EV Charging, Networking, and Multifamily

First, a story...

When I first decided to focus on EV Charging in late 2020 I knew multifamily was the target market for L2. L2 for retail spaces is kind of silly and at that time OFFICES WERE CLOSED. When I joined Sona Energy Solutions in 2021 the first thing we did for EV Charging was go to the National Apartment Association (Naahq) annual conference in Chicago to talk about EV Charging.

Before I get into the technical aspects, from a commercial perspective, multifamily is challenging.

• For condos, it's the annoyance of dealing with an HOA board and how every board has some old guy who is a professor at some technical school and thinks he knows more than me (I swear, these guys are out of central casting).
• For apartments, it's dealing with the property manager who is only a messenger to some mysterious "owner" who you never get to speak with until you realize you've wasted a ton of time because the owner doesn't actually have the $30-60k budgeted that the project is going to cost because of course they want the chargers installed in the most inconvenient location.
• For new construction on both, it's being brought in well after the design phase and realizing the electrical engineer working on the building has no clue how to design for EV Charging (link to my first newsletter post ever!)

In 2023, I got all excited because a buddy who works for a large property management company said he had around 6 sites that needed EV Charging. That is until he said: "Oh yea, Tesla is also providing a quote and they said they'd do it at no charge." So I said, "Well, I would just go with them in that case."

You see, it's hard to compete with free, especially when free was being done by the leaders in the space.

In early 2024 I got a call from a friend who worked on the Tesla Supercharging team and said they were expanding their L2 offering and "Would Sona be interested in helping with installation support?" I am a firm believer in the ancient philosophy of "if you can't beat them, join them" so I said "Sure!".

I got all excited about how we were going to be doing a ton of installs for Tesla, I did all the training, I got to know my Tesla counterparts, I introduced them into opportunities I was working on and told them to run with it and just use us for the install and for a beautiful 45 days all was according to plan!

And then Musk fired every Tesla charging person and the deals they were working on evaporated and the apartments said "CHRIS! YOU TOLD US TESLA WAS THE SAFEST BET?!" and I said, "oops".

But let's be honest, Tesla firing their charging team is good for every EV Charging company that's not named Tesla because now the largest competitor who had the best offering no longer exists.

And so here we are, back to me racking my brain on the best way to get EV Chargers that are buried in a parking deck that has no wifi access to the cloud.

When I say "best" I mean the most reliable, simplest, lowest cost solution. (semi-related, one of my favorite sales sayings is "You can have it fast, cheap, or good...pick two"). But I'm a stubborn engineer so while I know about almost all the ways to network in a parking garage, when I post questions like I did this week, I'm often picking the brains of other experts to get ideas on how my solution can be the best.

And there were some excellent comments on that thread, so let me recap what I've learned and take some of those comments into account.

Below is a simple schematic of the base system components:

A few basic notes:

• An often overlooked aspect of the "cloud connection point" is that it needs to be powered, typically by 120V outlet...which can be harder to grab than one would think in a parking deck.
• In concrete parking garages, I've found that WiFi penetrates concrete better than a cell tower signal!
• If Cat5/6 cable needs to be in conduit, running cable is not as simple and low cost as many would have you believe
• Running cable sounds nice if it's all done at one time, but if the site wants to add a few chargers every year the install cost has now more than doubled per charger because now we also have to run the wire and "oops the router that was originally installed is full" and "the electrician we sent to install the charger actually doesn't know how to terminate cable so we'll have to send another guy out at a later date".
• If chargers are spread out widely through the garage - and especially on different levels of garage - then everything is so much more difficult. Ideally all chargers are in one central location all close to each other!
• All of this networking discussion is only needed if site owner wants to restrict access to chargers AND bill for utilizing the chargers.
• Don't forget any and all recurring fees that are a result of data plans or software plans. Are these system costs or individual charger costs?
• For new construction (especially assigned parking condos), I like the concept of options from Evolute Power and Atom Power, Inc. , but I'm not sure if they work if multiple individuals are sharing one charger (ie billing for separate accounts on one charger) and they may be pricey for smaller charger installs, but keep in consideration
• Finally: I understand there are a lot of ways to skin this cat. The problem with EV Charging is that it's often not a "one and done" type of install. You have to install some today, and then you're going to get calls every year to expand the system. But the problem is, the system needs to be designed for expansion today, but also keep the expansion cost low and simple and wont cause headaches in the future. It needs to be as simple as customer calling me up, ordering some more chargers, and then everything gets installed in one truck roll. THAT (elegance of installation and reliability) is the challenge.....so let's begin

Option 1: Utilize site internet, Hardwire as much as possible

Pros:

• Reliability

Cons:

• Can be expensive to run wire to all chargers...especially if chargers are on multiple floors
• Harder to expand as chargers get added.
• Electricians who wire up chargers may not have the skill set to terminate low voltage wiring (surprising, yes, I know, but trust me on this)

Option 2: LTE to Wifi

Pros:

• Do not need site's IT involved!

Cons:

• System integrator is no longer just an EV Charging installer, but now an IT + EV Charging company and owns all IT issues now :(
• Wireless repeaters will probably still be needed, and getting those between floors may require core drilling

Option 3: LTE sim in Charger

Pros:

• IF charger has a cell signal, this is by far the simplest. This works great for something like a dual port pedestal charger installed in an outdoor parking lot

Cons:

• If installed in a parking garage, you better hope it's close to an exposed, exterior wall with good cell coverage
• Can get pricey if paying for cloud software by port

Option 4: Smart Phone as Cloud Connection point

This one is cool. There are several companies who offer something like this including Xeal , Wallbox Chargers (Sona even has a case study with Wallbox on this), and HeyCharge

Pros:

• No complicated IT infrastructure. Driver's phones become the data connection phone

Cons

• Firmware updates (whether user has older phone or charger needs firmware updates) can become tricky because data flows from the phone to the charger
• The cell phone does not need a cell signal when activating a charge...UNLESS the app on the phone requires an update before working
• May require more input from site manager or maintenance (ie walking around and updating firmware on all chargers)

Ok, I'm exhausted, please leave some great comments that add value to this discussion!