these ⁓ big tech giants like Steve Jobs and just getting to be part of something like that again, it feels cool because I always thought the innovation's done and...

There's no more cool things happening but now I get to be part of it in some way. So it's been a pleasure on my side as well. But things are coming on and I'm looking forward to seeing where you guys go in the next couple of years.

Joseph Vellone (40:08)
Yeah, thank you so much, Silas, and thanks again for helping build out our leadership team.

Silas Mähner (40:12)
Yeah, been my pleasure. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you like the episode, please share it on social media. Drop us five stars in your favorite podcast platform. And if you are feeling extra generous, subscribe on YouTube. We also love feedback. So drop your comments or reach out to us to SoMail or myself directly on LinkedIn. Thanks and we'll see you next time.