EV Charging Still Sucks. This Guy Is Making It Better
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Concept
joint venture
A joint venture is a partnership where companies team up and share money and responsibilities. In this case, multiple car brands are working together on the charging network.
Brand
Toyota
Toyota joined the charging partnership after it started. That can help the network grow faster and reach more drivers.
Concept
sites live
“Sites live” means the charging locations are open and working for drivers. It’s a way to measure what you can actually use today.
Company
Tesla Supercharger
Tesla Superchargers are Tesla’s fast charging stations. The point here is that the “experience” isn’t just how fast you charge—it’s also things like bathrooms and overall site comfort.
Concept
remediate the location
“Remediate” means fix the problem in the ground or on the property before building. Old gas stations can have leftover contamination that has to be cleaned up.
Brand
Ford
Ford is the car company in this story that said it would move toward the NACS charging plug standard. The point is that when a big automaker makes that move, others often follow.
Concept
CCS
CCS is one of the main plug types used for fast charging EVs. If your car supports CCS, it can use chargers with that connector to charge quickly.
Concept
NACS
NACS is a newer charging plug standard that’s closely tied to Tesla’s Supercharger network. If your EV supports NACS, you can use those chargers more easily.
Car
Dodge Charger
The Dodge Charger is a car designed for performance, with a focus on fast driving. When people discuss charging it, they’re usually talking about how the car plugs into a charger and whether it uses a certain connector type. The podcast is specifically questioning whether it has a connector design that uses a magnetic-style handle.
Car
Tesla Roadster
The Tesla Roadster is an electric sports car, meaning it runs on electricity instead of gasoline. It’s known for being a high-performance model. The podcast mentions it as part of Tesla-related experience and references to the Roadster.
Car
Tesla Model S
The Tesla Model S is an electric car that’s built like a luxury sedan. Instead of using gasoline, it uses a battery and an electric motor. The podcast is mentioning it because it was a big focus during their Tesla experience.
Concept
terrible uptime
Uptime just means whether the charger is working when you get there. If uptime is bad, you show up and the charger won’t work, so you can’t charge.
Company
EA
EA (Electrify America) is a company that runs fast-charging stations. They’re brought up as part of the shift toward a bigger, more consistent charging network.
Concept
canopies
A canopy is basically a roof over the charging spot. It helps keep you dry or out of the sun while you wait for your car to charge.
Concept
anchor tenant
An “anchor tenant” is a major business (like a retailer) that draws customers and makes a site more attractive. The speaker uses it to explain how some charging locations rely on nearby established destinations for amenities rather than building everything themselves.
Company
Wawa
Wawa is a convenience-store and food retailer commonly used as an “anchor tenant” for EV charging sites. The speaker is describing a site model where charging is paired with a well-known retail location to improve convenience and foot traffic.
Concept
permitting and zoning
Permitting and zoning are the local rules for building. They can limit where chargers can go and what the site can look like.
Brand
Shell
Shell is a major petroleum company that’s moving into EV charging through branded programs like Shell Recharge. The segment uses Shell as an example of how traditional fuel players are partnering or deploying chargers.
Concept
footprint
“Footprint” in this context means the physical network of charging locations—how many sites exist and where they’re placed. The speaker suggests building the charging network first, then layering additional brand experiences and services on top.
Concept
apartment dwellers who cannot charge at home
A lot of people live in apartments and can’t put a charger in their parking spot. So they have to rely on public charging instead.
Term
electrified America
Electrify America is a company that puts fast chargers in public places. Even near their stations, the speaker is still running into trouble charging.
Concept
unlock that part of the market
“Unlock that part of the market” means removing barriers so more consumers are willing to buy EVs. In this context, better charging access—especially for people who can’t charge at home—is what makes EV ownership more appealing.
Company
EV Go
EVgo is a company that runs public fast chargers for EVs. The point here is that the network has grown a lot over time.
Company
ChargePoint
ChargePoint is a company that runs EV charging stations. “Roaming” here means you can use access/payment across networks more easily.
Concept
EMSP
An EMSP is basically the company that runs the EV charging service you use. They handle things like your account and how your car gets authorized to charge.
Concept
test lab
A test lab is a place where they try charging setups in controlled conditions. The goal is to catch problems before real customers plug in and the system fails.
Concept
power line communication (PLC)
It’s like the car and the charger “talk” to each other using the charging cable. They exchange safety and control information before any big power starts flowing. That conversation helps prevent dangerous mistakes.
Concept
kilowatt-hour
A kilowatt-hour (kWh) is basically “how much electricity” you used. If charging costs $X per kWh, your bill depends on how many kWh your car took in.
Concept
utilization
Utilization means how often the chargers get used. If more people charge there, the network is working better and can grow.
Concept
OEMs
OEMs are the actual car makers. In this context, they’re important because charging networks want to work with the brands so customers know where they can charge.
Concept
multi-generational product plan roadmap
A multi-generational roadmap is a long-term plan that accounts for multiple future vehicle and product “generations,” such as new battery designs and charging standards. The transcript implies charger partners align their hardware and software updates with what future EVs will be able to accept.
LIVE
Hi there and welcome to The Inevitable. This is Motor Trends podcast, our
podcast about the future of cars, the future of transportation, the future of mobility,
the future of charging. Welcome to The Inevitable, a podcast by Motor Trend.
Today we're going to be talking with the CEO of a rapidly expanding charging network here in
the US called Iona. They're also called other things in other places. We'll get to all that,
but my colleague Edward Lowe, he's got a message for you. The Inevitable podcast is currently
brought to you by nobody. Maybe Iona would like to be our sponsor. This is not a sponsored episode,
but if you'd like to sponsor us, shoot me an Edward.loh at Hearst.com or slide into our DMs on
Instagram. Yes, indeed. We have Iona CEO Seth Cutler. He's going to be on here chatting with us
about their latest update. It's weird because I thought that they've been around for a lot longer,
but no, they're basically two years old, rapidly expanding. They're in town
doing some business with some of the Southern California based car companies.
Because they were started by eight car companies, which is kind of wild to think about.
Yes, they're a big joint venture. They're a consortium between eight car manufacturers,
including GM, sorry, BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Stalantis,
and then Toyota joined them a year later. They were the Magnificent Seven and now they're the
Elite Eight. These eight partners have put all their money in together in a big pool.
Seth runs that budget and is expanding the operation of this network. It's a very unique
strategy within the CPO, the Charge Point Operator Space. Let's bring Seth on to tell us all about
what they're doing. Seth Cutler, CEO of Iona. Thank you for coming in.
Thanks for having me. Special early recording edition. Nobody needs to know about that.
He walked here. We could talk about that. That's weird. That's a good way to start the day.
Nobody walks another. That's a first. That's really dedicated to the green movement.
So you're breaking some news. You want to tell us what the big news is. We got an advanced copy
of the press release. I think this episode is going to air right on or after the news goes up.
So I have this press release and it's got a bunch of X's where the numbers and the big news is.
So I think it leads with how many sites are live now in the Iona network?
So the time the release goes out, which will be next week, that week we'll have over 100 sites
live across the United States now. So we are an actual network now where I think the history matters
the company only formed two years ago. February of 2024 is when I first started. We first started
hiring folks. So in two years we went from a standing start to over 100 sites live. And
really the biggest piece that is the scale behind it. So we've got almost 5,000 high-powered
charging bays that are already contracted. So they're working their way through design,
permanent and construction, etc. And we have nearly 1,500 high-powered charging bays in
construction or beyond. Life to customers are actively in construction now. So we see ourselves
as the fifth largest high-powered charging network in the United States right now when you look at
charging speeds over 150 kilowatts and above. And we see a path to fourth or higher by the end of the
year, really by our third year anniversary, so a year from now. And your goal is to be the biggest?
We see our goal as to be the leading charging network. So our goal is to be 30,000 high-powered
charging bays by the end of the decade. Which would be the biggest as things stand right now?
