The Pangea Effect: Building Trust One Client at a Time Artwork

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The Pangea Effect: Building Trust One Client at a Time

September 02, 2025 • Jason Cortes • Season 1 • Episode 1

In this episode, Jason Cortes sits down with Anup Parikh, founder of Pangea Charging, for a candid conversation about entrepreneurship, personal brand, and the realities of building in the EV charging space.

From being laid off multiple times to launching his own company, Anup shares how those experiences shaped the ethos behind Pangea Charging and why trust and execution often matter more than hardware specs.

What you’ll hear in this episode:

The journey from “layoffs to payoffs” and the origin story of Pangea Charging
Why personal brand may be one of the most powerful assets in the EV industry
The challenges of educating the market—and when education is a secret weapon vs. a sunk cost
The nuanced debate between Level 2 vs. DC fast charging, and why L2 might be the overlooked backbone of adoption
How trust, execution, and people—not just products—will determine the winners in EV infrastructure
A sneak peek at Anup & Pangea Charging’s new 2026 initiative bringing

Whether you’re in the trenches of EV infrastructure or just curious about how disruptive companies get built, this episode is packed with insight and real talk you won’t want to miss.

Listen now and subscribe so you never miss an episode of Field Frequency.

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In this episode of Filled Frequency, I sit down with the new Parikh of Pangea Charging for an unfiltered discussion on building in the EV charging world. We talk about walking away from the illusion of corporate safety to bet on personal brand. The personal brand might be one of the most vital power sources in this industry. We talk about the nuances of EV charging technology, how market education doesn't always convert to sales, and why L2 charging might be a blind spot in commercial charging adoption. And to close out, Anoop drops cool announcement that you'll want to stick around to find out about. So let's get into it. Today I'm joined by Noop Parikh. How you new pals it going? Doing well, thanks for joining us. Looking forward to talking with you today. Obviously no stranger to Field Advantage, a friend of the company. But for the audience, I'd like you to just give a brief introduction of yourself, your company, your background. Sure, absolutely. Yeah, thanks for having me. So yeah, Anoop Parikh, founder and owner of Pangea Charging based down in Houston, Texas. And we're basically experts in providing EV charging to predominantly multifamilies where our expertise is. And so of course that translates quite well to putting that into apartments, offices, retail, it's quite similar, but definitely our bread and butter's apartments and multifamilies as we call it in the industry. Well, so you're highly visible in social media and certainly on LinkedIn. I've been watching your recent video clip series, been enjoying that on LinkedIn series from layoffs to payoffs. Obviously the complete video series is all packaged together and available on the Pangea Charging YouTube channel. But that series is sharing your experience of being laid off, which is kind of the the origin story, I think, to Pangea. you you talk about being laid off and not once, but multiple times. I think kind of telling the backstory to Pangea, I'd like to know how those layoff experiences shaped, you know, shaped what led to Pangea versus going to work for another EV company and... You know, just what's the story? What's it like been solo pioneering in a competitive market? What it's like been working in this EV space and, you know, trying to get the background on Pangea really is what this question is all about. Sure, yeah, it's a great question and what I love talking about, it's obviously can be a long answer, but I'll try to keep it short, which is, you you look at 2020, right, so COVID happened and the layoff from Chargepoint was reasoned with, hey, we're gonna downsize because of COVID. Now, whether that was true for me or not, I don't know. But that was called Spring 2020. And then I started formally Pangea Charging in October of that year. So that's roughly about six months in between. And in those six months, everything, obviously the entire economy, every kind of business took a hit. But it was probably that summer, early fall where I started to get calls from employment opportunities in the EV charging space. I remember Blink being one of them. There was Bureau Veritas. And again, the list goes on. I'm sure many people watching know these names. And as I'd heard it, it was very much what I know you know, Jason, too, is that, hey, we'd love for you to come in and grow essentially pipeline business development, grow pipeline, go out, hit the ground, get these accounts. And I said, you know, I did that once, actually multiple times. I've done that at Semiconnect, which is now Blink. I've done it at ChargePoint. And what happened at ChargePoint, right? I built a pipeline, booked revenue, and then one day suddenly you're kind of completely disconnected from that. And, you know, I just no longer wanted to do that anymore. I wanted to do it for myself because how many times can you go building for someone and then the longevity you get cut off, it's like now you don't get to benefit from those relationships. Now, I will say what inspired, so that was one part of not kind of taking these job opportunities, right? So all attractive, all would be easy to get back in, just pick back up like, hey, now let's make calls on behalf of this brand or this company. But it was then, I think about two or three calls in the month of, I think September of 2020, where they were just like, hey, know, I remember we'd spoken, you're at ChargePoint, so on and so forth. And these were just past contacts. And so to give you reference, I was there for like three and a half years. So I was traveling up and down the East Coast, covered the entire Eastern half of the US. So I think over three and a half years developed some what I would think were solid relationships and trust, of course, being one of those factors. So yeah, I just got calls and they said, hey, know, we're now ready. We're looking at this. Could you help us out? And I said, you know, I just to be transparent, I'm no longer with this employer, but hey, would you buy that from me if I could get it for you? And he's like, sure. don't, you know, I don't care where I get it from. And so that kind of like opened my eyes like, here's a great opportunity. Cause while I've always wanted to, I've always thought about opening a business. I think it's scary for everyone, which is like, Hey, I'm just going to go hunt new business. This one fell. in my lap, right? So that really gave me the confidence like, let me just file the paperwork, do this. And that's customer number one, just in the bag. And from there, you have, of course, what people would say is like a portfolio. It's a portfolio of one, but it's something I can say, hey, I've