Keywords: electric vehicle infrastructure, grid, chargers, energy, fundraising, technology
In this episode of BRITElights, we continue our EV month series with a focus on electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure. Guest Host Randy Cole, who leads the EV strategy at BRITE, introduces the topic and discusses the challenges of expanding existing infrastructure to accommodate EVs. Our special guest speaker is Jon Holland, CFO and COO of EdgeEnergy, a BRITE member startup that specializes in converting single-phase power to three-phase power for EV fast chargers. Jon stresses the importance of charging availability for EV drivers and partnerships with site hosts to install charging stations. They also touch on the future potential of electrifying heavy equipment in industries, such as construction and mining. Despite facing fundraising challenges in Ohio compared to Silicon Valley, EdgeEnergy has successfully raised capital and has begun to recognize revenue as they bring their unique solution to market in several states. Overall, Jon highlights how their technology contributes to building a more sustainable future while making customers’ lives easier.
Connect with Jon – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondholland/
Learn more about EdgeEnergy – https://www.edgeenergyev.com/
Transcript:
00:00
Rick Stockburger
Hi, everybody, and welcome to this week’s edition of BRITElights. We’re so excited to be talking about electric vehicle infrastructure this week and all the amazing things that are going on in Ohio, the midwest, and across the country in the space. So we’ve seen tons of advancements being made in this space, and I am so excited to be able to talk to one of our startups today. But first and foremost, I want to introduce this month’s co host, Randy Cole, who leads up our electric vehicle strategy here at BRITE. Randy.
00:31
Randy Cole
Thank you very much. It’s an exciting time. It is. And, you know, when we developed an e mobility strategy, an electrification strategy at BRITE, we talked about three things. We talked about vehicles, which everybody’s following, and infrastructure and services, and were trying to cover all of that this month. And today’s focus is specifically on infrastructure.
00:53
Randy Cole
Because once you get past the vehicles that are coming to the market, you quickly go to what’s happening with the grid and where are these chargers going and what’s happening. We’ve got a great guest today to talk about moving things to the edge, how we can expand where the grid works and what can happen. But I would just like to set the stage for that a little bit.
01:16
Jon Holland
Rick.
01:17
Randy Cole
It’s going to require a lot more energy, but also energy where maybe it hasn’t been used before. So you think about it, the grid itself, we’re talking about 1.25 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity annually in the US, which represents a 20% to 50% increase over what we’ve used in the past. But it’s not where the power is coming from. And we have new sources, wind, solar. Right. Power plants are being revamped. We’ve got more power coming. But how do you get that to where the vehicles are? It’s roughly 7500 kilowatt hours of additional power per household in the US. That’s a lot of power. But Rick, it’s got to move, right?
02:03
Rick Stockburger
Yeah.
02:04
Randy Cole
One of the big things is when you get into public charging where people stop. Right. The whole concept of range anxiety. We’ve all heard the term, and it really means if I leave my house where I’ve got a full battery, life is good, and I’m trying to travel some level of distance, where am I going to get that next charge? There’s a lot of talk about the chargers themselves, but how do you plug those chargers in? How do you deploy that much infrastructure? And one of the big things is when you have public charging, you want DC fast charging, you want three phase power. You want to charge in 20 minutes, right? Like fueling up an internal combustion engine. You want to get a cup of coffee, as I know you like to do, or a donut or a pastry.
02:48
Rick Stockburger
I mean, I do like my donuts. Let’s be do.
02:51
Randy Cole
And that’s. I think that one of the reasons you have an EV, Rick, is so that you can stop at a bakery and charge and get just. I’m just saying, I mean, I don’t.
03:00
Rick Stockburger
Want to get too far off topic, but it is my favorite amish bakery that happens to have a Tesla charger outside. And it’s so fun. Just the juxtaposition of an amish bakery kind of in middle of nowhere, Ohio, and a Tesla fast charger.
03:18
Randy Cole
You’re daydreaming now, Rick. You’re fantasizing about your. But, you know, on target is, where do those chargers go? Three phase power itself is normally for industrial, large, commercial applications, places where a lot of power is used all the time. We need chargers in a lot of different locations, and that means single phase power. And up to 50% of the grid in the US is only single phase power. So how do you get a DC fast charger and allow for public charging in places that the grid has not been built for it? Unfortunately, I think we have a guest today who can help explain how some of that can happen and how Ohio is at the heart of it all.