Tesla obviously is larger than that right now. But in terms of that type of power, that type of
market density, etc., we think we can become the network for consumers. And particularly for our
investor, OEM partners and friends. So we're owned by and backed by eight leading automakers.
And so our goal is to be their network for all their drivers.
We call that Tesla. Let's put some numbers on the leader. I just did this in the car on the way
here with Grok. They have 38,000? No, how many do they have? I think Ballpark.
So 38,000 overall. But high power is about a quarter of that, I think. Okay. I didn't write it
Well, what's the USP? What's the differentiation for Iona? What are you going to try to differentiate on?
Yes. So I think if you look at what we deployed so far, I think this is a big part of the fact
that we have over 100 sites in less than really in two years. Like I said, there was no company
before. It's not like we're part of a large organization where they had HR systems or it was
nothing. And so we really built from zero, which is a story in and of itself. But if you look at
what we built, nearly 30% of all of our sites have canopies on top of them. 10% of our sites today
have amenities that we've built ourselves where we put in 24 seven bathrooms and lounge access.
We've partnered with Amazon on a couple of sites now we're putting in just walk out technology.
So what we're building isn't just scale. It's a markedly different customer experience and
quality that we're providing to customers. And so when we talk about becoming the leading
charging network in the United States, it's what we call quality at scale and quality is both
charging quality, but also the customer experience that someone can expect at an Iona location.
Right. And so the last contrast, the last Tesla supercharger site I was at was in Baker, California,
and it was a parking lot with one trash can that was overflowing.
Right.
And no restrooms or anything like that.
Yeah. But the charging experience was amazing.
No, actually it wasn't. Weirdly, weirdly. That was the one. It was just one of those things where
they had a bunch of chargers and like a quarter of them were compatible with Rivian for some reason
and three quarters were, but it didn't didn't say, you know, and then I was, but anyways.
So I want to dig deep into what makes a good charging experience with from your perspective,
but let's go back and just run through the basics. And again, for the listeners who
know nothing about Iona, am I saying that right?
Iona. Ion North America.
Ion North America. Because there is Ion Iti, which is Europe. Yep.
I don't know why you didn't do, I guess you tried every permutation of Ion EU or Ion ER.
And then there's Ion China, which is Ion Chi, which is very clever Chi, right?
Yeah, no, Ion Chi is good.
That's what I expect, like the, you know, the yin yang logo with that one.
Ion Chi is good.
Okay, great. So Iona, eight partners, BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz,
and the later driver was Toyota.
Correct.
Right. Okay. Those are the founders.
Well, Mercedes is in there. That's interesting because they have their own thing.
The other one that's not is the one that got sued into making their own charging network, VW.
Volkswagen. Yeah, right, right, right. Which is electrify America.
Yeah. How does it work? How do you have eight founding partners?
How much should they put in? This is like, you guys like play poker and I was going to like
and get a little bit and put on the pot and which one's the worst to work with?
I could guess you weren't there for that, right? For the formation.
I wasn't. So, so they tell the tale.
Yeah. So I mean, I think they, they, the audience been working on this for quite some time and
actually there's, there's history that goes even beyond this joint venture. There's been
talks about doing a joint venture in North America going back to like 2015, even when Ion
was announced in the US and that effort fell apart. But it got revitalized by the,
by the car companies back in like, I think 2022 is when they started talking about this again.
And so July of 23, the seven, seven automakers at the time to join the year later announced
they were going to form Iona. And so they put together a board management board comprised of
individuals from each of the OEM. So I effectively have eight bosses, which is, which is, which is
great. But actually it's been a good partnership. And so I was hired as employee number one in
February of 2024. So really the company formed the day I started, because that's when we started
actually hiring, building HR systems, financial systems, walking through the business plan,
how we actually can execute this thing. So we essentially were given a mandate in terms of
here's, you know, the aspirational goal of 30,000 high power charging bays.
Here's the, really the vision, the mission of the organization. Go figure it out and get to
100 sites as fast as possible and build scale. And so we literally, you know, I remember the
first day I started, I walked into an old Honda building that we were leasing from Honda.
It was an old, one of their, I think financial services buildings that was emptied out.
And that was our office for the first five or six months until we found the location in
Raleigh, North Carolina. So we did, you know, the first, the first year was insane because
we were doing everything from building a company, finding an HQ, relocating families,
myself included, and then actually finding our first sites. And the first site we launched,
which was in North Carolina, we picked the most difficult one was a hundred old gas station that
we, as we're doing construction, found an old gas tank, had to remediate the location,
still get it live within nine months of starting the company. So, you know, I think that's kind of
the ethos of the organization is how do we go at what we call out a speed to really build out
the scale and differentiate experience. How did, how did you settle on North Carolina?
Yeah, it's a great question. One that gets asked a lot because we were, we were between
California, California, Texas. Which seems obvious. Yeah. And that's right. Why don't you go to
California? And honestly, you know, I think just, just for the talent, there's a lot of talent and
that's where a lot of the EVs are being sold. And what we're looking for is what is the best place
in terms of, you know, cost effectiveness to go operate this company. And really, Raleigh
presented a really good opportunity in terms of this great talent there. It's a great, great
place to live. And, and we've been really successful over there. Okay. Yeah, it's great.
My sister, I should just move back from there and I visited to help her pack up, but that's
Raleigh's. Yeah. Super friendly people. Like surprising amount of sort of tech. Yeah. Yeah.
Going on out there. So shout out to Raleigh. Okay. I was curious, you, so
I was formed in 2023. You joined in February 2024. Yeah. And somewhere in between
Ford announced that they were going to ditch CCS and go to NACS.
Yeah. I think, I think that was May of 23. So before, it was before IANA was announced.
Okay. So then from the get go, because after I was, you know, I, I give a lot of credit to Ford
for having the courage to say, this thing is garbage. This one is better. And when they did it,
everybody else followed the first domino. Yeah. So you guys said, you hit the ground running and
saying NACS. Correct. We're going to do it. 100%. But now you, it was like, we're going to do
both or I think you're, you are shipping charging units with both handles. Correct. So all of our
sites are 60% NACS, 40, I'm sorry, 60% CCS, 40% NACS right now. And so when we started, we already
had the mandate to go deploy NACS as well as CCS because to your point, most of the OEMs,
not all of them at that point in time when I started had already made the announcement
that they were going to switch over to NACS at some point in time. That's got to be a huge
pain of the ass. Which part? Like switching up chargers. We'll have them both, right? You'd
be surprised. I mean, really, it's just the cable is different. All the underlying, you know,
the liquid cool technology, the communication protocols, all of it's the same underneath.
So we can actually go back and we're watching our network in terms of which sites are higher
utilization on NACS versus CCS. And we can go back and make swaps of cables if we need to.
Okay. Well, what about breakage? Because this wasn't the main complaint about the CCS cables
that you drop it in the little widget thing on top with crack or break or something. And then
where's the magnetic handle on the NACS charger, does it? We're not seeing that. I mean, I think
I do think part of it was, obviously Tesla's done a really good job of building scale since,
you know, 2013, 2014, etc. And so opening up NACS definitely allowed for the OEMs to have
access to the supercharger way and without adapters, etc. So I think that was probably
part of the calculus as my guess. But we're not seeing any issues in terms of folks that are
using CCS on our network today at all. Okay. It's good too, though, because then you,
there's none of this adapter, weather adapter. It's like having two types of, you know, gas
and all that. Yeah, which ones I use, right? Did I bring it, did I break it? Yeah, 100%.
My question is, and this was like, you know, I remember we've been weaving motor trend, we've
been, you know, dealing with Teslas since like late 2012. And the roadster shirt, yeah, the roadster
shirt. But I mean, the Model S, you know, that was, we were very deep into that. And I remember,
you know, we happened to be three miles from SpaceX, where, you know, that was the first
supercharger site I ever visited. And I was like, you know, the car is nice, but it's just an
electric car. But this charging network, this is the gold mine. And I was at the time, I was like,
because you have a bunch of people who just purchased six figure science projects standing
around telling each other how smart they are. That was, I was like, this is like building a fan
base. But why did it take so long? Like, you know, so this was in like, probably December of 2012,
I was at a Tesla supercharger site, one of several that were in Southern California.
