Zapify Article
At Home, At Work & On The Road
STARTUP SEEKS TO BUILD A RESIDENTIAL BASED NETWORK FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING
Societal change to EVs
Every day we are seeing more and more electric vehicles on the road, but what is driving this growth?
The primary reason for this evolution from internal combustion to electric vehicles is the pressure
governments are under to curb carbon emissions. Increasingly over the last decade, concerns about
climate change have motivated many governments to encourage automakers to develop cleaner
vehicles. Several types of vehicles have been designed and tested to see which propulsion system would
best meet the goals of reducing emissions. In the end, it appears that the electric vehicle has won this
race and support for it is growing around the globe. In the US, President Biden recently mandated that
half of all cars sold by 2030 be electric. Additionally, the federal government has provided some
significant funding to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles, including approximately $12B to
convert the fleets of the United States Postal Service (USPS) and the General Services Administration
(GSA) to electric vehicles, as well as $7.5B to build a nationwide network of charging stations. Recently,
six automotive manufacturers have committed to become fully electric by 2040 driving the urgency of
creating a robust and comprehensive charging network.
Impact on Infrastructure
How can we as a country manage this transition? Conversion to electric vehicles requires that we create
an entirely new infrastructure to charge them. As a comparison, there are more than 150,000 gas
stations in the US. These have been developed and built over the past 100+ years and have been located
everywhere we go, from major throughways to small town America. Gasoline has become so important
to our daily lives that making it easily available has been essential as we use it to power everything from
our cars and boats to our lawnmowers and weed whackers. As we shift to electric vehicles, our need for
gasoline will decrease, but not be eliminated as many of our current uses will remain, including
powering our beloved classic cars.
That said, the distribution of electricity is much different; it does not require centralized holding tanks
for the fuel. Since our society is built on the use of electricity, wires are essentially everywhere. This
makes placement of charging stations relatively easier and much less costly to build. It is easy to foresee
a future where the charging cycle of a battery is significantly shorter than is currently the case, and as a
result many remaining gas stations will likely sell both electricity and gasoline.
Not Enough & Location is Important
The original budget that the Biden Administration proposed in their infrastructure bill included $15B for
charging stations, but that number was cut in half in congressional negotiations. Industry experts are
concerned that the current funding is not adequate to build the charging network that will be required.
The Zero Emission Transportation Association believes that $20 to $30B will need to be invested in
charging stations over the next 10 years to support a fully electric fleet.
To date, most public charging stations have been installed in major public areas. This typically includes
shopping plazas, malls, downtown districts, parking garages, etc. These have been the target locations
for many of the charging station companies and OEMs from the beginning. More recently we have seen
an increase in charging stations located along major roadways, in rest stops, hotels, and restaurants.
What is missing is the broad scale ability to charge in the smaller communities or rural areas where so
many of us live. We need to make sure that there is support to get everyone through the “Last Mile”. To
decrease the range anxiety of many drivers of electric vehicles (“do I have enough to get me home???”)
Zapify was created!
Introduction to Zapify
Zapify, founded by a team of entrepreneurs, automotive enthusiasts, and technologists passionate
about electric vehicles, is a new ecommerce platform, that provides the infrastructure and ability for
owners of charging stations located in their driveways to sell electricity to electric vehicle drivers in need
of a charge. Zapify is built using a business model similar to Airbnb and Uber, which have experienced
rapid growth, upwards of 40% per year over the past several years. The benefit of these platforms is that
companies like Zapify, Airbnb, and Uber don’t own the assets, they are owned by members of the
platform. This shortens the cycle for getting them online. For charging stations this means that Zapify
doesn’t need to negotiate leases for space in parking lots or garages, buy charging stations, pull permits
with local municipalities, schedule installers, wait for installation and then post the new charging
stations online. At the end of 2020, over 1.3 million electric vehicles were on the road in the United
States. For any of these electric vehicle owners to get their charging station online with Zapify, they
simply create an account at www.zapifyme.com and input the details about the charging stations they
already own. The whole process takes about 5 minutes. As people across the country continue to buy
electric vehicles with their associated private charging stations, this network can grow quickly and
organically.
Many of the electric vehicles on the market today provide a driving range of about 300 miles on a full
charge. This is sufficient to meet most drivers’ weekly needs. As a result, most owners of electric
vehicles will typically only use their charging station one night a week to get this desired range. This
means that across the country, we as a nation will be installing a large amount of very underutilized
assets. By becoming a member of the Zapify network, the owners of the charging stations will improve
the utilization of their charging station, while offsetting the cost of running their own electric vehicle. It
makes Zapify charging station owners new entrepreneurs!
Zapify strongly believes that they provide the perfect complement to companies like Chargepoint, EVGo,
and Tesla. While these providers locate their charging stations in high traffic areas, the size and
geographical layout of the United States requires a broader distribution of charging stations for this major infrastructural change to electric vehicles to be successful. Founder and CEO of Zapify, Paul
MacKinnon, explained it this way, “I like to use the analogy of veins vs arteries in a human body.
Chargepoint, EVGo, Tesla and others have been focusing on the arteries. We at Zapify want to focus on
the veins, down to the fingers and toes, i.e. every corner of every community! Zapify will allow drivers to
feel confident that they can make ‘that last mile home’.”
In addition to Zapify’s charging station platform, the company also provides: access to the constantly
changing news on electric vehicles and charging stations; a marketplace where you can buy charging
stations and have them installed; and the ability to find mechanics that specialize in electric vehicles.
You can find Zapify at www.zapifyme.com.
As they say, listen carefully as your car says “Zapify me”, the next time it runs low on a charge.