Less Components, Less Failure: Power Innovations International

In Episode 29 of Field Frequency, Jason sits down with Tim Rees of Power Innovations International (PII) to explore the engineering realities behind reliable EV charging infrastructure. Tim shares how his background in power conversion and data center electronics shaped PII’s unique approach to DC fast charging, with a focus on fleet applications, simplified deployment, and serviceability. The conversation dives into charging architectures, mobile charging solutions, power flexibility, and why reducing failure points matters more than flashy features. From school bus fleets to hydrogen-powered charging trailers, this episode is packed with practical insights into the future of resilient charging infrastructure.

Show Notes

• Tim Rees’ journey from power electronics and data centers into EV charging infrastructure
• An overview of Power Innovations International (PII) and its fleet-focused DC fast charging strategy
• Why PII focuses on 30kW to 60kW charging for predictable fleet operations like school buses and delivery fleets
• Mobile charging solutions and EV rescue applications for fleets and dealerships
• Hydrogen-powered charging trailers and renewable energy integration concepts
• How PII’s charging platforms differ from traditional DC fast chargers:
  • Modular rectifier architecture
  • Reduced failure points
  • Simplified serviceability
  • Air-to-air heat exchanger cooling systems
• Designing chargers around uptime, reliability, and field maintenance efficiency
• Why using existing site power infrastructure can dramatically reduce deployment costs and time
• The relationship between Lite-On Technology and PII, and how vertical integration supports product manufacturing and reliability
• The hidden costs of EV charging deployments beyond the charger hardware itself
• Why durable engineering and long-term reliability matter more than “flashy” charging features in fleet environments

Tim Rees Bio 

Tim Rees is a seasoned executive and business leader with extensive experience driving growth, operational excellence, and strategic transformation across the transportation, technology, and infrastructure sectors. Known for his collaborative leadership style and ability to build high-performing organizations, Tim has spent his career helping companies navigate evolving markets while delivering innovative solutions that create long-term customer value.

Throughout his professional journey, Tim has led teams focused on business development, operational strategy, customer engagement, and market expansion. His expertise spans fleet operations, emerging technologies, infrastructure deployment, and organizational leadership, giving him a unique perspective on the intersection of mobility, energy, and technology-driven transformation.

Recognized for his practical approach and industry insight, Tim is passionate about fostering strong partnerships, developing scalable business strategies, and helping organizations adapt to changing customer and operational demands. Colleagues value his ability to combine strategic vision with hands-on execution, making him a trusted leader and advisor across the industries he serves.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Most of the EV charging conversation is centered around output, but what if that's the wrong approach for some customers? In this episode, I sit down with Tim Reese from Power Innovations International to break down a different model, one that's built around reliability, right-sized power, and real-world deployment. We get into where the industry might be over-engineering some solutions and what might actually drive uptime in the field. Let's get into it. Welcome to another episode of Field Frequency. This podcast is sponsored by Field Advantage. Field Advantage is a national IT field service company specializing in EV charging and IoT infrastructure. Today I'm joined by Tim Reese of Power Innovations International. How are you doing, Tim? Doing well, buddy. How are you? Doing well. Glad we got you on. Been planning to get you on for a bit of time and uh glad it finally worked out for us to be able to have you on for an episode. Um want to get into who Power Innovations International is, might abbreviate that down to PII for the remainder of this conversation. So I don't trip over my words here. But uh I'd like to start off the conversation with you walking us through your personal origin story. Tell us what led up to you sitting in this in the seat that you're in today and what your role is over at Power Innovations International. And then also talk to us about PII. Tell us what PII is doing in the space, and um we'll get into it. Sounds great.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Well, a way back time ago, after uh after graduating college, I really fell into the power conversion space. So started out with working for power conversion companies, mostly power supply companies, doing a lot of AC to DC power conversion, DC to DC power conversion, anywhere from you know small little wall mounts that everybody has in their house to little desktop power supplies that everybody has to you know 1500 watt data center power supplies, DC DC conversion, and all a lot of different fields. So my entire career has been in the power conversion world. I've worked for companies like CUI, Bell Power, Power One, Sorbell Electronics, just everybody that's been in the in the power supply light on light on with a lot of the DC data center power. And uh I had an opportunity from a former boss of mine from a couple of different companies asked me to join Power Innovations and head up sales for the new EV charging divisions, and it was a really an easy kind of roll into this EV charging because EV charging is all power conversion. You know, you're taking AC power in and you're putting a high voltage DC power out. So that part of it was really easy to wrap my head around. The the thing moving into the charging world was you know, OCPP, you know, ISO 15118. It was all of the, I'll say the other portions not dealing with power conversion that were kind of the hardest for me to learn and get my head wrapped around it. But after getting into it, it's just it's communication and you know, making sure that that charger is up and reliable. And that's how I came into where I am today.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Well, that's uh good overview. It's uh interesting you when you talk about the conversion aspect of it. There's there's actually two streams of communication happening, or two streams of activity, and maybe not communication. One is obviously the electricity that's flowing, that's got to be, as you said, converted from AC to DC to charge the vehicle, and then on the uh the communications protocol side. So you got two streams of activity happening uh in a charging sequence. Well, give us an overview of of Power Innovations International, specifically the EV charging product line. Obviously, PII is is is got other power uh electronics and equipment and stuff, but let's talk about the EV charging line. Give us an overview of what output levels and what design is it a you know all in one distributed DC architectural DC fast charging L2? What's the product line look like?