Why did it take until February of 2024 for the other OEMs to like, figure it out? Like, I-
To build a network, you mean? Yeah, it seems like it was the most obvious,
like the smartest thing Tesla did actually, because, you know, Model S came, now it's gone,
you still have the supercharger network here. You know, that's, that's the smart thing to me.
That's what I thought. So it was a great question. I think, I think
there's always been this struggle of, you know, the car makers don't build gas stations,
they don't operate gas stations, they're just there, right? And I think there was a lot of
waiting for the industry to kind of catch up. And I think you saw that with much of America
building on a network, EVGo has done a lot to build scale, you know, the federal initiative on
Neve was there to try to build, build assets. But I think what you saw was just, it wasn't
successful across these companies in terms of delivering quality. And I think it got to a point
where the OEMs just felt like, okay, we just got to take these into our own hands to really make
sure that we're, we're fixing this problem. Okay. Okay. Related question. And we, we crowdsourced
questions from our staff. We have one of our guys, you met a super tall, I think you met our
super tall guy, Alex Lien. Yeah. Yes. So he and- He has other qualities, but he's super tall.
It's easy to identify. Yeah. Sorry, Alex. Six foot 10 for those listening.
You know, why, a little bit piggybacking on Johnny's question. What, what gap is Ayanna trying to
fill? Like what, what was it? Was it just, believe me, I have a litany of what I think it is, right?
The terrible uptime, right? You would show up at a charger and the handles busted or the card
just didn't work. The card here doesn't work. It's not compatible. It's not compatible. Or
they're all, they're all full. Right. Because it's not enough. Right. Just doesn't work is the
big one. Yeah. What, what were the, what were, what were, why, why, why, and, and I don't know,
you probably can't say it, but why and then how much did each manufacturer put in to start this,
to start this organization? So I'll answer the last question first, which will be an easy answer,
which is I can't answer it, but I can say that we are, we are well capitalized to go,
to go deploy our mission. Right. And I think, you know, I think the OEMs really looked at this
from the, from the get go about how do we really change the experience that we're doing at these
charging locations? Because to your point, Tesla's done this before. This is, I mean, let's be honest,
it's not rocket science deploying charging stations and charge cars. And I've looked at the industry
in like these four phases, you know, phase, what I call phase one was really like, you know, and
Nissan did this where they, when they first started selling the leaf, they started deploying
chat about chargers across the US. And it was not a network. It was disparate locations,
back of a dealership, wherever they could put a charger to say, we've got charging, go buy our
leaf. Tesla was really the first one that said, Hey, we're going to build a national network,
EA followed suit after that. And that was kind of the phase two, I would say around,
okay, now I get this idea of like, we're going to build a network, and I'm going to buy a cell
phone and I can go wherever and I can make calls. And then phase three, which I think was really
coming out of COVID where you saw a lot more people now buying EVs and using the assets was,
shit, this stuff doesn't actually work. Oh my God, like, why is it so hard? And so I think the
industry as a whole has gotten a lot better when you look at charging a liability.
100%. There was, I would say, really, the start of 2024, like suddenly, like,
it was the version for EA charger was like, it just worked. You know, it went from like,
never working. And everything was a 15 minute phone call where you're screaming at somebody to,
wow, you plug in and it works. Like how novel. Amazing, right? Exactly. And now, you know,
we look at it as really this next phase, which is how do you change the customer experience? And
I think what you said before, which resonates is, I mean, a lot of these locations don't even have
trash cans, which is something simple. Like I go to a charging site, I go to charge my car,
I got trash, I got to go clean the windshield. Yeah, one of our sites has trash cans, which sounds
silly. But it goes back to like, how do you think about the experience of customer to have the
location? That's why we're doing canopies. That's why we're building amenities. And it's not easy.
But that's really what I on is there is not just to build scale, it's to really deliver something
special to the customers. Okay, so let's talk about that because, well, you have a lot of
different offerings and you have different names for the offerings. Can you walk us through the
differences between like a rechargery, a relay, and a beacon? Sure. Yes, we have four product
classes. Easy way to think about it. Start from the bottom going up. So rechargery relay is our most
basic offering. It may or may not have a canopy to it. It may not have an anchor tenant, meaning
it's, you know, we sometimes we bought land and we'll have it adjacent to a Starbucks or
a donut shop or some location where they can go do something and be able to use the amenities there.
And that's our relays. Essentially, it's a place to infill, to be economic in terms of how we
deploy these assets at scale. And then the next two classes up are what we call our rechargeries.
And there's two versions of that. One is a rechargery at. And so we will partner with a Wawa,
big on the East Coast, the Sheets, the Casey's, General's. Love Wawa. There's some people that love
them. They're great. They're great. I'm married to a married girl from Philly's. Love Wawa. Yeah.
So hoagies, right? What language are we speaking?
So we have these rechargery at where we've got these marquee anchor tenants that we partner
with in terms of the experience there. And we'll do other things with them over time in terms of
digital integration with some of these folks. And then we have what we call our full-scale
rechargeries. And these are locations where we've built our own amenity, whether it's an
indoor driver lounge, 24-7 bathrooms, vending machines, Amazon Just Walk Out convenience stores.
We've done several of these across the country now. And then those are owned and operated.
Those are owned and operated by us. And then the top class is what we call a beacon. That's
our flagship. And we have one in construction right now down in Westminster in Orange County.
And so that's an opportunity for us to really showcase the full effort of what we can do.
These are going to be, you know, 20 plus charging bays, high-powered charging bays,
outdoor seating, a larger footprint in terms of an indoor lounge, etc.
A diner with robots. Not there yet. I'm thinking about that.
Okay, I'm going to come back to that. All right, I have questions.
Basically, a relay is, I would say, the most like what Tesla has.
I would agree with the exception again about where we can and where it's possible from a
permitting and from a zoning perspective. We've got canopies on top of these locations.
And then like I said, we're doing other things in terms of how do we
provide different experience. In some cases, we have, you know, windshield wiper fluid,
air fill up. So there's things we're trying to do in terms of car care,
basic car care for drivers when it comes to that site.
Okay. And then you mentioned, and I've seen this in a couple, I watched a Kyle Conner Out-of-Spec
podcast where he visited you guys. And we did that first one. Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's some, you have Amazon Just Walkout technology,
but I just heard Amazon is shutting down all those stores.
Yes, their stores, their stores. Because they're larger format stores, but they're still,
the technology is still there and active. We're still partnering with them on,
on third party, not just us, but others. If you go to the airport, those are still in the air.
And just walk out for those who are way behind. I've never, I've actually never used it.
I've used it. Yeah. You can like walk in. It's, it's weird. Like I've done the airport. You can,
it looks like a convenience store, but there's like no cash register, but there's usually like a
weird, what's the, the gate thing like at a subway? Yeah. A turnstile.
And then you can just grab stuff off the shelf that you want. And then the cameras are watching you.
And because you are logged into the app, it knows what you picked up and you can literally just
walk out without having, there's not even like a palm reader. No, you just walk out.
You just walk out and it gets charged to you. Yeah. So, and you're going to do that obviously
because, or you're doing that because it reduces staffing costs.
Exactly, a thousand percent. Right. But you still need to have,
there's still a human element to all of this where you need to keep the place clean.
Yeah. You know, it's funny. You said, there's no trash can to it. There are, it's called the
ground. A lot of these charging stations, people just empty their cars out onto the ground.
Well, I mean, there was one, it was overflowing. Yeah. I mean, the other crazy one is across the
street in Baker, there's a huge 88 Stahl Tesla thing and 12 EA chargers and like a Jersey
Mike's. And I mean, the trash cans are just overflowing. It's crazy. So, people are dirty.
Yeah. We need, we need. Humans are gross. Humans are gross. We need help with cleaning up the
trash. And also, I mean, servicing a 24-7 bathroom is going to be pretty awesome. Yeah.