03:56
Rick Stockburger
Oh, I love it. You got to bring in slogans. So awesome. And I’m so excited. Know I’ve shared before. I grew up working on farms and in that space, and it was always amazing to me the amount of power that we would use. It was just like a regular house hookup in that space. And so I’m really excited to just kind of explore Today all the great technology that is being able to help farmers, but also help install electric vehicle chargers across the country. And so we’ve been fortunate enough to be working with edge energy over the last couple of years as they’ve grown and pivoted and grown products and done amazing work based in Cincinnati, Ohio. And we’re really fortunate to be able to have Jon Holland, the CFO and COO of Edge Energy today. So let’s welcome Jon to the stage.
04:50
Jon Holland
Thank you.
04:51
Rick Stockburger
Well, thanks for coming. Thanks for being here, Jon. We’re so excited to have you and to talk about your backstory, the organization, what you’re doing in the market, why it’s so important. But first and foremost, we always lead with this question. But, man, electric vehicle infrastructure what excites Jon Holland about electric vehicle infrastructure?
05:14
Jon Holland
It’s actually availability for EV drivers, not the infrastructure itself. I’ve been in the industry for about eight years now. Very passionate about evs. I’ve helped scale up three different companies. This is my fourth in the space. On my second Tesla, I was early adopter, pre ordered the three. My wife drives the mustang, which I’d like to tell you a quick story. You mentioned Amish, and I got a little funny story. When time is right, tell you about that one and amish country. And then when you come down, please bring some amish bakery items. Try those being west coast, amish bakery sounds yummy.
05:53
Rick Stockburger
Well, that’s awesome. And so, like I said, we’re so excited to have you on the flip side of this. There’s a lot going on in the space. So what concerns do you have about electric vehicle infrastructure and moving forward?
06:07
Jon Holland
Biggest concern, which is the opportunity for us, is, as Randy said, did a great job teeing up with the stats. Right? 50% of the US does not have access to three phase power. For those in the audience don’t know that a DCFC or fast charger that would mimic a fueling experience that you would want from your ice vehicle. To charge a vehicle from 20% to 80% in 20 minutes or so requires three phase power. And so edge energy has a unique and proprietary solution to convert single phase to three phase power. And that’s why I’m excited about it. They reached out to me a couple of years ago after thanksgiving, as an investor to invest in the company. They gave me the pitch deck and pitched me.
06:51
Jon Holland
I think it was a day after thanksgiving, and I was so excited about what they were doing, being. Coming from the space and having worked in it for a while, I recognized that, as you would said earlier, it’s probably not the sexiest part of Ev. Right. We’re not a network provider. We don’t sell the EV charger. Everything that people are coming into this is a gold rush to sell. But they’re solving we at the time, solving a huge need in it. And I saw that everything that you would see as an investor from the pitch deck, which is the solution, the size of the market, the team, et cetera, and I decided to invest in the company. I decided, after visiting with them, to sell my house in California overlooking Catalina palace Verdes, after two years of renovation.
07:42
Jon Holland
And that was a big decision for my wife and I, but we relocated to Cincinnati, Ohio to help scale up the company.
07:49
Randy Cole
I think we have to hear your story. About your wife’s Mustang and the Amish, though.
07:55
Jon Holland
Okay. So when we got here, one of the guys who was doing some consulting with us bought the Ford Mustang maqui and took a look at that car. And I’m like, man, I think I could convert my wife to one of these. She loved it, right? Cute car. Loves it. Electric. So we’re totally ev now. And so we take it down to Indiana and Madison. We hear this quaint little rural town, supposed to be really cool, and shops and restaurants. So day trip down there. We get there, they’re having a festival. There’s like 100,000 people in this quaint little town. So we take off and, like, oh, back roads, which we didn’t know was amish country.
08:36
Jon Holland
And so here we are in the Ev maquis behind the amish gentleman in his horse and buggy, and we’re on a two lane back road, middle of nowhere, going 15 miles an hour for the longest period, dodging horse poop. And I was just wishing that I could have a picture of that, because imagine that here it is, horse and buggy, the mustang following behind it. It was classic.
09:04
Rick Stockburger
One of the things that Randy actually talks about from time to time is back in the early 19 hundreds, the transition to internal combustion engines was actually talking about being cleaner because the cities had horse poop everywhere, right? So that was actually an advancement to a cleaner city. In some of the advertisements was around, get an internal combustion engine car so we can clean up the streets and all that. It’s really interesting to kind of be where we are at this point in time. We have so much new technology coming on board, and I know edge is a big part of that. And so I think one of the things that you mentioned that is important to note Ohio and where we’re at and our companies that we support, we spend a lot of time on the coasts courting investors.
