Replacing Speculation With Logic: Real-Time EV Site Modeling with James Tillman

Most EV charging projects don't fail in the field — they fail months earlier, during pre-development, when assumptions stand in for realities. Timelines stretch, capital burns, and roughly 40% of projects get cancelled before construction even begins.

In this episode, Jason sits down with James Tillman, co-founder and CEO of EVLogic, a platform that lets developers, EPCs, A&E firms, and as-a-service providers design, engineer, and price EV charging sites in real time — with every stakeholder on the same call.

James has lived this problem from every angle: utility programs at Reliant/NRG, network deployment at EVgo, and EPC execution at Brighten Energy. Now he's building the tool he wishes he'd had for the last 15 years.

In this conversation:

— Why pre-development is the real bottleneck in EV infrastructure — The "fail early, fail fast" philosophy and how it protects everyone in the value chain — The truth behind the "$7,200 DC fast charger install" myth — Why DC fast charging grew 30% year-over-year — and why that's still only a third of what the market needs — The under-the-radar opportunity in off-lease used EVs — Hotels, multifamily, and fleet — the segments quietly driving deployment in a "down" market — Founding a company in a down cycle: what's harder, what's secretly easier

Whether you're a CPO, developer, EPC, fleet operator, or project finance team, this conversation will sharpen how you think about deploying EV charging infrastructure.

Field Frequency is powered by Field Advantage — an IT field services company specializing in the deployment, maintenance, and operation of critical infrastructure, including EV charging networks.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Most EV charging projects don't fail in the field, they fail long before that, during pre-development, when assumptions are followed instead of realities. Timelines get stretched into months and capital gets burned deploying at sites that were never viable. My guest today is live that reality from every angle. Utility programs, network deployment, EPC execution. Instead of accepting it as the cost of doing business, he built a system that changed it. Chain Stillman is the co-founder and CEO of EV Logic, a platform designed for engineering and pricing EV charging sites in real time so stakeholders can align early, make decisions faster, and even kill bad projects before they become expensive ones. In this conversation, we break down why pre-development is the real bottleneck in EV infrastructure, how slow decision cycles destroy ROI, and why the next phase of EV charging won't be driven by hype, but by execution and precision. Let's get into it. Today I'm happy to have James Tillman, CEO and co-founder of EV Logic. Hi, James. Hey, good morning, Jason. How are you? Doing well. So glad you could come on Field Frequency. Looking forward to this conversation. Looking forward to hearing from you, hearing and learning more about EV Logic. I think to get this thing kicked off, I think we should always start with your background and and where you come from. I know you're an OG in the EV space, but uh for the audience, I'd like them to hear your background and uh kind of what the catalyst was leading up to building out EV Logic.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Sure. How long do we have? It's a long story, but I'll make it short. Short story long, right? Uh well, thank you for having me on the show. You know, it's it's I think it's the second show we've done together. We used to do something on uh I forget what was it called. Clubhouse. Clubhouse Clubhouse.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

And Clubhouse, Clubhouse was exclusive back in the day. That was only for iPhone users. And oh really?

SPEAKER_00 2:08

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Yeah, yeah. And uh it was kind of like it was supposed to have been the replacement radio, but yeah, that's uh that's uh that's a that's a throwback.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah, that was a lot of fun. And so, you know, if you ever need another co-host, uh just let me know. But instead, um, you know, thanks for having me. I'm glad to be on the show. So my background, so I've been in, you know, gosh, I've done a lot of things in the space. I've been a car nut for all my life. I just kind of grew up in that in that area, and my dad was a big mechanic. He, I mean, he builds airplanes, so that's kind of in my blood. Early in my career, I actually sold cars, uh, which a lot of people don't know, but when they when they hear that, they're like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Then I decided to go to business school because I decided there wasn't a big future in car sales for me. And uh I ended up taking a job running uh capital improvement program at fleet operations for the city of Houston. So this is kind of how I got into EV space because with fleet and capital projects, it just kind of went hand in hand. So we won a grant for two and a half million dollars to um optimize and electrify the downtown city of Houston motor pool. So it was a pretty cool project. From there, I met some folks at Reliant Energy, and uh they had just been bought by NRG, and their CEO wanted to drive his new Tesla Roadster onto the field of at the time Reliant Stadium and announced a DC fast charging network in the city of Houston. So remember, this is 2009, and I'm like, wow, this is great. These guys are just crazy enough uh for me, and I want to work with them. And so, you know, that kind of led into EBGO, did EBigo in Houston, moved out here to California where I live in Los Angeles today, did that for a few years in a mobility as a services startup, and then worked for a construction company. Uh it was Max and Energy Services, it became Bright Move Energy. And what we learned is we had a really hard time managing the early processing and wrangling the customers into making decisions. So it took about four months to get them and thousands of dollars to get them to a yes or a no. And it took about seven months and even more money to get them to cancel a project. And so we thought there needed to be a better way. And so we came up with EV Logic. Um, left my job, you know, late 23, uh, started being incorporated in 24, and it's just been a wild ride ever since. So we're having a ton of fun. So that's kind of the background.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

