Presto Building a tape for charging EV
Charging an electric vehicle in public places can be the best or worst times.
The EV driver can be charged and the road is smoothly 20 minutesBut they may also face broken charging devices, unspecified touch screens, and banned kiosks, all of which can make them Frustration.
It can be a headache for consumers every day. For a fleet or drivers riding, the broken charger is lost.
These frustrations prompted Ashwin Dias and G -Ji Rainor to leave their jobs in Uber, where they led efforts to repeat the cars of the participating drivers, and start PrestoIt is an application that refers to drivers to the best charging devices.
“From Uber’s background, we believe that there is a dynamic market where we can help make everything smooth by matching the diverse demand with a varied supply,” said Rainor. This may mean pushing sensitive drivers to wait for 30 minutes until a cheaper charger is opened while directing time drivers to time to faster and more reliable but registered kiosks.
Presso recently raised a $ 15 million seed tour led by Union Square Ventures, and the company TECHRUNCH told the company exclusively. The tour also included investments from Conneensentures, Jetstream and Powerhouse Ventures.
The team begins with fleets, partly because they lead many miles.
“Uber drives, who are driving 40 hours a week, are the ones who should be against EV if we need to evacuate quickly and effect,” Dias, CEO of Startup, told Techcrunch.
The duo pressed Uber to address the problem in the driver’s application, but he realized that it could not be truly solved by one company.
This is partially due to the spread of companies that install and operate EV.
“Shipping has become more and more fragmented in the United States,” Rainor said. Last year, approximately 60 % of all new DC Fast charger in the United States came from more than 40 different networks. She said: “We moved from three or four senior players to people we have not heard before.”
Both sides of the equation feel the pain of this fragmentation.
The fleets will benefit directly from the Networks charging programs, but the shipping networks do not want to support an application programming interface for tens or hundreds of customers. On the other hand, the fleets do not want to integrate with an increasing number of charging networks.
Presto program is something that both sides can contact. It gives fleets and networks one partner to work with more customers – a classic platform play.
“In some senses, we think of ourselves as a tape, as a recharged treatment.” Dias said.
The startup starts its own application and its application programming interface, which companies can merge; Payments can also be handled.
The Presso mixture gives a set of data to run its machine learning recommendation engine, and inform drivers about shipments that they must use and where networks must direct their maintenance sets. For example, let’s say that the network reports that the charger is connected to the Internet, but the drawing session that started through Presto failed. Presto can direct drivers away from this procrastination and report the problem to the network.
Dias said that the rented car companies were early from the Presto platform, including HERTZ, Avis and Zipcar. Uber drivers also use the application, which alerts them to networks that provide reduced charging.
Dias said other fleets, such as delivery companies, depends on the application, even if they have charging devices in their warehouses. He said: “Sometimes the charging devices do not work in the warehouse or there are more vehicles from the charging devices.”
The main goal of Presto is to push the API integration, although the fleets encourage the addition of startup recommendations within its applications and information panels. “I don’t think we want consumers to have another application to download it,” Dias said.
Rainor said that the company was contacted by the main auto manufacturers, but it is now focusing on fleets. As a person who had his share Bad shipping experimentsI hope this will change soon.