09:56
Rick Stockburger
And it’s so cool to see that you came based on being courted as an investor, and then you saw kind of an amazing opportunity in Cincinnati, Ohio. And instead of overlooking the Pacific Ocean, you’re overlooking the beautiful Ohio river now, which has been a huge source of commerce since the early 18 hundreds when folks started to come here to Ohio for the first time in the late 17 hundreds and whatnot. So I just think that’s really cool. And I think something to note, another thing that she said that I kind of wanted to hit on, too, is like, oh, edge energy may be not doing all the sexy things about vehicle electrification, but I think building things is unbelievably sexy. I just think it’s really cool to build something in a meaningful way.
10:46
Rick Stockburger
And I’m so glad we’ve been able to partner with edge energy and help you get to where you are today. So with that said, I’ll pass it over to Randy to just talk a little bit about the business and technology perspectives.
10:59
Jon Holland
If I could touch on that a little bit. I love building things. I was originally going to be an architect. I wanted to be an architect. This is pre cad and I was going to be an architect from ten years old till college. Prereqs, right. Going to be an architect. Be an architect. Got in, realized I had no, it’s kind of that left brain, right brain. I had no artistic ability at all. I couldn’t draw a tree. I’m like, I can design buildings. I can draft them. So kind of led into engineering then. So picked up a lot of the skill set about building things. Love to build workshops, and I turned that into building companies. That’s my passion, is really building companies, and my passion is building it around the EV industry.
11:38
Jon Holland
And that’s what’s been so great about edge and what it’s like to be in Ohio. There’s a lot going on in Ohio with other companies. We’re trying to form partnerships with them. Irina from Electrada, they’re partner of ours. They lease space in our building from us. So great partnership with them. There’s other companies that we’re forming that will be announced later in the Ohio area that are in that space. So Midwest has got it going on. And I’m sitting in the centrifuge union hall down in the bowels of it, down where I guess they used to store beer. I can’t find any right now, but we’ll look for it.
12:21
Rick Stockburger
Well, I’m sure over the Rhine neighborhood there in Cincinnati, you’ll be able to walk out the door and find some beer. It shouldn’t be too hard. But yeah.
12:31
Jon Holland
It’S a know incubator. It’s great. I’ve been here a couple of weeks and coming in and working. It’s invigorating to be around this. It reminds me of plug and play, which was out in California, which was all incubators, know startups and just that. So. And then working with you guys have been fantastic. And I’ll turn it back over to you, Randy, because you did a great job on the introduction and you’ve been a great understanding of our company to explain it to others.
12:58
Randy Cole
Well, I’m going to put you on the hot seat, Jon, because, and I think I’ve shared with you, I was in a public meeting where someone was talking about the new Nevi standards, which is the national electric vehicle infrastructure, right. All the money that’s going into putting thousands and thousands of chargers out there. And somebody said, you’ve got to choose locations where you have three phase power, because no one’s a magician who can take three single phase and turn it into three phase. And I raised my hands and said, well, wait a minute, you mentioned you guys build things. You’re in the hardware and software business and you build things and you really can allow a DC fast charger to work on single phase, but without giving away your secret sauce or trade secrets. This isn’t Silicon Valley.
13:47
Randy Cole
We’re not going to have somebody grab your secrets or your patents from you. How does your technology work in a way that you are able to put a DC fast charger in a place it hasn’t been able to go before.
14:01
Jon Holland
So the company, I’ll start a little bit because I think this is important, especially if you’re in the green space, renewable in this whole sector. As the company was founded solving, and you talked about it earlier, Rick was on the farms. So a lot of farm machinery needs three phase power to run, and most farms are out in rural America, single phase power. So the company single phase power solution was founded to solve the problem for water pump, irrigation, grain handlers, things of that nature for the farming industry. And then they were creating single phase to three phase power with a motor. It was a large 100 hp motor hooked up to a generator that then produced three phase power. One day, Gatewood Robbins, my vp of finance, saw, and I’m pretty sure we found the original post.