That's good background. And to double click on the trials and tribulations of deploying sites, like you said, trying to get a project off the ground. I think understanding where EV Logic sits from you know, a value chain positioning, where maybe you could share for the audience exactly what EV Logic does within the vein of simplifying that process. What it what does EV Logic do and where does it sit in the EV value chain?

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Sure. We we we start early in the chain today. And so the problem that we're really solving for, something that we see in in pretty much every vertical in the in the space, whether you're a CPO, a developer, and as a service provider or a construction company, is you typically go on that first site walk, you know, you drive an hour or two, you spend an hour or two on the site, drive an hour or two back, and you look around, you're like, oh my gosh, this is a really expensive meeting, right? And then you come back to your office, you lay something out in PowerPoint or Blue Bean, you send it to the client, and they're like, Yes, that this is great, this is what we want. How much does it cost? And so that's when it all starts. You have to commit resources to it. And so the ETC is usually doing more resources, but everybody else is waiting on the ETC, right? And so even though you might not be doing that estimating part, you're still like constrained by the time it takes. So on the EPC side, what happens is you send it to your estimator as a salesperson or project manager. The estimator will not put a number on anything that hasn't been engineered. So it goes to the engineering team. Usually the engineering team is working on other projects, so they'll get to it, they engineer it, they send it back to the estimator maybe a week, 10 days later. The estimator will go through that and they'll say, Oh, I need to get bids from my suppliers and vendors and subcontractors. That goes out. Two weeks later, it comes back in, and then the estimator will do their job, and that usually takes a day, day and a half. He compiles everything, it's send it, then it gets sent to the salesperson, or in this case, me. Um, you put it together, you send it to the client. The client's like, not in a million years. This is like three or four times what we had we've even budgeted, and we had already doubled our budget because we knew it was going to be expensive, right? And so, you know, it's a fire drill from there. Then your value engineering, your gene technology, your process again, and then they're like, well, you know, we've got this other state, you know, other stakeholders, you've got computing priorities, and you go into this endless cycle. And so what we're doing at EV Logic is really trying to turn that upside down. So with EV Logic, you can design, engineer, and price out sites in real time on you know, a platform like Teams or Zoom calls, have all the stakeholders on the phone at the same time and go through all those iterations in real time and say, okay, great. Now everybody who's involved in this, we've stacked hands-on the site, the location, the layout, the technology, does it meet operational standards, all of these things, and is it within budgetary constraints? And once that happens, then you go out on a site validation versus a site walk to make sure the the site is the conditions are as stated. And typically what we're finding is that the conditions usually are because one of those stakeholders is pretty intimate with the actual location, but occasionally you find other things, but then it's very quick to say, Oh, here's a proposed change order before we even go to contract, it's gonna add $17,000 in price, whatever that number is. And so it really accelerates that sales cycle. And then we can do all the way up to a CD 10 today. So it also helps you know begin the utility process, also.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