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Yep. So our product line focus right now is 30 to 60 kilowatts. So more on the smaller range, really into fleet applications and fleet applications that have dedicated routes. Think about school buses where you know exactly where they're going, they're gonna come back, they've got six to eight hours of dwell time, even an 80 amp L2 might not work, you know, perfectly, but a 30 or a 60 gets them to exactly where they want to go in charging aspect without having to put in 150 kilowatts or no, they just don't need that type of power because they've got dedicated routes and dedicated dwell time. So for us, we felt like the fleet portion was a something that's not really, really focused on. You know, everybody's after the 150 kilowatt and above for public charges, and the 30 and the 60 kilowatt where fleets really is that sweet spot, we didn't feel it was really getting the attention it needed. So we have 30 to 60 kilowatt units in full stationary, the 30 kilowatt you can wall mount. 60 kilowatt is obviously a pedestal mount unit, but then we've got a mobile platform, and when I talk about mobile, it is the ability that you can take it, unplug the unit, take it to another plug, walk it around. It's still is required to have AC power, which for us is not 480 volts three phase. We can take single phase AC power in, we can take 208, 240 delta power in, we could take 38480 three phase Y power in, and we could take DC high voltage DC power direct without an inverter stage into our units. So that's another differentiator for us that is huge is a lot of times we can use the power you already have, not the power you wish you had. You know, so for fleets, there's not a lot of fleet yards that have 483 feet. So what do you have to do? You have to now buy a 10,000, 15,000, $20,000 step up transformer to be able to operate your equipment. With ours, there's no need for that. If you've got enough 120 single phase, 208, 240 Delta, or already 480 three phase Y, or you've got a big vest system, you can go directly into our chargers and get chargers in the ground and operate those chargers much quicker than taking any of the manufacturers out there that you need. You have to have 483 phase. And mobile applications are a great where you're pushing the unit around. Everybody in the marketplace is 483 phase except Power Innovations. So you've got to have a step-up transformer someplace with a unit you're trying to push around someplace or move, kind of takes the mobility aspect out of it. But as mentioned with us, you can use that power you have that's already there. You know, one great application for the mobile is you look at car dealerships. Car dealerships don't have 480 anywhere, but they have tons of 208 or 240 Delta because you remember back in the day they used to run all those metal halide lights that just sucked power. And now, as everybody transitioned to LED, they've got excessive amounts of 240 single pays. So be it a mobile unit, be it a stationary unit, they can tap right into that existing 208-240 Delta and be up and charging with a mobile unit, even if it was a stationary unit, much quicker than all the competition out there. So, really, that's 30 to 60 kilowatts, is where we're focusing fleet applications. We've actually come out with a 82 kilowatt hour battery sled that has a 30 kilowatt DC fast charger on the front of it that will slip into a three-quarter ton pickup, bright drop van, a Ribbian van. As long as you have 2,000 pounds of payload capacity, you can then put this self-contained charging unit, possibly use it for fleet rescue. You know, you you think about AAA these days. What does AAA usually do? They'll bring you out a gallon, five gallons, ten gallons of gas to get you down to the next, to the next. Well, this is meant to do