NRP Group, which is pretty well known in the multifamily business. So to have that as the first feather in my cap was pretty awesome. And yeah, that's where it really started. So, you touched on a lot of things and certainly not going to hold back from exploring this conversation around the building of a pipeline for a company that really is saying, if not indirectly, not directly, certainly indirectly, your value as personnel is determined by your pipeline. So it's literally determined by the numbers on the board. And so as you've went that experience, you're building a pipeline. You've done it before. You could do it again. You know, you were willing to leave the safety of an established. you're let out, you're let go. You could go to any number of companies because at this point in the space, you've got tenure in the space. you've, you've gained institutional knowledge. You've built a book of business. You've established credibility among customers. So you could. You could go into the perceived safety net of established EV companies, or you could go do your own thing. so really safety in the established EV world is really just an illusion because if you're going to another company who's going to determine your value based upon the numbers that you place on the board, then really that is just perceived safety because the first RIF you'd be gone, just like anyone else, not necessarily you, but just anyone else. so really, I think what you've alluded to is, is there was a customer that said, Hey, yeah, I'll buy from you because I trust you. So really this sounds like a discussion on, personal brand over maybe guaranteed paychecks. you, were being called instead of, instead of a brand, was a new that was being called. So, you know, it's almost sounds like your personal brand was, was a part of that catalyst for, for, Pangea. Would you say that that's, that's the Yeah, I 100 % believe that because I think about, you know, I'll give you an example actually. The closest I can think about in all my time in like sales and employment and corporate America, there's one person to date that comes to mind where I'll get through the conversation and see if I actually mentioned the company name, but I'm going to try to avoid it, which is this person worked for a company where it was in the EV charging space. And to speak to personal brand and why that matters is, you know, we've all seen tons of movement, whether it's the EV charging space or any company, right? You go from software company A to B and it's just like, I'm selling this enterprise solution, you know, so on and so forth. Fine, let's hear about it. But that person has less of an influence unless you know, like, hey, this person did really good at that last company and like helped my business down this way. So when he goes to this new software company, I know what he's talking about. So I think that's rare that people actually not rare, but follow the person to the next company. And to give you an idea, there was a guy who worked at someone in this EV charging space where they were about to go under. And the contact I was working with was like, hey, where's my money? Like I need this commission that is owed. And it was a challenge, a lot of friction to get that paid, but eventually got paid. That person then went on to work at another business and he said, you know, his first introduction to me, because a lot of people just like, I'm at this company now, like, would you want to do business? I really respect what he did, which was, Hey, I know it was at this last company, as you know, it like went under, apologize for like how much trouble it was to get paid out on that. But I'd like to start new and you know, you know, lot of that sort of language and I was like, wow, impressive. You literally, you put a bookmark in my head of like, now there's trust. Now there's like, you have this really sharp professionalism of you knew your character was unfortunately put on the line because of your company, but you're taking it upon yourself, your personal brand to like clean that up and say, you're working with me. And I think that's just, it's rare to see that. And so to your point, I think that's what I try to do with for my clients is like, listen, no matter where I'm at, it's me that you're working with. And yeah, I just, I don't know. I find that in this economy and all that stuff, it's... rare to find that people who hold accountability for themselves versus like, yeah, that's my company's problem, right? And so I think when you do that, you can build some stronger relationships no matter where you go, whether that's independent or your next employer. You know, going back to your, your layoff to payoffs video series that's on LinkedIn, you, made a strong case in that series that brands like, and maybe it was a post that was related to that. don't want to conflate the content, but either way you had made a, you had made a post where, where, companies like Deloitte or MD Anderson or any other brand just fill in the blank. We don't, we don't want to signal on any particular brand, but, or pick on anyone, but Any brand, fill in the blank, they're not as powerful on their own as the people inside of these organizations that are creating the weight. Obviously it's the human capital and in the EV infrastructure, it's no different. It's in this EV space, trust and execution matter more than empty promises. I've been in this space for eight years. I've worked for different hardware manufacturers. You know, everyone's got the best product. Everyone's got the best hardware. Everyone's got the best software, but, know, in this space where trust and execution matter more than, than promises around a product or a service or a software, you know, narrowing down into, into talent, into, into the person, person aspect of this. How do you see that reshaping the perceived value of a company or a solution in this industry, in the EV space? So just to make sure I understand your question, like how does your saying personal brand like affect the Yeah. How does the, how does, how is it? It's not, it's not the company. It's the people that will bring success to this industry. Obviously it's not, you know, we, we, we win as a team. lose, we lose it as a team. Obviously success is never attributed to a single individual, but it is the people, not the organization that, makes the case. I going back to the point of the person that called you, you know, they were, they were scrambling around help desk, trying to get a solution. were not getting help. They called you and then you move the needle forward because you took ownership of that. And so that's really where I'm trying to narrow in, in the EV space, product services, software, whatever the solution and service or product is in the space, it's really about the people that are creating real value versus perceived value. so that's... You know, that's what I was seeing. That was my takeaway in some of the content that you've produced in the past. And so that's really what I'm alluding to. Yeah, I I'll even use you as an example, right? So like, Jason, you've