So, that's contracted out, right? Like you're going to hire a local. It is, but you'd be
surprised. You know, we have some of our sites are local to where our office is. And so, there are
times where our, our head of site operations, our operations team has even out there plunging
toilets, which. You put on the gloves. It's not been, it's not been pleasant. But this is what
the Tesla robots are for. It might be a way to do it. Okay. All right. So, we covered just what
guy we're trying to relay. Well, are you going to do Bucky's? You got Wawa. You got Sheet. So,
we got, we got Wally's. Have you heard of Wally's? No. Wally's is a up and coming large, large
footprint, large format, you know, truck stop, rest stop for, for consumers as well.
And these are, these are always like a Bucky, like I'm sorry, like a Wawa and a Sheets. These are
retailers that they're about the convenience store, the super clean bathrooms. That's like a
Bucky's thing, right? And the selling the stuff. But the fuel is, is somebody else. Are you working
with like a major like petroleum, like a, like a mobile or a shell or any. In terms of like the
actual electricity? Yeah. Like, like putting it next to a set of pumps. I'm starting to see that
more commonly. No. Well, Shell's trying to do that with Shell Recharge. Right. But they're
around airports. Okay. But um, no, but like, you know, the Wawa is like, it's like a, you know,
7-Eleven essentially, where they have a, they've actually have good sandwiches.
I mean, that's, that's the thing is a lot of these, you know, the Wawa is the case,
they're becoming more QSRs as well. Right. So, the experience is way better in terms of what
you're providing to a customer in terms of, they've got clean bathrooms, they've got something to
eat. A lot of times, just places to sit outside, even maybe indoors as well. So,
I mean, people from Philly literally like, let's go to Wawa because the food, we like the food.
For lunch, right? Yeah. It's true. It's like,
It says a lot about Philly food. Or how great Wawa is. Look at the camera. Look at the camera,
Philly fans. Whoa. I'm a friend, Dr. Bob. You know, no one's more hateful than like Philly.
I know. This is for Dr. Bob Cho, like a big Philly fan. Okay. I think Wawa's great. Yes.
Um, we made a joke about the Tesla diner. Have you, have you been? I've not had a chance at
now. Are you going to go on this trip? We're going to try. Okay. There's no try now. I think that
all the hype is down. So, it's not like, it used to be, I'm going to try to go there,
but the line was too long or you can definitely, you'll get going there. The menus, I think,
drastically produced. Have you been? Never been. No. Have you been? Oh, yeah. We went, we went,
we went pretty early. Okay. When they still had what's his name as a chef who's, who recently
left. Yeah. I didn't want to go. And they, they stripped down the, they paired back the menu.
You used to have like apple pie and ice cream and I think now it's just hamburgers and fries and maybe
like one dessert. It's cool. It's a bummer because I was curious whether, I'm sure you've seen the
coverage though. I've seen the coverage. Is it aspirational at all for a beacon to have some
of those features like either really slick style. I mean, look, when you, my ears perk up when you're
going to put one down at Westminster, because I think that's, that's genius. That's a good place
to do it. It's a high density of both people with EVs and also people who want to go out and
like, I don't know, get some boba. Is there going to be boba at the, at the,
boba be smart? We like incredibly smart and give some cool name to it. Like, so, you know,
I don't know, boba. I'm taking, I'm taking mental notes for the brand team. This is good.
But yeah, any, like Tessa, Tessa, it was a, for a month or two, it was like the big,
go to the Tessa diner. They've got robots serving, serving drinks and playing movies.
The big news though is they were, they were broadcasting, you know, the movie projection
to people's windows. That was the crazy part. Yeah, but I mean, I think to your point, I mean,
we've been focused on getting kind of the footprint, right? And then, and using that as a
foundation or platform to build on top of. So you'll see us do things where we'll be able to,
you know, like we're opening a merch store as an example, where we can really connect with
consumers from a brand perspective and really at a different type of place where, you know,
charging before is really even treated as a utility. Yeah. You know, it's like, who's your
water company? Most people don't even know who it is, right? Right. So we're trying to be much
more brand friendly and engaging with consumers. And I think that'll reflect itself in what we
do in these locations as well. I want to talk locations because I have a pet peeve.
And my pet peeve is in areas like Los Angeles and Las Vegas, where you have tons and tons of
EV adoption. You also have tons and tons of apartment dwellers who cannot charge at home.
They don't have the ability. The high speed chargers are, you can't even, you don't go to them.
Right. I haven't been able, I live .8 miles from one electrified America location. I live
1.2 miles from another. And in the last two years, I haven't even, you know, been able to plug in.
Not that I need to, you know, but like once in a while, though, like I'll get home and the
truck's below 20%. I was like, oh, I'd like to like fast charge it. And I wanted to take
my other car because I just, there's no way to do it. And what I've seen with Iona, and correct me
if I'm wrong, is you're not in dense urban centers. You're kind of like road trip stuff,
which is great. You know, you need to charge on a road trip as well. But like,
tell me where you're putting them. No, that's good. So we're really concentrating the investment
in cities. Okay. But what happened was it's been easier to build and get stuff live faster
along corridors. Of course. You know, that's where the utilities are easier to interconnect,
permitting is a way faster. So right now, 40% of our locations happen to be, to your point,
along a corridor route, which makes it look like we're just doing road trips, but actually
quite the opposite. And so we're going to start to see, you know, as sites start coming online more
and more this year is the corridors will get more diluted. You'll see way more, you know,
concentration of assets inside of, awesome, inside the cities. Can't wait. Because yeah,
like, you know, again, the one that is the closest to me, it's pretty much 24 seven. Yeah.
And there's a line. And it's, you know, it's like, you know, it's in a Vonder,
Ralph's parking lot. And there's like three chargers. And at any time of day or night,
five cars waiting, you know, it's, it's, it's crazy. It's just crazy. And, and, you know,
because there's like, there's, you know, there's killer lease deals on EV. So everyone has them,
but it's like, you know, it's near Glendale. So it's, it's a dense apartments. So no, that's,
that's where we've been trying to focus. Because I think the other thing also is you think about
the consumer, you know, the folks are going to start buying EVs to unlock that part of the market.
If you think about electrification is going to be folks that are living in, you know,
multifamily, condos, single families that they can't put a home charger in. So we have to make
sure for whatever reason, yeah, for whatever reason, right? It's a lot of the panels in the houses
aren't even, you know, are the wrong sizes. They can't upgrade them. Right. Or if they do,
it would be cost prohibitive, right? Well, that's, yeah, like, you know, yeah,
my, I have a hundred year old house. And so I wanted to put in my, my charger. It was like,
you know, 5500 to upgrade the panel. Exactly. But you know, he did it, but I was able to.
Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. So you start unlocking a different part of the market now.
And so, you know, I think that's where it's important to say, we're really trying to put
assets and places in the cities to unlock this part of the market. Oh, that's great to hear.
That's great to hear. Because I keep, I keep, you know, not that I talk to them that frequently,
but I do talk to like EV Go or, you know, Electron America. I'm like, three chargers was
cute in 2019, but now, you know, in Southern California, we're selling 300,000 EVs a quarter
right in California. Like you need, oh, we can't, you know, it's like, well, what's your business
model? Like no growth. It's crazy. So, okay, that's good. Yeah. So we covered the,
the product mix, your four different types of charging experiences. We covered locations.
The other big, I think USB, the big separator for you guys is no app. Yeah. Talk about that. No
app. That sounds weird in 2026, but oddly, oddly refreshing. Yeah. But we actually have a lot of
apps. So that's the interesting part. See, so, so, you know, every one of our OEM partners,
investors, they bring an app to the table. And we were very strategic in the beginning. What I
didn't want to do, what I want to make sure is that we were strategic in terms of how we worked
with our OEMs, right? And their customers, because your exact point is what customers don't need
is another charging app. What they do need is reliable charging at a good price across,
across United States. And so we actually have, you know, a mobile app right now across all eight
investors. We have, we have Roaming with ChargePoint, right? We're going to turn on Roaming with
other CPOs or other EMSPs later this year as well. So what's an EMSP? An Electric Mobility
Service Provider. So something that has an app is essentially an EMSP. Sorry for the jargon.