15:01
Jon Holland
This goes back a couple of years in Australia, where they had a diesel generator powering a DCFC, charging an electric vehicle. And that’s exactly what the company was selling at that point to the farming community, was to eliminate diesel generators on the farms to replace them with the solution to produce three phase power. So Gatewood, who’s a Tesla driver, looked at it and said, guys, this is what we’re doing. And pivoted the company to target the EV industry because of a passion and because it was a solution. So that was the first iteration version that came out. It produced 70 power. Quickly. The cars are coming out, everybody’s producing higher and higher power chargers, even though we don’t have.
15:54
Rick Stockburger
Real quick, Jon. So a Gatewood has one of the coolest names of anybody I’ve ever met. But B, we don’t necessarily have to say exactly, but isn’t Gatewood like in his twenty s and was telling the CEO of a long standing company, hey, this is an opportunity that you guys might be missing? And how important is that to kind of understand but have a company culture where talented young people can be heard and share their ideas and pivot the entire company into a new, that’s, I just think that’s so cool and so powerful really to hear that it is.
16:35
Jon Holland
Now this is Gatewood and Ben lobbying. Probably Greg York at the time to get that. He was a founder, he’s a farmer, but to convince think I’m not sure what all went into that, maybe get that backstory. But I can tell you everybody in the company acknowledges that was his idea, gives him total kudos to that whenever we do the tour and kind of show that and talk about it. So I think it’s really cool. And that’s a culture in our company. We’re very open, very transparent with all employees. All employees have a seat at the table. We’re shareholders. We have options to all employees in the company. It’s an open door. We get the ideas and every idea we try to explore and we’re open to it, whether it’s new ways to solve it, new ways to go to market. We’re all sellers.
17:25
Jon Holland
I’m going out to the EV show as a CFO. Typically you don’t see that, but I’ve been in the industry so long, got a lot of connections and love to go out there and help because the company has now pivoted to execution of it and deploying the product. So now it’s time to really make the public aware and people in the industry aware of our solution. That’s the key right now is make sure that they know there are sites that they’re passing on in this industry for not installing dcfcs because they’re stuck on the fact that it’s going to take three years or $500,000 to bring in three phase power. And they’re not aware of our solution at this point.
18:02
Randy Cole
So Jon, how do you educate, like a location owner, somebody who’s interested installing charging, how do you educate them on the opportunity before them and have them ready to put a DC fast charger in or to use your technology? How do you tell that story? How do you explain to them what the opportunity is?
18:22
Jon Holland
Right now? It’s identifying it so we get the audience right. That’s the key. Telling the story is very quick. They get it we tell the story to Duke energy. They’re in our office. We immediately. Light bulbs go off. Dynamite energy. Yeah. Go through the list people that are in this space. And that’s what attracted me to it as soon as they told me the problem they were solving, because I was at EV Connect, and our business was installing the EV charging network across the United States. And I tell you, as the operations and CFO at that one, I would see deals that were stuck because we didn’t have access to the power or sites were being chosen because of the power.
18:59
Jon Holland
And you would find sites that are behind, know in the back of a thing where my wife is not going to go charge her car. Or were three levels down in a parking garage next to the ocean with no cell service, which if you’re EV driver, you’ll know these things need to connect so that you can get authorization for a charge, so you get a cell service. It’s an early industry. Mistakes were made. People came out. Not the topic of today, but certainly there’s others out there. You could have topics on reliability and the uptime and things of that nature. But a lot of that really goes back to the root of it, which was site location. Now we have the ability not to be limited to that.
19:41
Jon Holland
So we have partners such as Eminem that we’ve just recently formed, partnership that service nine states for the convenience stores. In my mind, I’ve always been, and there’s a lot know, people have different opinions of where they should go. But convenience stores is a natural fit. EV driver pulls in, they spend an average of a dollar a minute that they’re called dwell time. Especially in the early part. It’ll be a market differentiator. Do I turn left into that station, or do I go right into a station? Which 01:00 a.m.. I going to? Where am I staying? At a hotel. As an EV driver, I will make my destination decisions, especially now, until we get 510 years out and have this available everywhere. I’m going to make my buying decisions to where I’m going to spend when I’m traveling on those locations.
20:28
Jon Holland
Do I go to Starbucks for coffee? That has the involvement. You can see that, right? Forming relationships, putting in charging at the Starbucks. So Dunkin donuts. Like, somebody needs to compete and put in charging there. And when you’re traveling, you got to go to the bathroom.
