Commissioning of charging infrastructure EV Passport says its charging stations are designed to pass the grandma test.
“When you arrive, you don’t need to download an app. Simply scan a QR code and it integrates with your digital wallet,” Hooman Shahidi, co-founder and CEO of EVPassport, told TechCrunch. “Or if you’re really old-fashioned, you can just enter your credit card and be done.”
Shahidi says EVPassport is about removing barriers to adoption, like the annoying extra step of downloading an app. The company also hopes to make it easier for enterprises and commercial businesses to meet their electric vehicle goals by providing charging infrastructure as a service (IaaS). In other words, EVPassport provides all hardware, software, firmware and connectivity on a central platform, and installs, operates and maintains enterprise chargers.
IaaS charging is a growing field in the EV charging landscape, as companies want to offer their own customers ways to charge without having to purchase, own and operate charging ports themselves. Companies such as EV Connect, Greenlots and WattLogic are implementing similar business models.
And it is a structure that has caught the attention of investors. EVPassport announced Thursday that it has secured $200 million to accelerate construction of its electric vehicle charging stations. The funds came from Northleaf Capital Partners, a private equity firm that acquired a majority stake in the startup.
Since launching in 2020, the startup has deployed 5,000 chargers across 35 US states, plus Canada and Mexico. Over the next two years, EVPassport expects to deploy another 1,000 DC chargers and an additional 10,000 Level 2 chargers, prioritizing areas with high EV adoption such as California, Texas, Florida, Chicago and the Northeast Corridor, according to Shahidi.
Each DC charger will have one plug with Tesla’s North American charging standard and another with the combined charging standard. The type of Level 2 outlets installed will be at the discretion of the customer.
EVPassport has also committed to building a large loading center in Viejas, California, with 426 outlets in one location.
For comparison, electric mobility company Revel has opened two Brooklyn cargo centers, New York with a collective of 40 DC fast chargers. Delight too hopes to build a 60-seat site in Queens, a 30-seat site in the South Bronx, and a 10-seat site in Manhattan.
EVPassport’s customer base is “basically anyone who has a parking space,” Shahidi says. They could be real estate investment trusts, hotels, public garages, sports facilities, hospitals. Existing clients include Viejas Casino and Resort, National Development Garages, Ace Parking, Nuveen and Millennium Park.
Millennium, a 10,000-space underground parking garage, is one of Northleaf’s portfolio companies, and that’s how the company learned about EVPassport.
Olivier Laganiere, CEO of Northleaf, told TechCrunch that in addition to the startup’s seamless user experience, the company decided to back EVPassport because of its open API system that can integrate with client platforms such as facilities management solutions or building maintenance solutions.
For example, in the hospitality industry, the EVPassport API could help link EV charging to a customer’s hotel reservation that can be connected to a hotel card or rewards program, allowing the customer to use those credentials to initiate a charge. Or in a multifamily development, managers can integrate the electric vehicle charging experience with property management software to learn how tenants interact with amenities.
“That provides some flexibility and options for future growth that we think most customers really like,” Laganiere said, noting that the functionality also aligns with Northleaf’s vision of investing in infrastructure.
Langaniere also noted that EVPassport’s business model provides an economic incentive for companies to partner with the startup because the service is not only subscription-based, but also involves a 50% revenue share.
The average length of EVPassport contracts is about 10 years, Shahidi said. A Level 2 charger could cost “as little as your Netflix subscription” and a DC fast charger could cost around $1,000 a month.
“When you think about DC fast charging, just the hardware in terms of CapEx costs around $100,000, not to mention installation,” Shahidi said. “And then for us to be able to say, Hey, here’s a subscription for $1,000 and you get to keep half the revenue, it’s a win-win situation for all parties involved.”