That's good though. Okay. I'm just thinking a lot. So like Rivian, I don't, do they have my credit
card? I'm just trying to think. Yes, they must. But like, we're, we're, and we're, and we're
forward right now. But so could I, could I rock up and just plug in?
To Rivian? Yeah. Absolutely. And, and they, and plug in Charge. And, and would I need to
produce a credit card or would it just start going? As long as you got plug in Charge enabled,
then you have an account? Plug in Charge. I don't know if I do, but yeah. What's your phone? What's
your phone? It's over there. I can get it. No, no, no. But, but that's the point though is like,
even though we don't, quote unquote, have an app, we've done, we have integrated with a lot of
different OEMs and a lot of different providers. How tricky is that? Working with all the OEMs?
Working with all the apps. It's a lot. There's a lot to go into it. But we have a full test lab
and a full engineering team that work a lot of hours testing and debugging because that's the
biggest fear is you put something into the ecosystem that causes problems technically.
Because it seems again, starting with Gen 4 of the Electrify America charger, but like,
I've been with several OEMs, like, you know, where, you know, I remember when the Tycon came
out with Porsche and we drove to a charger and they could not charge the thing. So maybe they
were really upset about it because they had a partnership with EA and just wouldn't work. And
it, you know, it came down to the classic, oh, it's like some credit card thing. But it was,
they were like, that was their plan was to use those chargers, you know, and it was like, uh-oh.
So no, but it's been a big, I mean, honestly, it's been a big focus for us as the technical
integration. And so we actually have a lab at our Raleigh HQ. And then we have eight other labs.
So every OEM that are as our partner investor, they have a charger of ours at their location
that they're testing on as well. I see. But so, you know, you're the CEO. Does it,
does it frustrate you? Because I'm like, look, anything in this room, you can plug into a wall
and it works. It works. It just works. Any other thing in the whole universe, you put your credit
card down and it just starts working. Yeah. Why is electricity and cars and credit cards like so
bloody difficult? Like, what, I don't, what is, what, like, there has to be a reason they can't,
we know it's not the electricity. We know it's not the credit cards. What is the,
what makes it so hard? Yeah. Why do you have to have a team working on that?
Cell service. Well, it's actually, it's actually not. I mean, I think, I think the overall issue
has been is, there's probably been two problems historically, right? One is it's been a nascent
market. So the manufacturers in this market that are making chargers early on, we've sold 50 chargers,
you know, imagine the first 50 cell phones that went out into the industry, right?
Fair. Yeah. Now the technologies move past that point in 2026 for sure. But the other piece of
it is, is there's a lot of safety that goes into the communication protocols between car and charger.
And that's the part that makes it the most complicated. It's because you don't, you're not
just plugging into the wall and electricity starts flowing. Right. There's actual high level
power line communication occurring PLC between the car and the charger makes sure no one gets
hurt. You're talking about 400 kilowatts. Yeah. You're talking 800 volts. You're talking 400,
500 amps. So you gotta be very careful. It's much different than plugging your cell phone in a hotel.
Much different. And so there's a lot that goes into that integration. Got it. Okay. So I was
like, there's gotta be some, I don't get it. Okay. So let's, let's back up here because there's,
I think there's several different types of consumers who pull up to an IANA charging station,
right? One is going to be somebody who owns a vehicle from one of your eight partners. Yes. And
if everything's working properly, your team, that is should be super slick. Like their app works,
this plug-in charge, like you literally, if I pull up in a BMW iX 50 and everything's properly
set up on my end with my credit card and the app, I can get out whatever the charge port door opens
and I pop in ideally the NACS plug. I don't do anything. Yep. And then once it's done,
whatever 80% or I just hit the button on top, piece out, drive away. Yep. Later I look at my
charge $12. Great. Second would be somebody who could have one of those cars or something else.
It just shows up with a credit card. Yep. And this is a chip card. Yep. Also,
pull back in with the Tesla, open the charge door, plug it in and then tap, look at the screen,
I'm charging. When I'm done, I leave. Yes. Okay, great. Is the third category folks who are,
like what, I guess the same thing would happen for a VW ID for or a Ford or a Maki or something,
but is there, can they charge and go plug-in charge if they have a credit card set up in their app?
Or no, that would have, that's not set up yet between Iona. So with Ford and Rivian, we've
expanded to include them in our plug-in charging implementation. So the eight OEMs for sure,
to your point, the integration is really slick. What we're also announcing next week is we're
going to be providing, working with the OEMs to provide discount charging to those who are
eight investors. Because I was going to say, what's the advantage of, like Ford is the smartest guy
in the room by not giving you money, but the app works. Right. Okay, so. But it's kind of like,
it's kind of like, I really was like, kind of going back to phases, right? So phase zero was
built a network. It's hard to have four sites and say, we're going to give you the benefit.
Where are these four sites? Now we're near anybody. Cool. All right. Now we've got,
now we've got over a hundred, right? And we've got 50 more construction and we have 300 more
that are coming. So what you'll see starting this month is, as we will phase it out with our
different OEMs is discount charging off of whatever the price is at the locations. And then
that'll be just the first step in a deeper integration that we're going to be doing with them
in terms of, you know, search optimization, route planning, navigation, so that we can become
their network that their customers can rely on. All right. Just like when you drive a Tesla,
they know to go to Tesla. Right. These eight OEMs will know, hey, I'm driving
insert OEM here. I know I need to go to Lyanna and my vehicle's going to, you know,
route me there or I'm going to be able to find it that way. I just thought of this, but it's so
funny. Like, like, I don't think VW and Electrify America really are that integrated. But like,
Ford's sort of the only one without a network. Like Rivian has a network. Tesla has a network.
Maybe Volkswagen is another one. But like, yeah, it's Ford's funny.
The key takeaway here is a credit card. We should have started a credit card
like many years ago, because those guys are just winning all over the place.
Right? All of the subway systems now are ditching their apps. They're ditching their car. New York
just did it, right? Everybody's going to tap the pay. Right. And that's because
nobody wants to download another app and then preload the app.
Getting to the card. It was nothing more frustrating when you just want to do something
and you have to pee and it's like, you're out of money. Oh, no. And then now, yeah, like every,
like, I think, like, in fact, I was telling somebody about Metro because of the Olympics and
it was my sister. She's like, you guys aren't tapped to pay as this whole name, like the Bay Area,
the Bay Area switch too. So anyway, let's start a credit card. This is why I discovered a card.
Why did you discover a card so well? Like, because that stuff is still profitable. You
should have an episode on why the Olympics probably aren't going to actually happen.
Okay. I was just curious. With eight partners, maybe you guys must have done the math. How
much of the American EV driving public do you think you have in the network?
Yeah. So those eight OEMs in general, I don't know how many cars they sell, not just EVs,
but they represent about 60% or so of all cars sold in North America today.
Okay. So the big one you don't have, but you would from a tap to pay is Tesla, right?
Yeah. We charge Tesla's all the time. We have a native NACS network now across the country.
And so we see, you know, activity with Tesla vehicles coming to IANA.
Okay. Now, I did see in this press release, I got this idea about giving discounts.
Well, the discounts vary by, this is where you separately huddle with one of your eight
buses and is the discounts differ by brand? Yeah, absolutely. I mean,
these companies all compete with each other. So a lot of antitrust and everything else that goes
into that. So we have agreements in place with all of what we're doing is done.
Who's got the best discount? I can't say that. Good question, though.
Why can't you say? Well, actually, you'll see. So we've got web pages set up now on our website,
going live next week. It'll link back, talking about each OEM and what their discounts are for
their drivers. But really, this year and late last year is about enabling that kind of that
platform foundational integration to enable those discounts for each of the OEMs. And
you'll see additional benefits get rolled out in the second half of this year as well.