been at some phenomenal branded companies in this space. But if I didn't already previously have a contact there, there's like, I feel like people are giving value to brands actually. I don't know, maybe, yeah, I would say like, I think it's a reversal in role. Whereas it used to be brands, you you'd look at someone's resume, like, they worked here, here and here. I think from a Well, look, I'm sure my opinion is very skewed, but the way I operate is I know ultimately it comes down to people. When I'm picking up the phone, I'm depending on a person. When I email something, I'm depending on a person. Maybe AI will change a lot of that, but my point is from the who's picking up the phone the fastest, who's responding to email the fastest, knowing Jason's accessible by text, right? You are giving value to these companies because you work there, you're responsive, you're doing these actions on behalf of them. So, you when I call you and say, hey, like, I'm trying to help a client do some service calls, it's like you're knowledgeable, right? You are adding value to, again, it could be field advantage, any of these companies. And that's kind of, that was the point of that is like at Deloitte, you know, I did use that as an example, which I don't know, consulting, lots of tax sort of services. It's the CPA, you know, that great CPA who's very responsive. and communicates well, as soon as they leave, I'm like, ah, I really enjoyed working insert name here, right? And they're gone, it's like, okay, I don't care so much about the brand. That's usually, think, your first point of entry when you're researching a new market, like who are the players, who are the successful companies. I think that's where brand plays in, but when it comes to execution, I think it's all about the person. But well, as we kind of bring that whole kind of topic to close, if we were to wrap a, you know, maybe a lasso around that, at its core, Pangeo was built around an ethos. And that was customer first ethos with a desire, your desire to make sure that they're taken care of. And I think that that's good. I think that your personal experiences has shaped the culture that you're building. and want to ingrain in the very DNA at Pangea. I mean, I think even inherent in the name, think it's symbolic, so that's good. But shifting topics really in your outreach and when it comes to business development, creating opportunities, developing opportunities, et cetera. So education, sales, you spend a lot of time. we all do in education. EV101 with prospects, education tends to either be a secret weapon or a sunken cost depending on where it's directed. what is your experience? What's a common experience for you when you're talking numbers and ROI with prospects and clients? That is a good question and one I feel like I'd love to say the jury's still out, but maybe the jury's spoken and I'm refusing to accept it, which is feels like a sunken cost. you know, almost five years in business, even the prospects I've educated the most, I will absolutely, and you know, for the folks who watching this who never met me, don't know enough about my business, I share this transparently about I'll lose on perhaps cost. because they didn't even run through the proper due diligence. They're just, hey, this Tic Tac is a couple cents and this stick of gum is $5. Well, you went with the Tic Tac, but these are different things, right? And so I think the education, people love hearing it. They're like, yeah, you sound super knowledgeable, but I don't know what it is about. That's like a separate part from the business world of like, we just care about perhaps lowest cost or something. And they're just not sharing that in that discovery call. And obviously that's on me, but I think when, so I'll break it down for you. education 100%. Like my business, you know, I got into this business one because I love it. And that's why I've been doing it so long before it was cool, trendy, popular, or you could even make a buck in Because I believe in the core concept of cleaner transportation, you know, all the things that come with it. It's just an easier lifestyle, right? You don't have to go to the gas station, electricity is flowing out of every building. And so the education part comes in, for example, the easiest one. Everyone thinks about superchargers and fast chargers. And I'm like, the education plays a huge part. like, hey, wait, listen. Like, we're not supposed to necessarily do that. That is a great bridge till level two gets built out everywhere. But you need to think about it this way, holistically. And so a lot of people just may not go for it because like, but my neighbor's not doing it. No one else is doing it. Anoop, I haven't heard anyone else talk about it. I'm like, I know that because everyone else is trying to. drum up sales, build revenue, move on to the next action or trend. And I'm like, but if you want to do it right, I would love for you to listen to me. And it's a hard thing for me to tell somebody, hey, I'm the expert. know this, I wouldn't say better than the next person, but it's just like, I know my message is not similar to the rest of the market or most of the market, because right now everyone's out chasing and building fast charge and I know that. so, know, It's hard basically. I'll spend a lot of time educating to your point. I would put it in the... You gave me a choice. Sunken, Cosm, what was the other one? Is education a secret weapon or is it a sunken cost? So I do think it's a secret weapon because where I'll say that I do win is the very top type of clientele. obviously there's going to... I mean that's in every product, every service, you're going to have different pockets in a vertical. And some people value and ROI and returns. Some just value like, let's check a box, move on to the next thing, lowest cost. So I will say I'm winning with the folks who understand longer term. have a vision, long-term players, right? That's where I believe that Pangea Charging is winning. You know, you alluded to DCFC and L2. I want to come back to that in a moment, but, you know, just kind of a quick follow-up question of that. You know, you're dealing with different sets of customers, different knowledge bases, different goals, different understanding of what it means to have. I mean, your target demographic in, you know, or multifamily properties, where, you know, as a company trying to run lean, trying to be agile. How do you discern where to invest your knowledge and kind of who to walk away from? Have you developed a short list as in checkpoints, let you know, this is someone I don't need to spend five more minutes with, or how do you discern where to spend that time and where to run? Yeah, I mean, and maybe someone watching will pick up on my tone throughout this whole conversation. I'm having to get stricter about everything because to your point, we're in a very competitive and almost like survival point of this industry where everyone's like profitability, like longevity, repeat business. And so I think with your question is that I know that I love speaking with property