20:47
Rick Stockburger
Even like last year or maybe two years ago now. I took my family from Youngstown, Ohio down to pigeon Forge in Tennessee, and everybody was like, how’d you do that? In an know and I was like, I just put in pigeon Forge, Tennessee in my gps and then I drove my car and followed that and it told me where to charge. How do you drive to pigeon Forge, Tennessee? But the interesting thing was like, oh, do you have to stop and wait for 45 minutes and blah, blah. I was like, no, about every 2 hours with my seven and nine year old, or maybe at the time six and eight.
21:23
Rick Stockburger
Or I had to stop for about 1520 minutes every two and a half hours, which also is when my kids have to make me stop every two and a half hours for 15 to 20 minutes for everybody to go to the bathroom and everybody to get snacks and treats and stuff like that. But those were long distances in between. And I think one of the things from the Tesla standpoint, they’ve done a great job on reliability on their charging network and they’ve also invested heavily before government subsidies were available. For know right now I think it’s so cool and such a great opportunity for non Tesla charters to get in the market and to build in that space and be able to actually capture a lot more market than they have.
22:10
Rick Stockburger
And I think your technology hands down is one of the ones that is going to be one of the winners in this space because there’s so much need to get access to DCFC and what you’re doing is really unleashing the energy revolution for everybody right at the end of the day. So one thing I want to ask about though, I know edge, obviously they came to you as a potential early stage investor, but now as mean, you and Gatewood and the team are kind of leading a lot of the charge on capital raises, right. For the organization. So as somebody that lived in Silicon Valley, somebody that lived in Los Angeles area, LA west coast, can you tell me just a little bit about the difference?
22:53
Rick Stockburger
It doesn’t have to be good, by the way, this isn’t a cheerleading show by any means, but fundraising in the midwest. How much of your time do you spend on the coast fundraising as opposed to being here, even though this is where everybody’s building all the products that really are transitioning the clean energy revolution. So just tell me a little about your fundraising.
23:14
Jon Holland
Well, I’m going to be brutally honest and you’re aware of it. It was a challenge for us, surprisingly to me, in the midwest, raising capital for a company that builds hardware, Silicon Valley software company IP around that SaaS recurring revenue stream. Everything that everybody wants to pitch out there now, it’s AI. So that’s even moved on, right SAS, who cares about that? It’s all AI. And you raise money on an idea. So raising money out there, it’s always a challenge to raise money. So don’t get me wrong, it’s never easy, but it’s an easier sell, it’s an easier pitch. Came out here, we’re raising money for hardware. We did have an unfortunate situation where at the time we had an investor, the markets tanked, everybody panicked.
24:01
Jon Holland
An investor pulled out of a term sheet, which is something else that typically does not happen on the west coast. You don’t burn it, but here it’s a little bit different. They wanted to keep your powder dry. All the stories. That’s fine. So we had to go back out in the market. We actually had more success raising capital from high net worth individuals, angel groups from. We were pitching HOUSTON and new YORk and CALIFORNIA and FLORIDA and EVERYWHERE. We really had little success in Ohio. Now people are very supportive. Midwesterners, don’t get me wrong, you guys helping us, but when it came down to who wants to write the check, it was high net worth individuals that actually were able to come to the shop, see the product, see it’s real. That’s another thing. It’s not vaporware.
24:52
Jon Holland
When you’re building the hardware, you come in and you see it. It charged my wife’s brand new car. That’s how much I trust it, right? We’re going to put this up. My wife’s BABY, I just bought her, and we’re going to plug it in. I’m going to let you plug it in and charge my wife’s car with our product. It works.
25:08
Rick Stockburger
I’ve charged my car on it. Yeah.
25:10
Jon Holland
So no fear there. And I was surprised at how little we got from some of the VCs and incubator programs around here. I still think they’ll come back to us. This was so funny, right? We’re pitching this angel group, and the guy making the decision on us, he goes, don’t follow me. All my decisions are WRONG and make BAd investments. But he’s betting us right. And I’m LiKe, okay. And he goes, yeah, I’m the guy that told us to pass on Tesla. This is in CALIFORNIA. I won’t name them. There’s a big band of them out there. And his idea was he’s the one that passed on Tesla because he says, a software company in California, they can’t build a car. We’re Just going to pass on TESLA. So he ended up passing on us, which was our badge.
26:05
Jon Holland
I take that as a badge of honor because it means we’ll be successful.