That that is amazing. And when you when you really so as one that has deployed chargers across the US as a value-added reseller selling a hardware siding, getting it installed, supporting, et cetera, um, in previous lives, don't do that now. But as one, there is so many complexities as as you you used to centely brought that together, but if you start unpacking that for someone that says, hey, in fact, just just within the last couple of weeks, site reached out. We've got some money, we want to put a DC fast charger in. An electrician told us it m would be around $7,200 to put that DC fast charger in. Like bogus. No way. That might buy your cabling, maybe. Right. That's it. You know, maybe. It's right next to the switch gear. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, is the run like a foot long? Yeah. Yeah. Um, and and I started just just, you know, not trying to overwhelm them, but started talking about has anyone talked to the utility? Do you have three phase? Do you have any? And all the and they're like, the you know, deer and headlights, uh, no. I'm like, well, where did that 7200 come from? Well, they said we had 240. I'm like, oh, probably a level two charger was what you were thinking about. Anyways, EV Logic, when we talk about the value that EV Logic is creating, because like you said, in the sell cycle to deploy chargers, it's typically at the front end is that site walk. So electrical contractors or whoever it has lost a lot of money. So now they're saying $1,500 I'll come out and walk the site. If you move forward, that'll be rolled into the cost. If you don't, I need a check for $1,500 to $2,000. And that's just to get to the table. That's just to walk the site. So EV Logic in its platform can look at the location. And you've got the stakeholders on the call. And here's the pathway that we think. Here's the two spots or the three spots or the four spots we want to energize. This is the hardware, the output of the hardware that we're thinking of that we want to put here, and this is where we want to seed it. And then EV Logic is working at Secret Sauce to bring in and to predict those costs. Like you said, you're still gonna go, you're gonna on the other side of that, you might move forward with a site walk for a sanity check because there's differing site conditions. Obviously, you might be viewing this from a Google dashboard or something like that, Google mapping or something. I don't know. Um, but the point is, is you're still gonna need to get out there and do a sanity check. So um, very compelling solution uh for those wanting to deploy chargers. Um you've already cleared out, clearly laid out some of the problems that you're solving. I I'm I'm curious uh what prospects are are are compelled to consider EB Logic solution? Who needs to hear about the solution that you guys are bringing to market?

SPEAKER_00 10:32

So and I want to take a step back before we go to that. You're you're right. What what you're seeing in the EPC space is a dummy tax. And if you're only getting charged $1,500 for a sitewalk, you're you're getting a really great deal. Yeah. But one of the things that we kind of pride ourselves on EV Logic, and I one of this is almost be like the catchphrase, you know, the signature line is really a fail early, fail fast, right? Because, you know, in my experience, we had about a 40% cancellate. And most of that was done pre-purchase order. So you can't recover those costs. So if you spent, you know, $15,000 over seven months getting the site ready to go and they cancel, well, where are you going to allocate those costs on their next project? And so, you know, you do see a lot of that. So we really try to go deep into engineering so that way um you get uh a very accurate uh engineering number. And there and the reason being is because the the underlying architecture for every charting space station, especially on the DC side, and then split systems is very complex and they're all different. And so we we dive very deep into commercially available charging stations that are on the system. So I think the qu the question you asked is, you know, who's kind of really our, I guess, our customers, right? Who's really chasing this product? And you know, it's really interesting that you know the first folks that signed up for our our beta back in May of last year were as a service providers. So these are the folks that come in and they either they'll do the capital investment and they'll sell it back in the form of either buy the mile or kilowatt hour, and they can do everything from the charging stations, include the energy, maybe they even buy the vehicles as well. So, you know, that's that's the as a service model, similar to a PPA for solar power produce equipment, right? But the value that they found is all the iterations can be done instantly. When they do a project, it's the same thing. They go on a sitewalk, they've got an EPC or three out there with them, um, and then they get their number three weeks later. Well, they need a CapEx number to put in their model so they can unitize and say, okay, great, the way that you've got it laid out is going to be between you know 52 and 58 cents a kilowatt hour, whatever that number is. So maybe, right? But then they say, oh, well, that's more than we budgeted, or oh, somebody said that you know we should use 80 amp level twos instead, or oh, we got to move them somewhere else. There's all these things that just come up that like one more thing, right? Forgot to mention. And so with EV Logic, they can do that like this, and they'll have an answer within minute, literally minutes, and then they can put that capex into their model and get a new estimate, you know, right away. And so that really changes the confidence that your customer has in the system because they're like, why is this taking so long? I thought you guys do this all the time, right? So we're getting a lot of as-a-service customers on there, we're getting EPCs, we have AE firms, Archpoint operators. We're getting we're even working with a community college to be their software platform for an EV um uh infrastructure certification course, which is a 14-week course, which is kind of like, wow, that's that's really cool. And so we're really surprised that the people who are signing up, we're we're also helping folks that do project finance. Uh they don't really know how to underwrite projects in that they don't know if the construction prices they're looking at are real or not. To your $7,200 point points. Like, oh, well, the financials look great on a $7,200 per port install on a DC Cash Charger. But once they find out it's 40 or 50, you know, it changes their mind. And so that's been really neat too. So we've been very fortunate to touch a lot of articles in our industry.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah, that it's it would seem almost a no-brainer for architecture and engineering firms to be looking at this as a as a part of their value add to to helping customers, helping their, you know, their clients understand what the budget looks like. But electrical contractors should be looking at that from a streamlining like initial sanity check in in terms of cost to deploy. Okay, you you know you want to put some 120 kilowatt chargers out here, baseline costs. That way they they can they can kind of churn through what's real as far as an opportunity and what's not real and move on to the real customers versus folks.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