Okay. And there's another discount, which is when you open a new location, 20 cents per kilowatt
hour, right? Yeah. We did a second year anniversary celebration in early February and we had a lot
of success bringing folks out to our site. So we had seven locations, our full-scary chargers
that were free for that day. So you can imagine we've racked up quite a bit of demand charges.
I was surprised how high it was that day. I regret it a little bit.
Doesn't he totally call you and they're like, hey, what's going on?
All the lights dim in the neighborhood. But we did 20 cents for that day and it was
a really successful way to engage the community. And I think that's being the big thing with the
brand is how do we do more to engage? And so we'll be doing 20 cents the first week it's open. And
then we're also launching last Saturday of the month, every time kind of a collection of these
10 sites went live this month. We'll do events of these 10 sites with discount charging for that
weekend. Oh, cool. Again, to just engage with consumers, educate them on what we're doing.
We'll partner with local dealerships as well. It's an opportunity to not just
educate current EV owners, but also prospective EV owners of, again, hey, you want to buy an EV,
there's a network that goes with it now. Yeah. And 20 cents is about, I think,
what I pay at night to charge, but much more slowly. For sure. Yeah, much more slowly. That's
I think that's the night time. You're off-peat. You're super off-peat.
Yeah. And the Rivian app came out with a new thing where you just say,
I used to pick the start stop, now the Rivian app just doesn't. It's the cheapest time.
But yeah, so that's a good price. Yeah. And it would just do that again to your point. It removes
the occupancy charge at home cheaper. And you charge here cheaper and faster. And faster,
the no app. I like it. I'd like the idea that I can just roll up and charge my EV. Or if I'm in
something that's not on the network, just use my credit card. But I also feel like you're missing,
do you ever get this like, ooh, we're missing a huge opportunity to connect directly to their
customer? Or push notifications. Yeah, push or sell advertising to them.
Yeah. All the other stuff that comes with an app or that direct connection.
It's been a big debate internally. I'll tell you, I think I'm really keen on being hyper focused.
Because it's easier to be like, you know what we could do? We could do this. We could do this other
thing. Yeah. That's like a disease sometimes, you know, like a permeate organization. And I'm
always like, that's cool. You know, it'll be really cool. Make the chargers work. Let's go focus on
making charging work, everybody. I agree with you. When it works unequivocally every single time,
and you don't have to think about it, then we'll go do the other stuff. Because I think otherwise,
what you wind up with, and you see this in companies all the time, is you wind up with
just like kittens all over the place doing lots of things. And then you wind up with
networks that don't work. You wind up with charging doesn't work. And like, there's two
things I tell the team, and I tell the investors all the time that we have to get right is,
we have to get scale fast. We have to get quality. Once you get that, then there's all the things
you're going to do. And I would imagine that since you have eight OEMs, they have all the
customer data in the universe. They're sending emails. They're saying, hey, your car is 40,000
and one miles on it. You want a new one? You know, it's like, they're doing all that.
That's a great point. Because to the exact point is, you know, we did our second anniversary,
we partnered with our OEM friends, and they went out and said, hey, Iona's turning two,
you go try them out. And we saw a 2x increase that day on utilization from them doing that.
Again, that's the beauty of what the OEMs and us have delivered together,
is this fully integrated approach, not just on the technology, but in terms of how we engage
with consumers. And that lets you focus. Exactly. We know how to, what we need to be good at is
deploying charging stations with a great customer experience and a great quality.
So, who is your, who's like the customer, the most skeptical customer you have in mind?
Like, do you have a model for like, it's, you know, this podcast is all about the future
mobility. We started about four years ago, and I think the mood was more optimistic. Everything
was higher. We're like, go, go, go. And then now, for a lot of reasons. Actually, this week,
though, gas prices are up. Oh, I know. People are, people with EVs are like, yeah.
Well, I shared this top selling meme, smiling, and I got a lot of likes because he's like smiling,
like, all right, people on EVs around. No, I literally saw the phone, my friend
is coming down from Portland. She's like, what, tell me, when you pass a gas station,
shout it out. And I'm like, six, 29. She's like, no. Right. But let me, has the mood,
has the mood changed? Are you, are you targeting like, who, who, what cause, who,
who's a customer? You got, you are, you're targeting specifically, would you say?
Right now, I tell people like, right now, charging is still a problem in the United States. So even
if no cars, no cars, no EVs were sold this year, we still have to go fix charging. There's still
people that are going to come use our chargers. There's still a need to go fix what's out there
in the marketplace. 100% agree. Right. And EV sales are not going to go to zero this year.
And I think we can all agree that they're probably going to increase over time because
what battery costs are coming down, the technology is getting better, charging speeds
are going up. You've got, you know, other automotives, the Chinese, for example, that are,
that are delivering great products globally. So I think it's inevitable that electrification
is the future. Inevitable, right? So I think for us right now, it's, let's go build a great
product from a charging standpoint and, and serve the needs of the market there. And then,
like to that point about the integration, you'll start seeing us work more closely with our OEM
friends, investors, partners to go partner with them in terms of dealer engagement and
talking to consumers. Because to that point, people are saying, Hey, why would I buy an
electric vehicle? Where am I going to charge? What am I going to do when I get there? Can I,
can I rely on it? Right. Now that we have a network coast to coast, we can start to be part of that
story with the OEMs. What about, and I'm sure you thought of this, but sticking, you know,
and I own a location like at, you know, what do they call them, dealership malls, whatever, you
have, you know, what do they call, you know, like the automals, stick it right there. Because then
while people are charging, they could wander over and look at a new Subaru or whatever. Like,
what have you thought of that? If not, like a cut, that's a brilliant idea. Yeah, well, I'm running
it down. But you know what I mean? Like, yeah, I mean, I think, I think folks have done dealership
charging before. I think, but no, like next to the next to it, not, not, you're not using the
dealership, but just like, Hey, you're going to be here for, you know, whatever, come check out the
cars next door. Which dealerships should we do though? That would be a problem.
Just stick it next to one of your partners and you know, who cares if you're selling EVs or selling,
you know, if you don't care, you just want people to charge. 100%. We have a whole criteria that we
go through in terms of where to put locations. You know, I think there are some locations that might
be opportunistically close to some dealerships for short, it happens. But our part is to make sure
as a, Hey, we pick locations that are safe, they're well lit, there's amenities nearby,
if we're not building the amenity, close proximity to a highway. So there's a lot of filtering that
goes through in terms of picking locations right now.
Follow up. So your, your eight special friends, the OEMs, have you like, since the Trump
administration has shown up and you know, cut the $7,500 tax grant and all that, has the mood
darkened or are they just like, Ah, this is temporary. We're pushing ahead. We do long-term
planning. We're not getting comment on that. Since you deal with eight OEMs on a regular basis
about EVs. No, for sure. I mean, I think what I would tell you is like, this is a long term,
is a long game, right? And so like, if you think about infrastructure, particularly in the United
States, it takes time. So from the time that I, you know, our team signs a site to a time it goes
live, it could be a year or two. So if you turn off the faucet right now, you're, you're not impacting
this year, you're impacting 2028, right? So really, this is a long-term investment in terms of,
you know, the future most likely be electric in some way. Is it 100%, 50, 25? I don't think it might
know. I don't think it might know, but we know it's on zero, right? And we know that the technology
is there. So, you know, I think all the OEMs and ourselves are looking at this as a long-term
way of strategy in terms of how do we, how do we make sure that the network is there to intersect
when vehicle sales really start to increase over time? Well, you guys are actually, I'm
glad you're about that, because you're on the clock. I think for in one to three years, you're
going to start, especially about, yeah, about two to three years, you're going to see some massive
lease returns. Starting this year, actually. Starting this year, it starts to ramp. Yes.
Where you're going to get all the people that rushed out to buy an EV.
Yeah, from 22 to 23, yeah. Yes. 100%. So, including us. My wife and I, we got, we got an Ioniq 5.