26:09
Rick Stockburger
It’s beautiful. Jon, I think too, what you’re sharing here isn’t something that you’re ALONe on, right? I mean, we have a venture capital network here at BRITE that we engage for our startups. We’ve helped companies raise over $300 billion or million dollars right now, indirect, while in our programs, and less than 5% of that money came from Ohio. We have to spend our time on the coast drawing funds to here. And I think that is actually an existential crisis as far as it’s concerned.
26:45
Rick Stockburger
Because if you’re getting your capital from the, like you’re building now in Ohio, but when you hit that next might, capital might want you to come closer and they got their claws in you at that point that if you, well, you know, maybe we do need to be in California or maybe we need to be in Boston or these other places. And so I think that’s important to talk about. This podcast isn’t about cheerleading, I’ll tell you that much. I’ve never been great at that, but I’ve been good about having good, hard, honest conversations.
27:18
Jon Holland
I never want to burn a bridge in front of me or behind they, and the biggest reason, the ones that are here passing us at the time, were pre revenue and so hard ev, right. It’s new to them. Again, when we first got here, I’m driving around my Tesla. My wife says no. She goes, you don’t see a lot of Tesla drivers. Well, no, we moved at one point from Los Gatas, California. Highest Tesla zip code owners. We’re talking the original roadsters there, right? So she’s like observing that. I’m like, no, honey, we’re in the midwest, right? This is a little different. They’ll adopt. It’s just right. Like anything, it takes time for it to take on. So a lot of the investors aren’t used. Again, this is Ohio.
27:59
Jon Holland
They build things like, I don’t want to use the term rust Belt because I feel bad about that one coming living because now I live here. But you can see that when you drive around, you go these old rusted, you get where the saying comes from, but it was from building things, right? And so this is a company based on the west side of Cincinnati that’s going to build something. And they were, you know, when you have revenue. Well, guess our, we deployed our first one, Detroit smart parking drive. So here it is, deployed in Detroit, not here in Ohio. And Ohio did the first Nevi site. But we did our solution. We just launched that one new orders came in. I don’t know if I can announce from that company, but we’ll just say they’re a large, off road heavy equipment manufacturer.
28:48
Jon Holland
I kind of touch on that for a second, but I won’t mention their name. We’ll come back to that, but back on the fundraising. Right. So now we are no longer. I won’t count. See if I can say, technically no, we’re no longer pre revenue. Right. We’ve recognized revenue, but let’s be realistic. Once we hit the million dollar mark, we still have about $500,000. We closed out our round. We successfully hit our rounds. It was a long slog, but we did it. Team effort. Everybody was on it. It took a lot of our time. People don’t realize it. And it’s true, takes about 80% of the company’s time in the fundraising. We got through it. We were successful at it.
29:26
Jon Holland
We still have a little powder left on it for another half a million for anybody interested, because in about another quarter, we’ll cross the million dollar mark, which then we’re no longer pre revenue. And then we believe some of those investors, we would welcome them to come back to the table, especially high net worth individuals in the Cincinnati area that support other companies that, in fact, may be driving evs, or in fact, maybe own car dealerships that sell evs. Again, not naming any names, but there’s just a lot out there that could help us and participate in this growth stage.
30:06
Randy Cole
So, Jon, I guess my job today is to, every time you start a story, make sure you finish a story. Edge is bringing forward some exciting innovations and new technology, but you’re a piece of the puzzle. There are other companies doing things to improve infrastructure, prepare for where we’re going with evs. You mentioned you’re working with a large industrial company that makes some big equipment. Can you tell us more about that story and how that fits into these pieces of the puzzle?
30:37
Jon Holland
Yeah. So all of the heavy equipment manufacturers are electrifying, and that’s going to filter out into farm equipment and help grow it out into rural America for the farms. And then heavy equipment used on for government regulations are required for zero emissions. So everybody’s electrifying those sites. Think about that. Those sites are, when they’re working on them outside, if they’re working on a construction site, the sites, if they have electric equipment, needs to be charged. That infrastructure is not going to typically exist at those locations. So we can help make that site ready for charging for heavy equipment outside of just ev charging. Again, evs are one thing when we say that we all think of our car, but everything else is becoming electrified and we can help provide that technology.
31:33
Jon Holland
Anyway, I can’t touch on the customer because we just signed it yesterday, but you’ll see.
31:39
Randy Cole
We’ll wait to hear more.
31:41
Jon Holland
Thank you.