100, 100. And and it allows that communication and that you know real-time number to come up. And and again, you don't have to be an estimator or an engineer to use this. It was built for people like me, you know, sales guys who are dangerous. But it's like, okay, hey, we're in we're in the the realm of a budget with you know five or ten percent on either side of this, and we're we're testing a lot closer to three to five. But regardless, it's like, hey, if this works for you, everything's ready. It's like, let's go, let's go in a contract, let's get a PO in place, and we can start putting a sharp or pencil on this, right? So instead of you know distracting the estimators and the engineers with a bunch of business development work where we know that you know maybe there's a 30% win rate, we're only gonna bother them with the projects that are like, hey, these are actually real. And as a salesperson, that's a really hard challenge because you want and you believe that all your deals are real, right? You're every single one is real. But the reality is the ones that you try hardest on and the ones that last the longest, especially in this space, those are gonna die. I hate to tell you that. But they're you're just you're spinning your wheels for nothing. And so we try to also live that kind of mindset at EB Logic too. It's like, hey, look, you know, if we're not the right fit today, that's okay. Well, you know, call me back when you when you when you when we've added a feature that you think makes sense for you. Because, you know, we don't have time to to waste, we gotta keep going. And I feel that that's just the way that our business works. We're under the gun. Yeah, I saw an article the other day that we did 30% increase of DC bass chargers year over year as far as an installation rate, which is like 18,000, something like that. The reality is that's about a third of where we need to be. There's so much work and opportunity out there, but the challenge keeps coming in is that hey, we're so slow on this upfront portion of the process, and we have so much cancellation because projects aren't real that we can't even get it through the pipeline to even start messing with AHJs and utility interconnection, right? So it's like what we did is like, hey, here's a real big pain point that there's just not a great solution for. Let's focus on that. Can we focus on other things? Maybe later, but it's like our focus is definitely pre-development and sales today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Yeah. You know, just uh the timing. People, if they've not deployed chargers, they just don't understand the timing that goes along with it. And what was it? What was the what was the number count? Because to your point of we're about a third of where we need to be. What was the the magic number when when the administration, the Biden administration rolled out the the IRA funding for for that led to Nevi? That was like it's like 50,000 chargers by 2030, or maybe I'm I may have the numbers and the dates mixed up, but it was like it was this really aggressive, ambitious number of I want to say it's 50,000 sites or something like that. And it's just again, anyone can say any kind of number. It's just if it's not really attached to reality if the complexities of what it means to deploy chargers. And so, you know, in your example of where you said, hey, we may pivot from from DC to 80 amp L2 chargers because of budget or because of spacing or because of other constraints, feeding the machine, the the EV logic machine has got to be some data points, maybe from the OEM, the manufacturers of the chargers themselves. Because, like you said, if we're if we're looking at a site and they're thinking, oh, well, we we don't know what our power constraints are, we don't know what our utility constraints are. So maybe we're looking at this from from 120, but the insights prove that no, maybe you want to go up higher because the the local amenities nearby would, you know, maybe there's something you can do different. Maybe you want 180. So cutting to the chase, I would think that the OEMs would be a part of the of the data points that you are bringing into this space to help forecast what costs and timelines would look like. Is that is that valid?

