Itselectric is looking to get city dwellers covered. Co-founder Tiya Gordon tells us how.
If you’ve ever lived in a city like New York or San Francisco this here episode of the InEVitable will interest you. Yes, if you have lots of money you might have a garage to stash your car in. But if you’re like most people, you just park it outside on the street. What if you own an electric vehicle in a crowded urban environment? You’re hosed when it comes to charging, and you lose out on one of the big advantages of EV life, namely waking up to a “full tank.” Put another way, New York City has 8 million residents and 50 public chargers. You read that right, five zero. Well friends, newly formed startup Itselectric thinks it has the solution: curbside charging.
The vast majority of EV charging occurs at levels 1 and 2. Level 1 just means you plug into a wall, and for a vehicle with a decent to large battery it can take over a day to charge. Not a solution. But Level 2 chargers, what people who own their own homes and EVs enjoy, means you can just charge your vehicle overnight and wake up ready to go. Since buildings are already wired for 220-volts (the voltage that makes level 2 charging tick), Itselectric works with the landlord to install a curbside charger out front and split the profits with them. The user just pulls up, plugs in a cord supplied by Itselectric, starts everything via an app (no credit cards to fail), and comes back in the morning to a charged vehicle.
If the above either sounds too easy or too good to be true, we hear you. Which is why we sat down with Itselectric co-founder Tiya Gordon. She answers all of our questions including, where the idea for Itselectric came from, why design matters when it comes to EV chargers, why you want your own charging cable, what cities Itselectric is in and which it is coming to, plus we even talk the Talking Heads. Go figure.
We think what Itselectric is proposing is an idea that’s long overdue, and one that help solves the problem of non-homeowner EV drivers. Want to listen? Or better yet, watch!? Why not both? You can watch the vodcast right here or on our YouTube channel. If audio is your thing, download the podcast here or wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you like it, please tell your friends, share us on social media, like the video, and don’t forget to give us a five-star review. Better yet, ask us a question, and if we use if on an episode, we’ll send you some MotorTrend/The InEVitable swag. We hope you enjoyed our conversation with Itselectric’s Tiya Gordon. Reminder that Ed and Jonny will be back next week with another new episode of The InEVitable!
