EverCharge Provides EV Charging Solutions For Urban Dwellers
This interview is with the founder of EverCharge Jason Appelbaum.
EverCharge is The World’s Smartest EV Charging System. Forget public charging: EverCharge is installed directly into residents’ parking spaces for reliable, exclusive use. The patented technology ensures that Housing Associations and residents alike get the most scalable, easy to use, and affordable EV charging solution.
TD: Tell us a bit about yourself personally.
I grew up on the East Coast. I currently live with my wife and our two cats Sonic and Tails in Emeryville, CA.
TD: What is your present startup?
EverCharge.
TD: What interests you about the travel/transport space?
I think there’s a general sentiment that we are just on the cusp of industrychanging innovations in the personal transportation space, which makes it an incredibly interesting industry to be in. I don’t think you can be in this space right now and notbe interested in how to make it more sustainable, which is why EverCharge, with its focus on making EV ownership more accessible, is so exciting to me.
TD: What got you into it?
I live in a condo, and when I got an EV a couple of years ago I needed a way to charge at home. All the available options for residents of multitenant buildings had a number of problems: they couldn’t accommodate more than one or two EVs in any building, drivers were expected to share chargers, installation costs were astronomical. Honestly, I was pretty shocked to learn that this problem wasn’t solved yet. Did the EV industry really expect only singlefamily homeowners to drive EVs? That’s when I discovered EverCharge it was little more than an idea at the point, and with my background in getting companies off the ground and electrical engineering I knew I had to be involved.
TD: What problem are you trying to solve?
I could answer this question in a few ways. At a very specific level, we’re trying to make electric vehicle ownership a legitimate option for people who live in cities. The vast majority of urban dwellers live in multitenant buildings (apartments and condos), and charging EVs in these buildings is inherently problematic: as demand for EV charging inevitably grows, you need to be able to scale; residents need 24/7 access to charging; and you need to keep it affordable, or else you keep EV ownership inaccessible.
So, on a broader level, the problem we’re trying to solve is simple: we want to lower the barriers to entry for EV ownership. If we solve this problem we may just be able to solve the very real problem of climate change which I suppose is our ultimate goal. Not too lofty, right?
TD: Discuss failure or setback you’ve experienced and how you got through it.
To be perfectly honest, As a startup founder I think you’re lucky if you go one day without a setback. Momentum favors the status quo, so you just have to keep pushing if you want to build something that changes that.
TD: What do you want our audience to learn from you?
It feels presumptuous to assume that I have something to teach anyone, but I’ll give it a shot. You can do good without being a total altruist. This isn’t to say that altruism is bad of course it’s not but real change needs to come from the business community as well as nonprofits. EverCharge is forprofit business, but that doesn’t mean its success won’t make the world a better place. I think there is this imaginary line that exists between profit and progress, where some people think they have to be mutually exclusive. They aren’t, and in fact, one of the greatest motivators for longterm progress is profit.
TD: What’s your message for our audience?
Ha, I guess it would be to buy an electric car and give EverCharge a call.
TD: What’s your best piece of entrepreneurial advice in one sentence?
Ship it.