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Yeah, yes and no. I I think obviously that's the direction we're going. We do have pretty deep relationships with a handful of charging OEMs, and those are the ones that we dive really deep into their installation manuals. Well, what we find, we we do have a verification program that we've just launched, and so it's it's going to be a filtrable feature starting in March, and those will indicate which charging OEM brands that we have done the deep dive into. So what we find typically when we dive into an installation manual is they're poorly translated, and so nobody on the American side or the English speaking world has really gone through it because I don't I don't know if you've read one of these, but you know, if you're having a problem sleeping, uh that's it's a good cure for that. But we kind of know, you know, one of my co-founders, uh Age Lopez, he's got 14 years experience in this and in renewable energy engineering and six or seven EV. So we know where the dead bodies are. And so we're very able to quickly identify hey, this doesn't make sense, it's inconsistent, it doesn't meet you know, national electric code. And so once we identify these inconsistencies within the manuals, we go back to the OEM and we start asking questions. And they're like, oh yeah, so they this isn't correct. We need to change that. And so number one, the benefit there is they can update their installation manuals, which is gonna cause, which is gonna help a lot of pain points out in the field. Because I don't know if you've ever been in the field, I'm sure you have, and you you're you've got like you know, gosh, you know, a stencil, right? And you put it down and you you you do all your foundations to the stencil and then realize the stencil's imperfect, right? Or just silly things like that. And you're like, well, yeah, well, we gotta remove this housekeeping pad or or somehow chisel it out, right? And so we go through that, we do any type of custom coding, and then that ensures that the engineering on the back end is right. So that's super important for us. And then what we do is we do have a handful of stations from other OEMs that we're still working to build that relation on, because we do feel it's important to have a lot of stations in there because the way that our filtering system works is is really to begin with the end in mind. So if you're working with the customer and you say, okay, to your point, what do you what do you think your KWC needs to be? What about your cord sets? Are you looking, you know, just because you have a 350, you know, KW dispenser, if you're only putting a 200 amp cable on it, you know, things aren't going to really work the way that you want it to. And so we we have that level of details. Like I want, I want uh cord set one to be 17 feet, have a 400 amp uh cable with a CCS1 contacher, and I need the second cable to be 21 feet, and it needs to be 380 amps with a NAX connector, right? And it's a credit card reader, use RFID, and so you can click all these boxes, and then what we have in the database pops up. And so it's pretty slick. And so that way, again, you're beginning with the end in mind, you can take a consultative approach. And so we find that that's a a a pretty unique way to select your charging stations that you put into the platform and build with those sites. You can also look at multiple technologies. So if you like Like you know, OEM one and you want to look at OEM two, or you want to look at you know 25 KW DC versus the cost of an 80 amp level two. I mean, this is this is the platform to do it in, right? Because you know, once you go down to that 80 amp station, number one, you're at 208, not 240. So you've got that first issue. The second issue is you know, you're looking at a lot more copper on that level two. And so maybe you're spending $10,000 less a station, but you might be increasing your install $15,000 a station. And EV Logic really provides the platform to do that analysis.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Love it. Put it putting the logic into the into the planning, the pre-planning and pre-staging. That's that's fantastic. Well, thanks, James, for sharing the you know what EV Logic is doing. I'd I'd like us to to kind of zoom out and have a conversation about the industry for a few moments. Um, you know, when did when did EV Logic launch?

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Uh EV Logic officially launched. We incorporated January 2nd of 2024. Uh, we came up with the idea in September or October. Um, my my wife bought a new car and she told me she was gonna park it in the garage. And so I don't know if you need to see, but I have a bike here that used to be in the garage, and so a lot of other things too. And so we had someone build out the garage, and it was a really cool experience. He took his phone, stood in the middle of the garage, went like this, took a couple measurements. Let's hop on Zoom on Tuesday. Uh, that's what we did. He had a 3D rendering of my uh garage on the computer, and he goes, James, are you ready to build your dream garage? I'm like, heck yeah, let's do it. And so he was dragging and dropping and moving boxes and slats, like, hey, do you have golf clubs? Yeah, I was like, You got bikes? He's like, dude, I got bikes, right? Um, and so things hanging from the ceiling, all sorts of cool stuff. And so he's like, Do you love it? I'm like, Yeah, that was actually really cool. And so he hits a button and it gives me a bill of materials. I'm like, ooh, it was like 16 grand. I was like, I don't love it that much, right? And so we value engineered it. And so after that experience, I called my I called Sage, I called Chris. I'm like, this is what our industry needs. And Sage goes, he goes, Yeah, you're right. He goes, it exists in solar, it exists in almost every other industry, but not ours. And so that's kind of what launched the idea and getting all the pieces together. So just a little over two years since we've been corporate.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Wow, it's always cool to hear what the what the catalyst was. Uh that's that's cool. Well, well, okay, so you know, founding in a down cycle. What's what's what would you say as a founder, co-founder, what's what's what's harder about launching a company? Now you've been in this space, like you said, you you know where the the bodies are buried. But what's what's it like launching in the space? What's you know, what is what's secretly easier because of the pullback? Maybe there's some gaps created by that, or what talk to me about that.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

