Arcady Sosinov, founder and CEO of FreeWire Technologies, joins Cheddar News to discuss the progress of EV's and manufacturing in the U.S.

Cheddar Politics

Biden Administration Outlines Network of EV Chargers

Welcome back to cheddar politics. The biden administration has focused their efforts on revitalizing manufacturing, strengthening supply chains and driving down prices. These efforts by biden are an attempt to lead a historic recovery in domestic manufacturing. So joining us now to dig in on this is our Katie Sausan off founder and Ceo of Free Wire technologies are Katie Welcome to the show. We gotta talk about inflation right new inflation numbers out today. 7.5% year over year. Not great numbers for the president but of course a nice white house spin on that that we're going to get people back to work. We're gonna grow the economy, infrastructure money's coming, everything's gonna be great but manufacturing is a huge part of that for the president and some of that's cost related. So so what do we do when we're trying to balance cost, you know, cost saving with inflation but also everything needing to be made in the US are hoping to be made in the U. S. Thanks for having me Megan. There's always a context and subtext of these announcements in the context. Yesterday was that biden administration was highlighting domestic manufacturing of E. V. Charging equipment which Free Wire is a is a company that's by american compliance producing products in the US. But the subtext of that announcement was the formation of a joint D. O. E. D. O. T. Uh the department that is understanding and recognizing that the Department of Energy is interrelated with the Department of Transportation in more ways than they than they have ever happened before. You cannot have policy and changes and money entering the transportation industry without affecting the energy industry and recognizing that they, they're they're signaling $5 billion additional investments into the charging infrastructure that comes on top of the $7.5 billion. And it was announced with a bipartisan infrastructural law now that $5 billion has real teeth to it. And just this morning they announced that 650 million of it would be spent this year. And if you go to the drive electric dot org website, which was again announced this morning, you'll see that a list of states that are going to get that money this year, the $7.5 billion in the bipartisan infrastructural law that was passed a few months ago, we still have no guidance on how that will be spent. And unfortunately, the problem that we're running into here is that once that money does reach the streets, which typically takes about a year to reach the streets. Once that money does reach the streets, it takes about 12 to 18 months for projects and by projects and the deployment of ultra fast charging infrastructure to go lock. It takes that long because of utility infrastructure because it takes 12 to 18 months for our aging utility grid to be able to bring power to the sites necessary for ultra fast charging. And so this joint D. O E D O. T organization, Department of Energy and Transportation is an understanding that we need to overhaul our utility infrastructure in order to enable ultrafast charging at any scale. And this is a huge part of the Biden administration's goal to get half of cars purchased by 2030 to be electric vehicles right now, that is less than 5% in this country. And they also want to increase charging this $7.5 billion has sort of been allocated for about 500,000 chargers, which is Nearly 10 times more than 10 times what we currently have on the road. I can give you anecdotally, my mother is very skeptical of electric vehicles. She owned the first hybrid in the state of Utah, which is random, but she's very skeptical of electric vehicles because she doesn't know where she's going to charge them. She lives in a rural part of the state of Maryland. And so talk to me a little bit about that because that's part of what you guys do and and how, how are we going to convince americans who are skeptical, who are concerned, who don't know if the power grid can handle it that all of that is not to worry about. Well, it's the problem is Harvard cannot handle it. That's what I'm here to tell you. And there is concern there. The utility infrastructure across this country by some estimates, we're going to need 100 and $25 billion invested utility infrastructure in order to support the 500,000 charging stations. The biden administration is advocating for So that's $7.5 billion announced that bipartisan in structural law. Another $5 billion announced today. That's 12.5 together. But you need 100 and 25 just to be towards the utility construction behind that charging station. That's the issue that the industry is saying. That's what what free wires developed is a very fascinating concept, which is that we compare the energy storage inside of our ultra fast chargers. So we have storage integrated directly into the product, which means that we deploy ultra fast charging using no power upgrades, no utility upgrades. And that means that the money that's being push down throughout this the market, the industry today that can have an impact immediately. You deploy a project, you can deploy that project within days, not within months or years and then that advocates both to to drive electric vehicles. Um, and so back to the point of of the infrastructure. The 500,000 charging stations that are proposed. Some estimates believe that that's only half to a third as many as are necessary across the country. The 7.5 billion plus the five billion announced today are going to go along the way. But but the problem again is not the charging station. The problem is utility infrastructure and that's why we need that money to go towards a shovel ready projects and technologies that minimize the impact of the utility grid, which is what free wires here to bring and other companies are starting to catch up to. So in the effort to be and I only have about 30 seconds left, but in the effort to be more sort of clean and renewable energy sources but needing so much more energy, is there a concern that there's going to be more reliance on fossil fuels for this sort of gap period until renewables can catch up the white house really punting on that on Wednesday. I'd love to get your take as someone who's in this sort of interconnected electricity energy in clean energy space. Yes, certainly in the short term, especially in states that rely on fossil fuels in order to further power production. That that is what's going to happen over the immediate future. But that's again where storage can help if you add storage to the system and battery storage. And again, the way that free wires and we've integrated battery storage directly to the charger, which mitigates infrastructure needs. But it also allows you to directly consume renewables rather than consume consuming fossil fuels from upstream and utility infrastructure side. So we have sites in Utah by the way around Salt Lake City that have solar panels on the roof. We we consume that solar in the battery inside the charger. And when a vehicle drives up, we we push that that clean renewable energy directly to the vehicle without relying on existing utility infrastructure and existing utility rates so you need to pair storage with charging infrastructure. And that's why again, back to the announcement today that the joint D O E D O T organization that's going to enable the government to start thinking about issuing dollars to energy projects which are directly related to transportation projects. And again, it all goes back to renewables storage charging vehicles. Those four pillars of the stool are what's gonna get us away from fossil fuels in this country. Our Katie, that was so insightful. Thank you so much for joining us are Katie Stassi neves founder and Ceo of Free Wire Technologies.