managers at apartments. They're fun and they're easy to speak with, but they don't have the same incentives or the goals that say an asset manager or just really high up, right? Any C levels like, how do I make money? How do I do this? And we want to replicate this at 60 properties. The property manager at property A doesn't care about B through Z, right? And the performance is not measured on it. So that's where I will cut conversation short. Like I know there's a property recently visited, it's like, hey, I've got all the numbers this time packaged, but what happened? I'll share happens a lot is here's the package. I actually had someone just recently, I sent a proposal and asked like, what is he trying to do? I got quantity of stations, but not like user experience, future proofing, what do we want to do in three years? So I said, okay, here you go. Like here's a basic package for the three stations you need. Come to find out, hey, we're going with someone else. Like I offer that. And I think I would have mentioned that in my calls, like, I'm a one-stop shop, so whether you want KitKat or Snickers, I offer both. And so the fact that I proposed KitKat and you got one for Snickers and you go with Snickers, like, you could have just told me that I would have done it, right? And so to your point about, you know, just how I go about that is I will cut it short if... we don't understand requirements. If there's not like a defined criteria, it's like, okay, so we're just talking about very oblivious concept of EV charging, whether it's a socket, a level two, a level three, like I could throw you all over the place, but what is it that you want? And so that's when I usually know it's like, if you don't know what you want, how am I supposed to help you? So you've had clairvoyance to your skill set is what you're saying. You've had to add that to your skill set as some clairvoyance and mind reading and all that. Try today. pull up Merriam-Webster. I feel like I've heard that. That's all right. Just basically reading minds. Yeah, it's hard and you know, it's you know, the discovery process with customers. You know, when you're looking at multifamily communities and if they don't have charging, how many chargers? What type of chargers? Should the chargers be publicly accessible as well, or just for the residents. Do they charge? Do they not charge? There's so many things that you have to walk through in that discovery process. And then that's not even into the technical and electrical construction process. That's just trying to understand what type of offering are you trying to bring to this community? then to just get tied up in the minutia of the widget, of the actual charger, the features and functions and... wait list functionality and what happens when people hold chargers captive. you know, so I would hope that, you know, some, property managers and some others that would listen to this, to this recording or watch this, watch this would, would consider so much that goes into the discovery process. you out industry professionals and not look at it just a widget and not look at it just an amenity. know, it's not a pool. It's not a weightlifting room. It's not a workout room. It's not a dog park. It's something that's far more complex with so many things to consider when it comes to the deployment of chargers, whether it's, you know, for one parking space, two parking space, or eight parking spaces. There's so much to go into it as... And I know, you know, because I've been involved in not necessarily, you know, at the scale you have, but I know what it's like to try to install chargers at multifamily communities. And wow, especially when they're retail adjacent. I've had a lot of experiences when it comes to getting them in the ground and what all goes into that. yeah, know, shifting topics, just kind of zooming out a bit and looking at the industry as a whole. you What are, you know, as an industry professional, you've been in the space, what, 10 years, 10 plus years. What are some of the biggest problems in the industry as it relates to EV charging now? Not just the EV charging infrastructure, EV adoption, the industry as a whole, you know, there's misalignment, know, there's consumer thought processes. So just, let's talk through that. What do you see, you know, kind of the state of the industry where we're at right now? So again, great question. And sometimes I wonder about our industry is like, you know, I feel like we're getting to this point and maybe I'm exacerbating it, but it's like this line in the sand is happening, which is those on. So we're all in the industry, but then I feel like people are standing up for their side of the industry, which is L3 versus L2. And I'm obviously going to be a strong advocate for the L2 side. And I think whether mostly what you see written about and what's publicized and what the general public will see. In my head, if you just take anecdotally what people will talk about, hey yeah, and this is like, so I'll go from one extreme to the other, which is seven years ago, 10 years ago, yeah, I've seen that charger at Walgreens or Whole Foods, and that was level two. Now you see, yeah, I've seen some super chargers, and I saw some more come up over here. And so I think... The last, definitely post COVID, it's been a focus on L3. And I mean, I'll give you an, I mean, there's a lot I could say on this, but the problem to me is that, that, that story, that use case hasn't been built enough. So I'll give you a perfect example. I'm here at a coworking space and kind of just all last minute plan to be here. But I knew coming in that they offer two hours of free complimentary charging with some charge point station out of the garage. And so, you know, I probably commuted about 24 miles this way from home this morning. And I'm just pulling up the app right now, but let me see. I came in with 66 miles on my battery, 27%. So in the time we've been talking, plus a little more, I've recovered about 18 miles. So by the time we're done with this conversation, I'm going to actually recover everything it took me to get here just to go right back. And so this... story of just like neutral, living neutral, like what you burn, can recover where you park. And I think there's just too much focus is like, yeah, but you can go to this like convenience store, this place and grab a sandwich. Love that too. It absolutely has to be there. But my thing is that's a very interstate travel situation here in the, any urban core in the city you live in, you're just not going to find me. This is why I showed up to the free station, this whole environment, because On the way home, I don't want to stop at a fast charger, sit and play on my phone for 30 minutes, and pay almost 4x what it would cost to charge at home. So, you know, just for those who are maybe new to the industry, I'm going to pay maybe 15 cents a kilowatt hour at home versus 60 cents, up to 60 cents or more at a fast charger. So it sounds like a little when you're talking about cents, but what I would pay on one fast charger site is maybe $60 for a full tank or