You know, I I I I'll give you what I think, but the reality is I haven't found a company when there were tailwinds. So um I only have this experience. You know, what people tell me is like, gosh, if you had this three or four years ago, you'd probably be retired by now. Right. It'd be a very different game. Um, but I think even like with the incentives going away from cars and you know, less money out there to build infrastructure, what I think it does is a number of things. It it causes us to be smarter, right? With how we're operating and bootstrapping a company. It also causes developers to be smarter as well. They don't have the money to throw around on projects that don't quite pencil. And so a product like ours becomes even more valuable during a downturn. I think the headlines are overblown, right? I mean, one of the things that we see in the space is we have a unique viewpoint. I see hundreds, almost thousands of sites built in the platform. So I can kind of tell you what we're seeing being built and the conversations that we're having, and we're seeing a ton of fleet projects. We're still seeing retail projects. Retail projects are smaller than they used to be. Those are also the ones that get iterated the most, which is interesting. We're still seeing a ton of multifamily, but those projects are getting larger, ironically, and they're all using load management, and so we have load management on the platform too. And uh ironically, and I'm sure a new people appreciate this, we're seeing a lot of hotels, right? It's uh, and that makes a ton of sense 10 years ago. It's like no one's gonna drive a Nissan Leaf 65 miles to stay at a hotel, but today, you know, I've got cars in the garage that go 350 miles, and it's like, oh yeah, going to San Francisco or or Phoenix or something to that, you know, Las Vegas, that's an actual doable road trip, sometimes even without charge. So hotels, hotels definitely make sense. Um, yeah, it's just been a ton of fun doing it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

I I think with you know, go to go to market for for you guys, customers are obviously cautious, budgets are tight. This is helping to cut through the noise and and get to see, get, get to a place where it's viable or maybe where it's not viable, and you focus on where where to focus the energy. It's a redirecting of that. And I I like that you call out let's not necessarily believe the hype of the the headlines. Uh, interesting enough, uh episode that just released this week of field frequency had some of that in echoed in in that episode. And we had we had uh Florent Brenton from Perrin on, and he was talking about there's been a 30% increase from 2024 to 2025 in DC fast charging sessions. I think it was like 140 something million successful charging sessions that happened during the year 2025, and that was a significant increase from 2024. So if those successful transactions and charging sessions are happening, that means that there's more chargers. That's that's how that that's part of that number. And so, you know, you I think you got to strip out the headlines, but what's what's genuinely hard right now in the space versus what's maybe noise?

SPEAKER_00 27:40

I think you know getting getting capital is a little bit challenging, but you know, I saw a friend's company get funded yesterday. It's a little bit different business, but it's in the EV space. You know, James Tong over at Mitra EV, they they just got a $27 million Series A. Congratulations to them. And those are the stories that always keep us going, too. It's good to see sunshine on a cloudy day. And I think that's what it is. It's a cloudy day. Is it a hurricane? No. You know, any industry doesn't just go like this, right? There's bumps and dips and valleys along the way. And I think we're kind of more in a in a flat stage right now versus more of a decline, which and I think you know, we're about to start seeing, and Cox talks about this too, a big influx of off-leaf lease cars coming into the UZU space. And I think you know, my LinkedIn post today is about how those are the most undervalued assets on the market. What a deal to go and get a three-year-old low mileage EV for 40% of MSRP. That's a huge value. And so I think what you're gonna see is those people who come in for a lease return are likely gonna buy another EV, right? And then you get exposure to a new set of EV curious buyers, right? So you know, the need for charging is gonna grow. I think I read a stat somewhere that in the United States we have something like 30 EVs for every public port, right? And we've got about an eight or nine percent adoption rate on the new vehicle market side, right? But when you go to Canada, that number is closer to nine to one, nine cars for every charging port, and they're at about a 25 to 30 percent adoption rate. And when you go to China, you look at their numbers, it's two to one, right? And it's not even close to the adoptions. And I realize those are different markets in different areas, but the reality is, is there's definitely a correlation between charging infrastructure and adoption, no matter how psychological it is. And we used to talk about this in the early days of EGO. It's not just about we're trying to solve range anxiety by getting range confidence. And one of the unique lessons we had there was you know, we would start very centered within a town and then go outbound. And so the idea would be, you know, you're never further than five miles on a major interstate from a DC fast charger. So that means you had to place them basically every 10 miles apart, right? That's the easy math. But what we found out is nobody ever used the furthest charging station that we deployed. But when that charging station got used, is when we placed the next one because that furthest charging station out gave people the confidence to go a little bit further, even though they didn't use it, because then they could rely on that closer charging station if they actually needed it. So it's you know, you got all these very interesting learnings over time. But you know, I think I think we're gonna still see a lot of growth in the space. There's a lot of opportunity. I'm glad to see Nebuchadnezzar back. I'm glad to see fleets making, you know, TCO decisions. Um, and I think, you know, again, it the this is the industry growing up, right? It's like, hey, you know, just like you know, you're 18, 19, you just finished college in your little 20s. You gotta move out, right? You just can't live at home in your mom's basement anymore. And I think that's kind of where we're at in the industry. And so it's gonna, you're gonna you're gonna probably see some consolidation, you're gonna see some companies go out of business, the strong are gonna survive, and you know, things are going to change, right? Prices will come down. The last time we lost the $7,500 tax credit when it was capped at 200 units, 200,000 units, pesticid poor prices, right? So there is a solid argument that prices are inflated because there's just a lot of money out there. I think what California is flirting with, with kind of replacing that that incentive with people who are buying their first EV, I think that makes a lot of sense too. It's like I've taken advantage of the tax many times, but it's like I'm a buyer, I'm a believer, right? I I I my own dog food, but it's like getting those people who haven't bought in yet, I think that was a really smart twist on the on the incentive. So I'm I'm excited about the future. It's gonna be a little flatter, you know, just you know, two or three percent growth for the next two or maybe three years, but I don't see that lasting much longer.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Yeah. No, I'm I'm aligned with that. And I think uh to your point of the incentive shifting to new buyers versus those that are already have taken advantage of that. I think that's that's that's the right move. Anything that moves things forward. Uh we've got a episode coming up pretty soon with John Volker, contributing editor for Car and Driver. And he talked about the secondary market with within EVs, kind of like what you alluded to a moment ago about just the amount of used EVs that are out there that are available and people can acquire those for obviously a uh a more more cost-effective way. And and they've still got plenty of range. Right now, I have a 2019 leaf sitting out in the driveway, and it's got it's 2019, it's does it maybe 40 a little over 40,000 miles, lots of life left in that vehicle. You know, if I ever wanted to offload that, if someone else was to pick that up, that they've got a new vehicle with nice interior and you know, sounds like a commercial for my car. It's really not. But anyways, the point being is just that said the point is here's the link down below. Call me. Yeah, no. You know, the the the thing is is uh secondary market is is there and and just helping you know to move the the adoption uh you know curve in the right direction.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Even like even like Tesla, right? And and I'm very technology agnostic, but you know, Tesla has a pre-owned lease program. I was on the other day, you can get you know a three or four-year-old model three with 35,000, 40,000 miles on it for a couple grand down and $300 a month. But if you're ever if you've ever been curious and you don't want to spend a lot of money and you want the guaranteed back end residual value, dude, that's the way to go. And these cars still have close to 300 miles on it. And as you know, you drive a leaf, that leaf probably has a hundred and fifty-ish mile range unless you got the extended.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

