Startup takes fast charging to EVs with mobile units

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."

To make its DC fast charger mobile, the company had to reengineer and shrink current charging units that are quite large.

"Every other charging station was this massive infrastructure project," Aviv said. "It could be in a spot that was inaccessible. It could be in a spot where it got broken or vandalized. It could be in a spot where no one really knew it was even there.

"We realized if you want to do something different, it had to be mobile, it had to be portable and it had to be delivered to the EV owner whenever they wanted it delivered."

To showcase his innovation, Aviv appeared on entrepreneur-themed reality TV show "Shark Tank" in 2020 and secured investments from "sharks" Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner.
With support from the celebrity investors, plus insurance provider Allstate, roadside-assistance platform Honk Technologies and on-demand vehicle services company Spiffy, SparkCharge says it is looking to boost EV accessibility.

"Depending on where my ZIP code is, I might not be able to own an electric vehicle, because the infrastructure is not there," Aviv said. "Now, we can remove that barrier. If you have a phone, you have a charging station.

"We think that's going to help grow the electric vehicle industry tremendously."

Moving forward, Aviv said he is confident the startup can make charging more readily available.

"If I don't have to pay to have my house rewired or if I'm in an apartment complex or condo and I don't have to pay an exorbitant fee to work with the apartment community to start a charger," Aviv said, "I now have the freedom to push a button on my phone and get my car charged literally anywhere."