battery. versus spending 60 bucks all month to charge up. Well, I didn't want to interrupt your train of thought, you threw some industry knowledge out there where you referred to L2 and L3. then you also said DCFC. So obviously, DCFC and L3 are synonymous terms. They refer to DC fast charging, three phase, 480 volt type of infrastructure, whereas L2 is AC-based charging. a much slower charge. And so where you're at right now in this code, coworking space is offering an AC based level two charging. And so, you know, that's, that's recovering your energy while you're there and which will deplete by the time you get back to where you're going, which sound like maybe as home where you will plug in and start to recover and build back. when you, when you start thinking about that from the, cause you know, kind of going back to the question about, know, what are the, what are some of the challenges and that, that speaks to that EV adoption. You know, barrier that's, that's one of the barriers to entry is the consumer thinking is, is consumers thinking, thinking that charging has to absolutely be, has to be always available, has to be frictionless as gas. And yet they don't understand not only the charging technology, they don't understand the experience. We have this institutional knowledge because we've been in this space. So we're talking L2, L3, DCFC, you know, charging replenishment, blah, blah, blah, you know. And it's not, it's institutional knowledge gained over time and through experience, but that's the barrier. And that ties back to that education that, you know, from a business development standpoint, but you know, if we're struggling with education as it relates in a business to business context, wow, think about it in a business to consumer aspect. so. You know, that's one of the things. What I, what I also see is, you know, kind of going back to that business to business context is, is, is the site hosts, whether they're going to own the property or excuse me, own the equipment, own the assets or, you know, site hosts that just want revenue from chargers, but they think of it as just like a vending machine. You install it and you forget it and walk away from it. It's just going to be out there working perfectly. And that's absolutely not the case. That's the reason why companies like Field Advantage exist is because they're not vending machines, set it and forget it. They break. There's a lot of friction points and a lot of wear and tear, just like a gas pump where people are touching them all day long and messing with them and, you know, using them the right way and maybe not using them the wrong way. Same thing with EV chargers. And so EV chargers get put in the ground, they get it used and abused. so... they break and they need to be maintained. There's preventative maintenance needs, etc. That's why companies like Field Advantage exist to keep them operational. so, you know, there's, there's, you know, I think, you know, kind of going back to the, to the question about, you know, what, what, what, what's going on in the space? What are, what are the problems in this industry? What are, are, what are the problems? What are, what are some of the other problems that you see maybe, maybe as it relates to Maybe we narrow this down, this question down to the, to the EV companies that are overselling capabilities and under delivering route liabilities, whether that's on the hardware or software side. What could you speak to in that respect? Yeah, so, you know, I definitely am not the, I call it like data nerd. I wish I was. Like, I love seeing the folks who post all kinds of reliability uptimes and I'm just so, because again, I think a lot of that often speaks to L3, DCFC, as you pointed out. By the way, thanks for clarifying that because I can't stand it when industry speaks in all acronyms and jargon. But so I think you know, again, kind of, so you said, sorry, what was the last question you asked? Well, I was just talking about, you know, some of the barriers to the, to the progress of this industry as a whole. I alluded to maybe, um, EV companies that are, that are overselling capabilities and under delivering on what their, what their solution is, whether it be, whether that, that solution be a hardware solution, a software solution or, whatever, whatever that may be, you know, and, and, and, and, and that is not just, um, an unfair statement. We can zoom out and see that that is proven by. reduction in force, bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions, and so forth. Yeah. And that's why it's interesting because that again ties back to what we talked about the earlier part is like going to a company where it's like, how do you know you're not just at a place that's pumping up everything to like deliver for some investor or shareholder and then it's like, boom, we did that or we failed and like we pumped it up and we can't deliver. And so it's like, I'm just done doing that. And I take clients, it's kind of, I bite what I can chew, right? Which is like, If I say I can do this list of things, you're to make sure, or I'm going to make sure I do all these 10 things with this one client before I take on the next client. And so, you know, it is a very land grab like industry right now. And I'm sure that's how everyone feels. It's like, let's promise them everything and do everything. And then you can hire people and further secure more, further investment if you have this book of business. But I think at some point, you know, I would love to see where more of the industry is just like we focus on laser focus on this one thing. And I think everyone would be like in a better position because at least there's alignment on like I hired you or used and procured you for this one thing. Now I get it. People want a one stop shop, at least versus we're good at everything. mean, how good is that working out right now? Right. I mean, hey, we service free. It's retail. We do software for this. Like But are you satisfying everyone or are you just middle grounding everybody? It's like everyone's just now unfortunately complaining and killing your brand online with reviews. mean, right, we can all look at PlugShare and all kinds of reviews on companies. I see it on Facebook groups all the time, like so-and-so doesn't do this, doesn't live up to that. So yeah, I think I would love to see it. I had commented on someone's post the other day on LinkedIn is like, who's responsible for the education? And I honestly didn't know that answer. Someone had pointed out utilities. They're the ones responsible for this. Or someone had suggested they should carry that burden because it's like a private company is supposed to or nonprofits supposed to. So I found that interesting is that I don't hear a lot from utilities. I mean, I'm also in Texas, so it's like maybe somewhat fragmented. Whereas someone in California is like, hey, it's PG &E or Duke Energy in Florida. But yeah, I don't see as much involvement. Maybe I don't follow these people, maybe it doesn't cross my desk, but that was an interesting insight for me. Yeah, you know, this is