215. 215. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

That's that's more than you'll ever need. I mean, I'm charged my cars like every 10 days. I mean, like, you're just driving around town for the most part, and then when you leave town, it's like I'm either flying or I've got you know the root planner, and it's not a big deal. I've got kids. You have kids, even my oldest is almost 13. They still get the wiggles, they still have to go to the bathroom on non-planned stops. So it's really easy to plan those around infrastructure. It's like even if I'm just getting five or ten minutes while they're going to the bathroom or whatnot, it's like, cool, I don't have an extra stop that's that's not efficient in my journey. And you're seeing so many more stations pop up. And I think what Tesla's doing also with um, you know, kind of democratizing the ability to deploy and own Tesla charging sites is actually a brilliant idea. And we're seeing a lot more deployment of that. It's getting better every day.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

It is. Although there's always the contrarians. Uh, a contrarian that's in my orbit that's heard me talk about you know secondary market used EVs and all that, you know, flagged the announcement by Elon of the X and the uh the S being, you know, taken out. And so, like, what about all the used versions of those that are out there available on the market? That they're buying a car that's already sunset, and how will support look like? And, you know, obviously there's always going to be the contrarians that have an alt, you know, an opposing view just to have an opposing view, just because they don't believe in the tech, or they and really I'm fairly confident that most of the people that have an uh an opposing view of the tech just haven't had the experience with the tech because then they would change because you know I don't really care about not having a landline in my home.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

