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Austin Zaccor was formerly the lead Data Scientist at EVgo, one of the US’s largest public fast charging networks, with 850 charging locations and growing quickly! They’re on a mission to speed up mass adoption of electric vehicles by cranking up the convenience factor. More than 140M people in the U.S. live within a 10 mile drive of an EVgo fast charger, but at the moment, only 2-4% of the 250M cars in the US are EVs. Why is that? How long will it take to get to a critical mass? Find out in today’s episode.
Back to Austin: an MIT Masters graduate in Business Analytics, Austin is a data wiz with an incredibly powerful left brain coupled with a sharp wit. After building data models and whipping up simulations with python at Assurance IQ (actually where Ty & I met Austin), he wanted to bring his data crunching superpowers to somewhere striving to do good by the Earth. Of recent, he uses data to predict the BEST locations for each future EV station (kind of badass, right)?
We dive deep into…Why should everyone learn SQL? What do the EV industry and the 2012 VW lawsuit have in common? How many EV chargers are needed in US, for full convenience (i.e. equivalent to a gas station)? How is Tesla a “loss leader”, in the charging industry? And much much more.
This episode is particularly valuable for…EV skeptics who believe they’ll never be in every home, strategic thinkers who like imagining how “the checkers game of EV locations” will define the future of transportation, or anyone who geeks out on the technical aspects of EV chargers!
Bottoms up! Please don’t forget to subscribe on Spotify or your favorite podcast app. It keeps us producing new episodes for you 🙏🏼
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Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Show Notes
- [1:14] Where else do you see the EV industry heading towards?
- [2:57] From your data science role, are you getting a chance to look at the best places to put EV chargers?
- [4:19] So they cannot just plug into the (electrical) grid from a convenient spot?
- [4:46] These companies are the ones digging the trenches and laying the conduit?
- [5:07] Does weather affect chargers?
- [5:55] Tesla’s charging stations are losses. What does it mean to be a loss leader?
- [9:00] What if Tesla went and made all of their chargers available to everyone. How would that change everything?
- [10:17] Why is Tesla willing to lose money on chargers?
- [11:57] What have you learned about the consumer’s appetite to spend money on this?
- [14:07] How do we get out of this ‘early adopter’ phase?
- [16:09] How does an EV charging company balance making money aND being good for the Earth?
- [18:24] How EVgo is appealing to people’s appetite for a zero to low carbon fuel source for their car
- [20:10] Are there companies out there providing electricity and taking advantage of a fossil-fuel intensive power grid system?
- [22:17] Is it only profit-driven? Or from the goodness of people as well.
- [23:41] What do you feel needs to happen next with the government? In the EV public charging space
- [25:41] Surge pricing is caused by utility companies?
- [28:11] Rapid Mayhem questions!
- [32:21] Climate change is so big! What is the equivalent of what a listener can do?
- [33:59] Any other CTAs for the audience?
- [34:48] Split of greenhouse gas emissions, by US industry?
- [35:25] EVgo! Where is the best place to go to learn more?
- [35:57] Can a plug-in hybrid charge on an EVgo charger?
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Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Show Notes
- Connect with Austin: LinkedIn
- Follow EVgo: LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok
- Electrical conduit
- US Route 50
- US Route 80
- CHAdeMO
- CCS (vs. CHAdeMO)
- Vestigial Organs
- Toyoya Mirai
- Meaning of hockey stick (growth)
- What is a carbon offset
- Elon Musk is the richest man in the world
- What is surge pricing
- What is kinetic energy
- What is a kWh (Kilowatt Hours)
- Drawdown, by Paul Hawken
- Pure electric cars don’t need oil changes, transmission, coolants, or brake fluid replacement
- 33% of global emissions come from food
- EVgo app download
How do you imagine the future of EV charging stations impacting your daily life? Share your thoughts in the comments below! 🌎