going to be uh maybe to some an inflammatory statement by me, but and probably to some an oversimplification. But I've looked at utilities as that midstream and upstream future oil or future fuel supplier. I mean, when you think of traditional petroleum fueling, you've got obviously the retailers, those that are selling the fuel at the dispenser. But then when you look at how petroleum is made into fuel that is sold at the retail level, you've got midstream and upstream oil. so it's almost like electrons are the fuel source for the EV. so naturally utilities are part of that value chain of fuel. so it's like utilities should be at kind of the frontline of deployment of chargers and leading and guiding. this is a regional thing. And obviously I'm not. going to try to pick a fight with utilities with this statement, but it's like, it's like there's some utilities laying, laying the tracks while the train is boarding, you know, in, some, in some sense, it's like they're, they're laying the train tracks, the people are getting on board ready to go somewhere. know, shout out, shout out to our friends at Austin energy for, for what they've done, because they're, they're kind of a, an outlier when it comes to a, you know, a municipal owned. that has incentivized, they educate the community, they kind of done their part at a municipal level to get chargers out in the wild and to incentivize businesses to put chargers in. So we need that at scale, whether a utility is owned, municipally or co-ops or whatever. Early on in the EV space, when I first got started in the EV space, I'm thankful because I was able to cut my teeth and getting charges deployed. And I found success in partnering with some very forward thinking co-ops and the co-ops that were, you know, they had service territories that were covering kind of these, these remote areas. And, you know, they viewed it as, we can sell these devices that dispense energy. And that's why we exist is to sell energy. And so it's like, We can go to our customers in our service territory and help, you know, facilitate the deployment of these chargers. And so I was selling chargers in conjunction with these co-ops to move chargers out and into the wild. And it helped me learn this industry and helped me learn about technology. It me learn about the deployment processes, but you know, it also, you you learn about all the nuances of getting, getting chargers out into the wild and all the, all the stuff that goes with that. But, You know, I think I want to kind of go back to the technology discussion because you earlier alluded to the nuances between L2 and L3 between, you know, level two charging and DC fast charging. And so I know when I first got into this industry years ago, but even today I hear it, I've heard it today that some predict the end of level two charging. And so again, to just for the audience to frame this up, level two charging is AC based charging, is charging that is slower than DC fast charging. And so it's operating on 208, 240, 277. And depending on the state of charge of the electric vehicle, at the time it's plugged in, you're looking at incremental energy. based on the size of the battery pack and of course the state of charge when it's plugged in. So we like to say 30 to 40 to 50 miles of range per hour is what we like to use for a baseline and level two context. But that obviously has other factors involved. But anyways, years ago and even today, some say that L2 is ending and they claim everything will be DC fast charging in public, which I didn't agree with years ago and I don't agree with today and I think that that's short-sighted and reductive in thought. But then others claim that most charging will always happen at home and so you know public DC charging is overhyped and so you you're in the trenches you've been in the trenches who's getting it wrong and what's what's the nuance that they're missing from either side? Yeah, interesting. hadn't, I actually hadn't, I almost wanted to write an article about how L3 will eventually die off, so I didn't know someone was talking about L2. say more to that. Say more to that. Yeah. I think just again, this is like these interactions I have. My opinions are shaped by just real life and conversations, right? So it's not like I'm deeply studying this. I've got a business to run, but I would say that L3 is like this, I think if I'm using this term right, the stopgap, it's this bridge until there's mass adoption because, know, I'm honestly just... So incredibly shocked. So Tesla's done something really great, but at the same time is a disservice to like the EV industry, which is to sell their cars. They said, great, we got to make it easy. And how do you make it easy? We don't shift your behavior. We just tell you there's this plot of land with 30 fast chargers. You go there, you fill up and you go home. And so people of course easily adopt that. I love the car. This is not an inconvenience because I know what go into a place, but it's almost a straight off. Amazing, sexy, electric car, fine. I spent an extra 20 minutes at this fast charger, that's fine. I've been shocked by how many people have stopped to speak at fast chargers. And I'll ask them, do you have a home charger? And they're like, no. And I'll say, wouldn't that be more convenient? And they're almost like, they're just like indifferent. They're almost like, is life. Coming to this fast charger is normal. This is how it's supposed to be done. And it blows my mind because... someone and that someone is really the industry hasn't said home charging. That is like you just have to have that. That is a must to me in the electric vehicle world. Everyone that I know that's human goes to bed, whether that's five hours or 10 hours. That's a great time to recover what you did all day of driving. Let that fast charger be that 20 percent we talk about 80 percent at home 20 percent. But yet the focus of the industry is completely reversed. It seems like 80 % are focused on fast charging and very little on L2, at least from a headlines and press perspective. yeah, I honestly thought like I have a post to share. I I saw a fast charger site that's nearly popped up. So whether the marketing isn't out yet or people just aren't seeing value, which I know there's plenty of Uber ride share drivers that could use more fast charging in the city of Houston, but It's just not seeing the usage. There's 20, maybe 30 ports empty. So it's kind of like, why is that? Did you over deliver on the basis that maybe ride share drivers would use this and people visiting town? Or did you expect people who live in the city to use it? Because everyone I speak with that's call it like professional world white collar and they have a Tesla or any other EV. They're like, no, I would never use a faster. I charge it home. And so that's to me, what's interesting is that However you want to cut and slice that demographics or what schools of thought are like, I'm going to charge at home or some people I'm going to fast charge. And I feel like the fast charger ones are people who do live at multifamily who don't