the same thing, except with EVs. So now you're delivering five to ten kilowatts, get them down to the next DC fast charger and get them back on the road again. So, same kind of concept because today in the fleet world, what happens when one of their vehicles goes down? Call a tow truck, flatbed, possibly if it's a school bus, a low boy, how much does that cost each time that they have to go rescue a vehicle? It it comes into a lot of money. So that was another aspect that we did for the fleet side is do different things. And one of the things I know we're gonna talk about EV charging a lot on the podcast, but we can do different things with you know our power conversion products. We've worked with partners that we built a hydrogen trailer that now that power that goes to our power conversion is a hydrogen generator. So the hydrogen puts out the DC power. We use some battery buffering to get that to a stable output. That stable output then goes into our power conversion product, and we can do DC charging for vehicles, or we can do AC gen set outputs. So now you look at things that everybody wants to get rid of a diesel generator, right? This can be a way to do that. You use hydrogen, and what what's the output of hydrogen after you burn it? Water. So we've done different things like that to make power innovations, not just a EV charging company. We are really truly a renewable power, renewable power company. We can take any renewable input and give you DC charging on the output or even AC Gen set output if needed. So very different than everybody in the industry right now today.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Yeah. Well, and uh if we were to unpack you you you uh narrowed in on some of the key verticals like the school district with a you know school bus fleet with a predictable fleet profile out and back in charging. And the the thought behind the design of the product is don't over-engineer a solution and don't under engineer a solution. That 30 to 60 kilowatt is ideal for the school buses that have come in off the morning route, they're parked, they're they're getting a charge before the afternoon route and then they're out on the day, or maybe they get a charge again whenever they come in from the afternoon route and they've parked school's done for the day, but kids are dropped off and they're plugging in and they they're gonna get that charge all to why over engineer a solution for a charging site? And to your point, not all those charging uh not all those uh parking lots uh that the school districts have for their bus fleet have the available power needed to support traditional fueling, so the fueling, so that's good. And then of course you described a mobile charging application as it applies to maybe uh an auto dealership. That is something that I think of from a uh, you know, back in my petroleum days, that's what we would call wet fuse wet wet hose fueling. And that's where you didn't have on-site fueling. A tanker would come in with with literally a hose and would begin to dispense fuel from the from the small truck, not quite the big truck that they're delivering fuel like to the gas stations, but they would fill up the vehicle. So cool applications and and showing the you know the thought process behind the hardware that PII is focused on. I want to talk about design philosophy. All OEMs are aiming obviously for reliability, but they don't all design for it. And what I was hearing you say a moment ago about some of the the designs that PII has within its DNA, it would seem that engineering is it's kind of just one of the basic fundamentals within what you've brought to market as far as hardware goes. So what um, you know, what can you talk about as it relates to PII's design philosophy? And then maybe how does PII differ from other charger manufacturers?