31:42
Rick Stockburger
To that end, though, I’m excited because I know when you think about heavy equipment, you think about construction sites and stuff like that, but not everybody knows, but they’re about to. One of the first companies that I worked for was in mining, manufacturing equipment, and I can’t imagine the day that we’re coal mining with electrified augers and whatnot in the space and all of that. We need to get away from using coal for electrification, but there’s a huge industry for coal as far as charcoal and filters and all of those things downstream that it’s utilized for. And I just think about the day where we plug in a coal auger to get that out for those other different products.
32:24
Rick Stockburger
From that standpoint, yeah, it’s fun to think about and fun to think about all of the things that we can do that actually makes all these opportunities better.
32:37
Randy Cole
Right.
32:38
Rick Stockburger
And that’s what we’re looking at from a product standpoint, is not know, what does it do to better for the environment, but how does it make your customers life easier? And that’s something I think that we’re uniquely interested in the midwest, in how we build companies from a hardware standpoint or otherwise, is like, yes, we obviously all care about the environment with these clean energy technologies, and we want to move that forward, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to build stuff at a price that people can afford it and people can engage in it. And so I’m so excited for what edge energy is doing today and what you’re building this week and all the partnerships that you’re putting in place. But the future of edge energy is extremely BRITE.
33:25
Rick Stockburger
And so we’re very excited about the partnership and being able to help you grow. And having somebody like Randy as your expert in residence and being able to partner from that standpoint is amazing. I have one last question. What are you looking for from partners right now? What kind of partnerships are going to help move edge energy forward faster?
33:51
Jon Holland
Really? The partnerships with the connections to the end users out there. Site hosts. It’s a site host. It’s going to actually have the charging station because we don’t sell a charging station. We don’t have a huge sales force out there creating that demand at the site as why somebody would want to put in charging. So forming partnerships with companies that are out there selling that and then finding those 30% to 50% of the locations that they’re going to come across that they have the need three phase power and they only have single phase. People don’t realize that you see a convenience store, you think, oh, okay, or gas station. If you were to ask an average person, sure, they would have three phase power. And it’s industrial looking, right?
34:34
Rick Stockburger
Yeah.
34:35
Jon Holland
Very few, very rarely anything that we can do to spread the word, form partnerships, we’re open to it. Contact Ben Morris.
34:44
Rick Stockburger
Awesome. Customer acquisition. Call Ben Morris.
34:46
Jon Holland
I love Ben Morris. I’ll happy to make that introduction, though. Reach out to.
34:52
Rick Stockburger
That’s fantastic. So awesome. Well, with that said, we can find Jon Holland on LinkedIn, and we’re excited for that connection point. And Jon and Randy, I just want to thank you guys so much. I mean, you both have provided such valuable insights, not only just into this market or into the product itself, but into the market. Mean, I know I’m leaving today with a better understanding for how we can tackle electrification for everybody, not just folks that are close to three phase power. Right. And as somebody that grew up as a rural american, I still live in rural America. I’ve got a 13 acre farm that definitely doesn’t have three phase power on it.
35:31
Rick Stockburger
I’m so excited that there’s products being developed for me that can make my farm safer, can make my farm quieter from that standpoint, and we talk about that, but also, more importantly, ensuring that I can drive anywhere that I want in the United States of America with my kids in an electric vehicle. So thank you guys so much for spending some time with me. And, Randy, you got any last words?
36:00
Randy Cole
I don’t. I’m just excited know how all of that future fits. You know, some point we talked about where edge came from and where they are now in this EV space. But when you think about their technology and what they’re doing, there are a lot of other applications. Again, EV is so important right now, but I think of the expansion and what that means as we try to expand broadband, as we try to expand technology, and it really does go both ways into urban areas where the power has already been tapped and used, and rural areas both. I mean, the whole concept around equity and improving things for everyone, I really think edge energy is one of those things that is part of the rising tide that’s going to lift all the boats.
36:44
Randy Cole
And Jon, I thank you and Ben and all of the team Gatewood, for all of your work.
36:51
Rick Stockburger
Edge energy electrification for everybody. Well, all, thanks so much for joining us on this week’s BRITE lights. Please smash that like and subscribe. That’s what my kids say is smash that like and subscribe button. That’s what I was told this morning as I was leaving the house. It’s like you got to smash that like and subscribe. So excited for you to follow us and excited for you to engage with our content online on social media. And really, at the end of the day, I just want to say we’ll catch you on the BRITE side.