We love it. But there's a lot of people going to be like, you know what, lease is over. I'm going
to get something else. Maybe an EV. Most likely. Most likely, right? Most likely. And they're going
to have, I mean, the opportunity, if you wanted to, if you don't drive an EV now, just hold on to
your cash, because there's going to be a bunch of like lightly used lease return EVs from all the
different manufacturers. And you'll get a, you're going to get some smoking deals. I think it's
going to impact the charging network. You're going to have a lot of new folks new to EVs.
Who don't have home charging. Yes. Right. And that is a secondary market. No, it's a really good
point and something we're watching for sure, because it'll start this year in terms of those
leases coming back now. Okay. So, here's one of the questions from the team. How do you make money?
Where's the, what's the business model? Like where, I can't imagine, Ayanna, given the burn rate,
you guys buying real estate is expensive, building bathrooms and canopies and how
electronic power inverters and all the like important this stuff. You're not, you're certainly not
profitable in year two. Right. There's no, there's no way. This is for those of you, this is a video
podcast, a little eyebrow twitch there. That's great. I had a smile. But where you're highly,
what was the term? You're well funded. Well capitalized. Well capitalized by eight major
auto manufacturers. You're charging, you know, competitive rates for per kilowatt hour for
charging. But boy, there's a lot of money going out the door to build this stuff. For sure. This
is not a, it's a lot of money. It's not a charity. It's not a charity. It's capital intensive. And
charter to get the profitability, right? To be profitable because if charging is not profitable
in this country or anywhere, the electrification won't work. Gas stations are profitable. It's got,
the ecosystem has to work in terms of money going in and out. So it definitely something that's top
of mind in terms of how we get there. But we're very efficient how we spend, we spend capital,
both on the operational side, what we call GNA. So, you know, how many people we have and where
we focus time going back to my point before of like, it's easy to get what I call organizational
bloat because you're doing all these things. And so if you get really hyper focused to deliver a
really good product and take care of drive weeks, you know, our second cultural tenant and the
company's driver first. So we're hyper focused on delivering a really great experience and bring
drivers in. They spend money that brings, you know, it's what I call calories in the door.
And then we just, we get really efficient how we deploy these sites. You'd be surprised at how
efficient we are in our capital, even with canopies and bathrooms or anything else.
Okay. Didn't quite answer the question, but I see it was pretty close.
I see, because I see a pie chart, right? Part of the pie, I don't know what size is going to be
the revenue generated from charging for the public. There's some massive part of that pie
that's also, and I don't know the accounting, how you would, the capital put in by the OEMs,
where you, where that is on the balance sheet. Then you got these other little slices, right,
which would be like merch and snacks from a walk out.
You're forgetting the most important one is selling cars. Like manufacturers will
do anything to sell a car. But I don't know, but Iona doesn't get a cut of that.
No, but they're, they're well funded by these billion dollar corporations with
factories that want to sell vehicles. Still not seeing where that shows up on their balance sheet.
That's, that's the question. We don't know how much money they're getting.
Right. So, you know, is it, I suspect the longest tail of the profitability story will be
making money off of the end user at scale. Utilization. Yeah, absolutely. Selling electrons.
Okay. 100%. I mean, that, that is the way we make money. The number one way we make money today.
Now, I think there's, what we've done is different, right? So to your point, we own land.
We, we ground lease land. There's, there's land that we've bought or ground lease where,
you know, we know we can either sublease it or resell it. So there's, there's mechanisms in place
that we've not yet exercised, but have purposely done that early on, that no other network's done
where we say, Hey, we think we can capitalize this differently in year three, four, five,
we'll get there when we get there. And then we have our own amenities, right? So it's the question
of, Hey, what does that look like as we start to get higher utilization at the merch stores and
example of that. So there's definitely a lot of experiments that have been running in the background
really kind of like these seeds we've planted that we're waiting for them to kind of sprout
in addition to just the charging aspect of it, but charging for sure is the biggest piece of this.
Okay. Do you have a year that you're supposed to be here that you want to be profitable?
Yes. Can you, can you say what that is? No. Okay. Fair, fair. I knew what you said. Yes.
I knew too, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's, let's see, I'm going to move on to the
questions here. These are from the crew? Yeah. Oh, here's some questions. The bathroom question.
Well, I need a key to use the bathroom. That's a great question. Okay. Is there a QR code?
We got a key. It's a key. It's tied to the charger. Take the whole charger with you.
So we have, we use a technology that has an app tied to it. And so the app,
you actually use an app to unlock the bathroom. So you don't need an app to charge the car?
You don't need an app to unlock the bathroom. But the app is just, you scan it,
but what it is, you scan a QR code. Right. It sends you a text message and it opens it,
opens it, and it gives you, that way you will secure access into the, into the back of the
facilities. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. We're getting close here. I got some bigger picture
questions, the list you have. Why do you got no one else in anything? That's our staff.
How do you make money? How do you use the bathroom? It's a poor thing. We covered a lot of it. In
of what they wanted to know. There was a lot. I'm just curious about the bigger picture, right?
Have you, have you? Yeah, tell me. Have you gone to China? I've not. No. No. No. But you've
read all. I mean, I just, I did the, I did the AIing on the way here, right? Like something
between 16 to 20 million chargers in China, 4.5 of those are publicly available. I mean,
it massively dwarfs anything. Also, they're power delivery. They're, they are those,
I further call those massive power lines where, you know, it's like they, they, they make noise and
like, you know, kill birds with the power lines are so big. America, I think if you tally up Tesla,
Evo, EA, Chargepoint, you guys, I think we're something around 238,000. As a country, we are
distant second place to China. And we have, but we have about twice as many as third and fourth
place, which apparently are the Netherlands and Germany at over 100,000. How many do we need?
How many chargers do, does America need? Yeah, it's a good question. There's a lot of studies
out there about, about how many, and I could try to recite all those statistics that I'll probably
get wrong as I'm doing it. So, so, I don't know. I think, I think we know that if we can get to
30,000 by the end of the decade, essentially in the 2030, we think we can have a meaningful impact
on where the, what the networks look like in the United States today to really go serve the marketplace.
And we know to your point, even beyond what we're doing, there's still a need in this marketplace,
right? And I think what we have to do is take charging off the table as to why people don't buy
any of it today. And I think that's what Tesla's done really well, where it's, I buy Tesla, it comes
to this network, I nap to it. This is really simple. I don't think about charging. That's what we
got to go solve as Iona. Right. Okay, so 30,000 by 2030, does that number change at all if there's
some massive step change in the battery technology? Like solid state comes on board and every,
all of a sudden, everybody can charge in like five minutes to a full charge?
Yeah. I mean, look, if EV adoption rates increase significantly to your point, battery costs come
way down. There's parity with ice or, or, you know, the range gets way better or gas prices
continue to increase. And you see a change in that glide slope on adoption rates. There's definitely
an opportunity to potentially go bigger or even dial down if adoption went to zero, which again,
I don't think is the case. So we're constantly valuing the market and making sure that we're
building chargers where people need them right now. And we think they're going to need them in
the future as well. It's consolidation like on the distant horizon. Do you think there's too
many operators in terms of charging networks? Yeah. I think, I think every industry goes through
that. Right. So I think time will tell in terms of what happens. But, you know, I mean, you could
look at the solar market, whether it's inverters or modules, whatever else. So I think it's just a
question of, you know, what is the right number of, of, of, of organizations, companies out there?
Look, I think, I think the big thing is in order to be successful in this marketplace from a
profitability standpoint, going back to that question, how do you make money, you need scale.
You can't, you can't be a charging operator of, I only operate chargers in New Jersey.
Right. Right. Right. Pennsylvania. Right. Yeah. Or Philly, right. Only at Wobbles.
Right. Exactly. Which is Florida in, in Philly, in Jersey. Yeah. So you need real scale. I mean,
you real scale where you can become an actual operator. And I think that's where you're going
to see folks that can get to that scale and be able to deliver kind of a network coast to coast
in your cities and between cities are going to be successful. Okay. Oh, I have one that,
actually, I forgot to ask you. Go bathrooms. No, no, no. This is a little, this is my KG
little research here. Oh. So Mercedes is one of the elite eight partners we'll call them.
