ChargeLab is a company that builds software for managing electric vehicle chargers. Pulse 2.0 interviewed ChargeLab CEO, Zak Lefevre, to learn more about the company.
Zak Lefevre’s Background
What is Zak Lefevre’s background? Lefevre said:
“I started ChargeLab very early in the EV industry in 2016. At the time, there were only a handful of EVs on the market and very sparse charging solutions. The early years of the business consisted of a lot of hustling to find early opportunities to deploy chargers and start building our technology.”
“In 2020, I met my co-founder Ehsan Mokhtari. He had recently built a cybersecurity company and sold it to Nielsen. Like me, he was fascinated by the growing trend towards electrification and a lack of compelling solutions to help drivers fuel up.”
“After Ehsan joined, we raised our first true VC financing and rapidly accelerated the development of our software platform.”
Formation Of ChargeLab
How did the idea for the company come together? Lefevre shared:
“Most technology markets start vertically integrated but inevitably open up. This applies to telecom, PCs, and dozens of other industries.”
“When we started ChargeLab, there were already early vertically integrated solutions—eg folks who build EV chargers, back-end software for managing them, and sometimes provide turnkey install services.”
“But there were no compelling open, hardware-agnostic solutions. Having seen the power of interoperability in other industries, Ehsan and I knew that an open model would also be the winner for EV infrastructure.”
“Today ChargeLab does not build any hardware, but our software platform is compatible with four out of five of the most popular EV chargers in North America. We are the most scalable open platform for managing EV chargers.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Lefevre reflected:
“All my best memories are of helping customers solve real, painful problems.”
“We’ve helped condo buildings with only enough electrical infrastructure to install six EV chargers install 60 chargers using our load balancing technology. We’ve helped school bus fleets convert to electric, giving thousands of students a cleaner and safer ride to school. And we’ve used technology to help a partner cut their customer service costs in half.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Lefevre explained:
“ChargeLab makes software for managing EV chargers. We have dozens of features that are used by thousands of EV charger site hosts and EV drivers daily. Some of the most important are:
- Monetization – We allow anyone hosting an EV charger to set pricing and collect revenue from EV drivers. This is crucial to help site hosts cover the costs of installing and maintaining EV infrastructure. We also integrate credit card readers and Plug & Charge to make it easier for EV drivers to start charging fast.
- Power management/load balancing – With ChargeLab’s software, site hosts can install more EV chargers than their building’s electrical capacity would otherwise allow. Power management intelligently adjusts the output of EV chargers downwards when there is not enough power available in a building, and back up when capacity frees up. This is very important since almost no buildings were designed with EV charging in mind. At the same time, expensive electrical upgrades are not necessary—with power management we can give everyone a full charge in most overnight or daytime charging scenarios. It’s just a question of not having everyone pull full power at the same time.
- Situational awareness – We provide many tools to help charging networks, site hosts, and service providers monitor their EV chargers. This includes our new AI for monitoring and preventative maintenance, as well as APIs for pushing EV charging data to third-party platforms that our customers use for other business or fleet operations.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Lefevre and the team faced in building the company? Lefevre acknowledged:
“The biggest challenge that the EV charging industry faces, including ChargeLab, is interoperability between EV chargers, vehicles, and software.”
“Open, interoperable solutions are definitely the way to go for charging infrastructure, but that does not mean it’s easy. We work with over 100 makes and models of EV chargers and aim to provide a consistent, seamless experience across all of them.”
“To achieve this, we invest heavily in EV charger hardware testing, vehicle testing, and working collaboratively with our partners. Still, there is a long way to go before we can deliver the ideal charging experience with our hardware and vehicle partners. I believe we will get there. We must always remember the importance of collaboration and cooperation within an open industry.”
Evolution Of ChargeLab’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Lefevre noted:
“When we started ChargeLab, the EV charging industry was at a very early stage. As a result, we had to offer many auxiliary services beyond our core software platform. This included reselling EV hardware, facilitating turnkey install services, and maintaining equipment.”
“As the industry has matured, ChargeLab has been able to pull back from all auxiliary services and focus on our core of building the world’s best charging management software. We now partner with great hardware providers like Eaton, ABB, Siemens, and Wallbox who complement our software with their hardware offerings. We also partner with over 100 turnkey installers across North America.”
“Being able to focus purely on software has allowed us to develop our platform even more quickly and more robustly.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Lefevre cited:
“We love working with partners to help them launch, grow, or stabilize their respective EV charging businesses. This includes industry giants like Eaton and ABB, as well as regional leaders like RAB Lighting and the Ivy Charging Network.”
“We’re proud to be the preferred software of these partners, but also take this as a huge responsibility. They are counting on us to reliably deliver the best experience for their customers, and this is what we strive to do every day.”
Funding
After asking Lefevre about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“ChargeLab has raised $31 million from great VCs in the US (Root Ventures, Construct Capital, King River Capital), as well as strategic investors including ABB and Eaton.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Lefevre assessed:
“Today, there are over 40 million EV chargers deployed worldwide and nearly half are connected or ‘smart’ (meaning they can benefit from ChargeLab’s smart charging platform). Taking the average monetization rate for connected chargers, this gives us a global TAM of $4 billion.”
“What’s more exciting though is that by 2030 the number of chargers deployed will grow to over 200 million, and an increasing percentage of these chargers will be connected. This means our global TAM could balloon to over $30 billion. And 2030 is not the end—in 15 or 20 years I predict that there will be over 1 billion EV chargers deployed globally.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Lefevre affirmed:
“Three things differentiate ChargeLab from other charging station management systems (CSMS’):
- Focus – ChargeLab is singularly focused on software. We don’t build or even resell hardware or installation services. This allows us to put all our efforts into iterating rapidly in this quickly evolving industry. It also allows us to partner with folks who build hardware or provide turnkey installations, instead of competing.
- Technology – While the surface value prop of “connecting and managing EV chargers” is starting to look commoditized, the underlying technology is anything but. We are confident that our event-driven microservice architecture provides the most robust and scalable EV charger management back-end in the world. Our APIs lead our industry for simplicity, reliability, and function, allowing dozens of third parties to build on top of ChargeLab. And we’re constantly advancing our platform with innovative features using the latest emerging technologies.
- Partnerships – More than any competitor in our industry, we’ve cultivated close partnerships with other leading brands like ABB, Eaton, Siemens, Wallbox, LG, and more. We believe that a rising tide raises all ships, and we consistently partner where others might compete. For customers, this means a faster path to solutions, since we are frequently speaking to their other providers.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Lefevre concluded:
“Our top focus right now is growth. North America needs millions more connected EV chargers. We are looking to partner with the best manufacturers, installers, and service providers in the industry to help them deploy more chargers with the help of our software.”