have access. So they're having to resort to that. But I think as soon as more L2s come online, then you start to see L3s get somewhat of a desert, honestly. That's an interesting perspective. I think honestly, the use case is inseparable from the, you know, the use case of the technology is inseparable from the experience. And by that, mean, okay, what's happening with level two? It's charging where you're at. It's charging where you're parked. What's the stat around the life of a vehicle? It's parked 95 % of its lifespan. A car spends 95 % of its life parked somewhere. So 5 % of its lifespan is spin in motion. That's absurd. So it makes sense that it would spend the bulk of that time charging, which from that standpoint, it would make sense that that charging would happen on level two. And then so that's one aspect of the experience. The other aspect of the experience is that DC fast charging is there for those that need to travel beyond the range of their battery, whether it's across town or across state. You and I live in Texas. We can drive for seven to eight to nine hours and still be in our state, you know. And so when we travel beyond the range of our are dependent upon level three DC fast charging. but again, that is, that is experiential and that is, is that happening often? Is that happening all the time? How often do we drive seven to eight to nine hours? Not all the time. That's an event, not a pattern. So, you know, the, the idea of, of, yeah, the idea of DC fast charging, as being overhyped, I, maybe overhyped is too strong a word. I, I really honestly think that when we try to, to, to position. Level two against level three, think that that's kind of like whiplash around thought leadership. think that's thought leadership gone wrong. think it's technological bias. I think that really it's looking at use around the site. know, when we go back to that conversation that we had earlier around consumer thought, the gas station experience, that the gas station experience absolutely has to mirror the EV charging. experience where I pull in, I pull up to a gas pump. I'm there for three minutes tops because, you know, the, gas pump is dispensing 22 to 23 gallons per minute. That's how much. so when we think about that, what is that ratio as it relates to the dispensing of electrons? It's, it, it's not, that's not even, it's not even comparable because with petroleum, you're dispensing a liquid fuel into a vehicle with charging. the vehicle is requesting energy from the dispenser. So it's a completely different transference of energy. And you've got a smart device communicating with another device requesting energy. So there's conversation happening, you could say. And so it's never gonna mirror and it's never gonna mirror itself. you know, it's not about, and I don't think it's supposed to mirror. I think it's about these charging destinations thinking about that experience. And so what are they doing? You said, hey, I want to charge where I'm at and then I got to go home and I'll get home. I don't really want to stop at a level to charger and play on my phone. I don't want to spend that time. I'd rather charge. Right. And you know, I was thinking it's you know, I know you're a frequent guest of the gym and I feel like if these gyms had it, I mean, every day getting, I'm sure most people at the gym 45 minutes to an hour and a half. imagine every day consistently, you know, I'm going to recover 20 miles in that time out at the gym. Phenomenal. Again, that's like a lot of people's in smaller cities might be their whole commute for the day. And, know, I'll give you an example. Obviously as two comedy fans, obviously we know each other. I I went to see, Ralph Barbosa last night. I don't know if you follow him. a Texas comedian. uh And so I was there last night. Battery range was again, and I just hadn't had a chance to charge it home the last day. And I was at that show from park to leaving. I mean, let's see, I got there at... 930 and I left at 1130, so two hours, right? Again, same thing, would have recovered my going and coming back. So like my round trip, if that place had a charger. And so yeah, it's just if though and you know, got me thinking I've kind of said this or share this sometimes but it doesn't hurt to maybe say it again, which is we talk about charging your car should be a lot like your cell phone now That's fine. But I think what we need to tell people how silly and outlandish would it be if I said hey Jason, know that phone you've got How about if I told you you could go fast charge it in 15 minutes, but you got to leave your house to do it how how how much of a priority is that for you to have to like go charge your phone versus like the hour, two hours, you could get it done in like eight minutes, but you gotta go away from out of your routine, away from your home to the special destination to fast charge your cell phone. Is that reasonable? I don't know. No, well when you frame it that way, it's certainly an impractical use of charging I need to be able to charge where I'm at whether that's home or out in the market. yeah, certainly certainly a good way to a good perspective when it comes to that and so when we look at these public charging destinations if this ties into that customer experience when if I'm having to go charge somewhere, you know, because One of the pushbacks I know that you get, I've got it as well, and this is more from the antagonist at a broader level to EV as a What about the people that can't charge at home because they don't own their homes, so they can't put in a charger? Or they live in multifamily communities and they won't put in chargers because, you know, the property management company flips the property, you know, every two years, so they won't invest in charging. Or they only have street parking or they live... you know, in a town home community or whatever the scenario is, there's absolutely no access to home charging. What about them? And so there's narratives for that. You've encountered that pushback. And again, that's usually that pushback from those that are antagonistic towards EV as a whole. But, you know, that is a legitimate question because it can be a barrier for those that do live in those spaces that do want to drive an EV. Right. And, you know, I think that's what's interesting because so then it's like, again, a question of numbers, which is I think, you know, the number I'll typically see is 30, unlikely to be more than 40 % live in multifamily communities, condo apartments. So majority is 60%. Where do those 60 % live? Single family homes, means of a charger. And I feel like We could do more of that. I'm sure people in that space or those demographics are considering it. But yeah, I think until multifamily adopts it in a big way, it does become restrictive because yeah, I I can't see myself living in apartment, not having access to home charging. I wouldn't be getting an electric vehicle. I like, because it is impractical. Life is already busy for most people. So it's like, if you add this to my plate, It's unlikely because life is fine in a gas car until