A common fear stopping people from buying electric vehicles? Running out of charge.
More and more EV charging stations are popping up all over the country, but it’ll take work for charging stations to become as ubiquitous as gas stations. Still, this work is necessary if we want a greener future for our cars.
Electric vehicle startup EV Connect is laying the groundwork to ensure charging stations are ready for the incoming wave of electric cars. On Tuesday, EV Connect announced that it closed a $12 million Series B funding round to make this possible. This brings the company’s total funding to $25 million.
EV Connect has designed a cloud-based platform to help site owners monitor and manage their charging stations. The platform is open source, so it can be designed to work with different types of hardware or infrastructure.
But EV Connect also helps EV drivers too, thanks to its smartphone app that provides real-time access to charging station status. That way, drivers know where they can get their next charge.
“For a future in which everyone from EV drivers to utilities can maximize the benefits and opportunities presented by the electrification of transportation, charging infrastructure needs to be easy for drivers to use and manageable for utilities and site owners,” Jordan Ramer, founder and CEO of EV Connect, said in a statement.
He continued, “The EV industry cannot afford to continue on a path of building a fragmented EV charging ecosystem on closed platforms. We look forward to working with our new investors to bring truly flexible, open standards scalability to electric transportation, and opening up a new world of innovation for markets and drivers.”
EV Connect has over 6,000 connectors under contract. Some of its customers include Yahoo, Marriott, Hilton, ADP and the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