Elite eight. Okay. They are also launching their own charging network. Like higher end.
Like high, high end. Scott seems to have a lot of the fancy stuff that you guys,
are you guys white labeling theirs? I think they're using the same alpatronic
high power technology. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what they're using, actually,
but what I'm using. Okay. So, yeah. So we've partnered very closely with Alpatronic in terms
of what we deploy in the, in the field right now. So everything we do today is up to 400 kilowatts.
You know, we'll look at higher power over time as the vehicles come as well.
All right. Well, okay. Back to the question. That's right. Yeah. So,
I mean, if you're not going to answer whether you're white living for them,
how does it work where you're building Iona and they're building their own? Is it, are they,
you don't see, did you see the miscompetitor? There's a competitor. Yeah. It's just another
charging network in the marketplace today. And I think it goes back to your point of like,
charging the problem. And there's, you know, there's enough room to go around right now for
to deploy assets. So, right. But they're just another charged network to us. No different
than any of you go or in Alchemy America. How closely do you monitor like, you know,
battery, tech and charging speeds? Again, you know, Mercedes, they said they had a
megawatt charger up and running at the Nardo circuit where, you know, it's like,
you know, they had to put in their own power line to power it, but they charged the car in like,
two minutes. Right. Like, do you, that's just so in the future, you're not worried about that?
No, we're constantly looking at that. Right. And again, I think that's the beauty of this
joint venture is because we can work, we do work between their, you know, eight product teams
and our product teams. So, we're constantly understanding, hey, what's on the time rise
and what's on your multi-generational product plan roadmap? Where should we intersect?
What should we tweak? So, these conversations are happening all the time. And again, that's,
that type of partnership is what helps make sure that the ecosystem works better.
I got you. Okay. Okay. And that's probably a competitive advantage you have, whereas like,
I still have no idea if EA even talks to Volkswagen anymore, but like, you are seeing
the perspective of eight OEMs telling you like, hey, this is happening, this is coming,
there's a trend, there's a problem. And so, that's, you know, whereas everyone else with
the network is either none or one OEM. Right. You know, for sure, that's the
built benefit. And when you think about why the OEMs have invested into this and built this
joint venture strategically is because it allows them to have control over the joint venture
in a way in terms of understanding, hey, should we deploy higher power charging?
You know, where does it make sense to deploy them to be able to, you know, be able to sell
our EVs, et cetera. Okay. I was looking around trying to figure out other partners, right?
The Wawa apparently is a good one. Sheets, like, I get it. These are traditional sort of
I feel you're from Pittsburgh. Sheets is great. Wawa is great. They're all great.
But this model has been established where these guys are already usually selling gasoline along
with their story. Surely a fast food chain has to be a target, right? Can I recommend Waffle House?
Sure. Yeah. If they're listening right now, give us a call. We're getting to charge
times now where you could go in and order a happy meal with your kid. And when you come out,
your car's hit 80%. 100%. 15 minutes. You're at what you need to be from a charge time and a
dwell time perspective for sure. And these fast food chains are laser focused on whatever they
can do to bring in more customers. Why hasn't, or maybe, because there's something coming in the
future, some future announcement, like why haven't they fully embraced the EV driver?
I don't think they have not embraced the EV driver. I think it's just a matter of,
we're talking to a lot of partners right now, you know, Wawa, Sheets, Casey's, Wally's.
You said you had Starbucks, right? We actually have been really successful
finding places next to Starbucks, which has been really good. Because,
and actually, this is why it is, if you look at a Starbucks or you look at any type of QSR,
one of the issues they do have is it's small formula. Quick service retailer.
Yes. Quick service restaurant. Yes. Ed loves them. Good acronym.
acronym, Hunter. So, you look at these quick service restaurants, QSRs,
usually the issue is there's not a lot of space inside of their area. Right. Right. So,
if you go to McDonald's or something else and they've got 15 parking spots and I'm going to
build 10 charging stalls, now they're down to five parking spots. Right. So, this is where,
like, you know, we have one of our marquee sites in Houston is adjacent to a Starbucks. Got,
and I've got eight high-powered charging stalls. So, you can charge and you can one step
over the line, you're in Starbucks. We've got another site opening in Washington
state similar to that as well. I think it'll flip once McDonald's or whatever Burger King
looks at their clientele and says, oh, look, 60% of our customers drive EVs. Right. Then you
probably see six out of 10 parking spaces. It could be. Something like that. It could be. But
again, like, what we want to make sure is that we're deploying enough charges in the location
or if it's a smaller format that we've got another site that's not that far down the road.
So, that you have, you don't have long queuing or if a charger does go down and it takes us
the day to get it back up, you've got other charging assets to go use. Okay. All right. Well,
I think we're talking to you on your second anniversary, right? And your announcement of
100 sites. Over 100 sites. Over 100 sites. With, I'm trying to read this press release without
the numbers in it. How many bays? We have just over 4,700 bays contracted right now across the US.
Okay. And when we say contracted, that means they're either in design, permitting,
in construction or live to customers. Okay. And then we're going to see,
there's already one in operation and the closest one to us is one in Vista. There's one in Vista.
We've got two more in Northern California open right now. There's one up close to Bakersfield.
Not live yet. Not live yet. No, no. But we've got one in San Jose that's open,
one in Marin County that's open. Gotta do Baker. I'm going to California.
All right. I'm going to tell the team. Yeah. Because you can't charge in Vegas,
but it's 60 miles from Vegas. There wasn't even go, I think that one's gone. There's two
Tesla sites in Baker. There's an EA, there's a Rivian not far. I'm going to San Jose next week
for NVIDIA GTC. Okay. I will check it out. Check it out. Where is it? Where is it? It's on
Holland Avenue. It's just by the airport. No, it's further south than that. Okay.
Off the main road. All right. I will check it out. Yeah. But the big one we should be waiting for
is Westminster. When is that open? Later this year. Later this year. You have a month?
Early to middle Q4. You're going to come back? Absolutely. Is it a big party?
Big party. Yeah. You guys are invited. Is it going to be Boba? Maybe it will be Boba. We'll figure
it out. I'm not a Boba fan. Despite what I said, I'm not a Boba fan. It just, it would be good.
I recognize it would be good for the environment. People are crazy for Boba. The big thing.
Okay. Yes. Okay. Yes. All right. Some sort of noodle. So congratulations on your rapid success.
Yeah. I appreciate it. Thank you. I've never been to one. I'm excited again. I'm excited for
you guys to try them out. We have more open in California this month than next month.
That will make the track cool. I don't watch some near downtown LA. I like it. Okay. We're
lucky. Best of luck in opening. Please keep us updated and come back again soon. Thanks guys.
About this episode
Seth Cutler, CEO of IONNA (Ion North America), lays out how the OEM-backed charging network is scaling fast—aiming for 100+ sites and nearly 5,000 contracted high-power bays, with ~1,500 more under construction. The big differentiator isn’t just speed (150kW+), but “quality at scale”: canopies, 24/7 bathrooms, lounges, and retail partnerships like Wawa/Sheets plus Amazon Just Walk Out. IONNA supports both CCS and NACS, emphasizes “no app” charging via plug-and-charge/credit card, and focuses investment on cities and corridors to serve apartment dwellers. The episode also tackles why charging has been unreliable, how integrations work across eight automakers, and the business model beyond charging revenue.
Original notes
What does it take to compete with Tesla’s Supercharger network? In this episode of The Inevitable by MotorTrend, we sit down with Seth Cutler, CEO of IONNA, the fast-growing EV charging network backed by BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and Toyota. IONNA has gone from zero to 100+ charging sites in just two years, with plans to scale to 30,000 high-powered chargers by 2030. But they’re not just building chargers — they’re rethinking the entire charging experience.
The InEVitable
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