you have to like change significantly your behaviors, right? There could be all kinds of reasons why people want to do it, but I can see why that's a big barrier. If you don't have home charging, that's probably the biggest, in my opinion, of why someone wouldn't want to. Well, I got, I got a couple more questions. Uh, this last one, um, um, is, you know, 30, 42nd response and you gotta pull out your crystal ball for this one. Um, just give me your best shot. What, uh, what's, what's the blind spot in this, in this industry or maybe infrastructure, um, that no one's talking about, uh, that you think will matter in two to three years. In other words, what are, what is not getting enough tension, attention right now that you think. we're going to kind of see the results of later, kind of the fruit of it later, two to three years from now. so two thoughts are initially come to mind. One is blind spot. I've spoken about it all conversation, which is L2. So I think blind spot is, hey, there's more value in offering L2 everywhere versus a couple places of L3. So I think that's one. Number two, this is not an area I'm the expert in yet today, but I think and I wish more was spoken about it. And I know it's being piloted across the country in certain regions, vehicle to grid or V to X, right? So I just have kind of layman's terms talk to property managers like, hey, but how about, it's one thing to deliver power to these cars, but what happens in a situation like the storms we get in Houston or across Texas where power goes out? What happens if those 18 cars out there could suddenly reverse the flow of energy and keep the lights on in this building that we're all kind of huddled in until the storm passes and the lights are out? At least we can stay comfortable, lit up. fans, AC, et cetera, right? So love to see, I think that's a huge value for real estate owners to realize, but myself included is not super knowledgeable about it yet, but I'd love, I think in two to three years we'll definitely be there. Great. Well, Newb, I appreciate your time. Before we wrap up here, know, anything interesting, fun on the horizon for you? What are you working on? Anything you can share with us before we close out this call? Yeah, sure. So as a friend, both personal and just even in the industry, I wanted to make sure to utilize this opportunity to drop some exciting news that Pangea Charging is up to, which I know you haven't heard because I just shared that I would like to share some news. So don't know if you know this. I'd be curious, actually, if this is on your radar. Is World Cup on your radar? Have you thought about that much? the honest as I don't follow any sports. So soccer or football, however you call it. I don't know even how you call it. don't and I don't follow football, soccer. Yeah, I don't follow any sports, but yeah. So no. okay. And you know, I believe that's the case for many people. it's same thing on the sports side for me. The reason it's on my radar though is I'm in Houston, fourth largest city. It is one of the host cities. So what I'm, if you take and package and summarize everything we spoke about in this call, I am basically trying to deliver the realities of L2 charging and how it shapes. EV charging, the EV infrastructure, and the ease of life to live that. All that to say is I would love for your viewers and your network to check out electricworldcup2026.com. And that effort is actually to promote and highlight specifically restaurants and hotels that are EV friendly and that have charging access because what are folks going to do in these host cities of the World Cup? They're going to definitely be going. to stay at a hotel because they're coming from all over the And so we didn't even touch on that, but hotels are a big access point needing L2 charging. And then of course, restaurants. And that kind of came to me because here in Houston, I talk a lot about this as well as it's got its own culture, but what it seems to be known for is a lot of food and different types of food. So when people come here, they explore restaurants. And I can point to an example of when you were in town, this was like maybe four years ago, you and I were in this building. at the ION and you said, hey, Anoop, love to go grab dinner, but I need a charge. And we looked for, I don't know if you remember that, but we looked for a restaurant and we ended up at a place called Szechuan Bistro or Mala Szechuan. And they had a charger at MKT here in Houston. You plugged in and that's the experience I want to amplify for everybody. When you've got millions of people in these cities for the World Cup, renting EVs, driving on their own EVs. And they're like, I'm scrambling around town to make events, make games, meet my buddy at the sports bar. I don't want charging to be a friction point. cool. This place has it. So all that to say is that we'll be promoting and working with restaurants and hotels to implement EV charging ahead of World Cup 2026. nice. So to frame that up, so I make sure I understand you are consolidating all the charging destinations around food and hospitality and you're bringing that into a central place anchored around the World Cup and you're going to promote that. And so that way, EV drivers that are there in town for that are going to be able to go to a place to know where to where to where to shop, eat, work, or stop and play to charge. Is that what I'm understanding? So there's obviously apps out there that promote this in a way that's very like there's a charger in this destination. So I'm basically creating a curated list where I'm actually targeting as Pangea Charging going after, the top five Tex-Mex restaurants, the top five barbecue restaurants and saying, hey, we know people are going to be coming to check you out, but you're going to have this added benefit against the competition when you offer charging. Hey, consultant, use Pangea Charging to get this implemented. we will include you on this curated list. So yes, the main requirement is working with Pangea Charging to put in new stations. But this is a very narrow, but I think strategic play of showing these folks the value. Nice. Well, that's fantastic. And thanks for sharing that with us. We'll add a link. We'll attach the link. So it'll be with the description of this, where this lands on our platform. So we'll be sure to include that. We'll help promote that. So thank you. Well, Anoop, thanks for being on field frequency. It's been a pleasure to chat with you as always. And appreciate having you. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Thanks for sharing your time. Yeah, you- can people keep up with your content? Yep, the best go-to place where I'm most active is definitely LinkedIn, so make sure to follow me on LinkedIn as a new perique. And then if you'd like to see more multifamily EV charging specific content, that would be Pangea Charging's page on LinkedIn, but definitely available on YouTube. What else we got? And Instagram, but I'd say the most two are LinkedIn and YouTube. Right. Thanks a lot Anu. Appreciate your time. it. Thanks for having me.