I look, I buy I buy a pre-owned Model S, a 22, you know, Model S tomorrow, right? I mean, it was I I loved mine, it was such a great car. Um, and and I think you know, the the technology, if if you're replacing a 10-year-old car and you step into a three or four-year-old Model S for $35,000 or $40,000, you're gonna be blown away, right? And and so why not? I again, I think it just expands the market. And the reality is, is you know, the the same person probably be really happy buying a classic Corvette or something like that. It's been discontinued, but you know, or or whatnot. Yeah, it's a it's kind of a straw man argument, but it it is what it is, and that's okay. I I've never been like you know, the type of person like, oh, EV is the only way. I'm I'm kind of I've always been an all the above kind of person. I think I think we need to explore a lot of solutions. To me, I think EV makes a ton of sense. Uh, you know, in my personal life, I I've explored Ph E Ds. They made a ton of sense to me too. It's like, hey, at 40 or 50 miles, I can do 95% of my driving. And then, you know, and if I go to Big Bear or, you know, San Francisco, I've got gasoline. I think that's a great solution. It's a good gateway drive. I also understand some of the counter-arguments against that, but I think we should be more accepting of people who are, hey, let me try this out. And that these are kind of my constraints. And people's like, well, you know, they never plug in. It's like, who cares? It's like they're they're trying it out, and we're not all perfect people. It's we're like with energy. You know, I think it's in all of the above strategy. We should have nuclear, we should have solar, we should have wind, we should have all of these things, battery backup. It doesn't have to be like you love solar. I love solar, and that's the only thing it can be. It's like that's just such a silly architect. You gotta get over that.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Yeah, I I agree, I agree. And I, you know, everything is about use application too. I know, well, right now I've been 100% EV, two EVs sitting outside the house right now, but um, I've you know, I've got a vehicle purchase on the immediate horizon and it's gonna be a pickup truck for for use case application. So, but again, it doesn't take away from the fact that that uh I firmly believe in the in the use of EV and and its benefits. But um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

I was gonna say I I think every almost every household in the country that's a two-car family, one of them could be an EV, right? And that's how we start. So same thing. It's like, but we had like a Nissan Pathfinder that we kept because it it fit the whole family and all of our junk a lot better. But then it got to the point, it's like at that time I had a Chevy bolt. And so we had this really nice pathfinder and a Chevy bolt. And we were taking the Chevy Bolt everywhere. It just became the car. And so we're like, fine, let's let's just have both, you know, let's just get two EVs. But again, I to your point, it's like I understand the necessity of having a truck, especially if you're pulling a boat, you know, four or five hundred miles. It's like, hey, if you if you use a truck like that under those use cases, an EV might not be the right vehicle choice for you, and that's okay. Right? It's such a I feel like an old Seinfeld conversation. It's like that's okay. You can drive an ice vehicle. It's okay. Nothing wrong with that.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Well, James, this has been a a great conversation. Appreciated hearing your thoughts about the industry, appreciate learning about EV Logic. I know it's it's definitely gonna connect uh with someone out there listening right now as far as the value that that that product is is brought to market, that solution is brought to market. And as we get ready to wrap up, uh obviously I'd like you to share how people can connect with you, how they can learn about EV Logic. We're to reach out to you, et cetera. I'd like you to share that if you could before we close out.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

All right. Well, thank you. Yeah, uh great conversation. I always enjoy hanging out with you. Uh, we'll see you probably at EBCS, right? Yes, absolutely. Cool. So that's one place. EBCS, I'm always at that one, Act, a few others. But you know, uh obviously I'm on LinkedIn. There's a book and appointment uh link right there on my page. Uh we're at evlogic.ai is the website. You know, you can put that right there. I don't know if you can do that or not. But yeah, I mean, uh, you know, yeah, my my con my contact, the best way to get me is through LinkedIn. I'm I'm pretty active on it, especially lately, which has been kind of an interesting journey for me as well. I'm not a big social media fan. So, you know, really learning how that works and you know putting myself out there for a lot of those posts has been an interesting project. But yeah, I think that's the best way to get me. LinkedIn, the website, you know, email address is uh jtillman at eBlogic. I'd love to talk to anybody, even if it's just kind of like this, you know, shooting the shit on the EV business and what's going on, and happy to give my two cents worth on pretty much anything. And and we're always looking for partnerships and integrations too. So, you know, if you've got something that's kind of parallel to what we're doing and you think there's a way for us to work together, let's talk. I mean, that it's more about that. I don't want to recreate the wheel, I want to stay in my lane, and I I want to really lift this industry. I'm reading articles that say we spent seven and a half billion dollars and only built four charging stations or four hundred, whatever. It's like there's so many things wrong with that statement, but that's just a big driving force for me to figure out how to catalyze the industry, accelerate the process, and and for me, it's all about getting more infrastructure in the ground. So if that's if that's how you see infrastructure and you want to work together in any way, shape, or form, reach out. Let's do it. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

Thank you, James, for coming on Field Frequency. Absolutely. Talk to you later, Jason. This episode was produced and edited by the team at Atozi. To find out more, visit autosy.co a u t o z y dot co.