There's not much that consumers can't request on demand these days. Uber and Lyft offer on-demand ride-hailing services. Companies such as Instacart and Shipt bring groceries right to one's door. And Grubhub and DoorDash deliver restaurant-prepared food wherever you are.
All these services have sought to provide convenience and make day-to-day necessities more easily accessible.
So what if an electric vehicle driver could request a charger on demand?
SparkCharge, founded in 2017, has developed an ultrafast mobile charger, a charge- hailing app and a network of drivers to do exactly that: bring charging to an EV.
The Somerville, Mass., startup says it will use its RoadieCCS mobile charging units to juice up customers on request, regardless of the vehicle's state of charge. SparkCharge drivers take the unit, which can provide 15 miles of range in 15 minutes, to the vehicle and charge it up.
The company announced its charge-hailing app, ChargeUp, last week. Subscribers will pay $25 per month for charging delivered virtually anywhere, such as parking lots, workplaces or homes. The convenience service will be available in Dallas, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
When he started the company, founder Joshua Aviv, an entrepreneur with a background in economics and data science, said he "realized that infrastructure was going to play a huge part in how fast the electric vehicle industry grew."
"If you can remove the where, when and how out of EV charging, and can remove that pain point, then you can actually help grow the electric vehicle market at a much faster rate," Aviv told Automotive News. "It's Uber meets electric vehicle charging."