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Yep. So you're absolutely right. I mean, from PII and Lightons DNA as really power conversion company, we did look at it in a much different aspect than everybody else does. So if you were to take apart our 30 or our 60 kilowatt DC fast charger, what you would find is almost a mini data center power conversion in there. So we took the aspect because Lighton is the number two power supply manufacturer in the world and makes tens of thousands of data center power supplies, which have to be highly reliable because you know everybody, they lose their podcast, they lose their TikTok, they lose their Facebook, the world is ending. So these data center power supplies have to be very rugged, very reliable. You know, we're talking a million hours between failure. So one of the big design aspects that we took was taking a 3.3 kilowatt rectifier module that's used in the data center today and changed the DC output. So we basically took what would be standard a 48, 52, possibly 60 volt data center rectifier, and we made the powertrain so it was from 250 volts up to 920 volts DC output now. So now you cover both ranges 400 volt DC output or 800 volt DC output battery packs. So we took the same quality that Lightons had for 20 years, same manufacturing process, same component suppliers, same QA process, and we just built a new 3.3 kilowatt rectifier that would go into a DC fast charger, but still keep all of the design aspects, that million hours MTDF, but there's other values that that brought to the DC charger. So if I could show you, you know, if if we had a 60 kilowatt DC charger stack in front of us, it would actually have six rows of 10 3.3 kilowatt modules in. Now, what that gives you, it gives you a full 60 kilowatt power stack, but for reliability uptime, if you were to lose one module, that whole stack does not stop charging. You only lose 3.3 kilowatts of power. So essentially, you just lost one of the modules, but it doesn't take that whole unit down. We did that and we made each module galvanically isolated from each other. Now you think about for you guys servicing that. We lost one module. Okay, not a huge deal. You only lost 3.3 kilowatts, but for a servicing aspect, it becomes very easy to replace that module. You know, if you've ever seen a data center rack, it's basically you got that little thumb, you pull that rectifier out, shove the old one back in. It's about a five-minute job. So even when a power supplier or power rectifier goes down, it's very easy to replace those units. So that was another big differentiator for us, is we've basically got a 60 kilowatt block that is a DC charger. What else this did was give this the U the ability to be able to use this in different applications. Like I talked about the hydrogen fuel cell charger. We can put it into a trailer with a best system. We can use it on our battery pack that I discussed as a rescue pack that takes DC input directly into the charger. Another thing we did for reliability is you, especially in the industry you've been, you've taken apart some of these chargers. You know, you've you've opened up a chem power, you've opened up a delta, and usually when you do, you've probably got 16 to 20 filters in there someplace, kind of a spaghetti of wires, if you would. And if you look at our system inside, super clean, bus barred all the way with metal bus bars, no filters at all. So we do that by using what we call air-to-air heat exchangers. So the air-to-air heat exchangers pull air from the outside and blow it over the top of our power electronics, but it's essentially a sealed system. So there's never dirty air going across our power electronics. There's no filtering inside of our air-to-air heat exchangers. You just make sure on the outside of the DC charger that the grates are clear. So unfortunately, for servicing, we don't need a lot. You know, there's there's there's not a lot of where you have to go in every six months, open the unit out, change out 20 filters, blow all the mice and dirt and leaves and everything that's got caught in the unit from the time. None of that. You know, super clean, sealed system. We even put a quick quick change DC cord on our unit. So if you look at the back of our power stack, you actually have just like a little Phoenix contact block, and all of our cables are pre-dire dressed with cable neurals on them. So you can essentially change in our 30 and our 60 kilowatt stationary units, you can change a cable in 15 minutes. Start to finish. So those are some of the aspects that we thought about when designing. You know, another aspect is installation, because if you look at our DC fast charger, you know, you've got a certain amount that is the power block, if you would, but then there's probably down here another good amount that's just free space. And we put that free space in there thinking of the installers. All right. You've got a lot of big wires you're coming in there and you're trying to bend, you know, big size wires. And I don't know how many, how many installers I've talked to that have said, man, your guys is super easy. You guys thought about us having our hands in there, bending wires, trying to land it onto that bus bar where you know they talk about my hands look so chewed up after I tried to install one of these chargers from another manufacturer. And we tried to put all that into our design philosophy, both electrically, serviceability, reliability. Those were key factors when we were looking at designing our product and things we brought to the market. For us, you know, big ad screens wasn't important. It was rugged reliability. What if fleets really want, and what if fleets really need? And I think we hit home runs with you know all of our products that are out there. You look at our our Mobile 30 to 50 kilowatt unit, and we got an EMA 4 rating on that. So I don't think there's anybody out there in the mobile space that has an EMA 4 rating on their outdoor mobile product. You can leave this thing, it gets dirty or dusty, you can actually hose it off with a hose. So just that was that was a really big aspect. Rugged, reliable, and make sure it's easy to service.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Yeah, it it yeah, you keyed in on that from the from the design standpoint. It sounds like you embedded serviceability into the into the design itself to to reduce that. So it sounds like based on the design, it's not so good for us service providers, but great for the operators. The operators are glad that they don't have to call us service providers.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Correct. Or have you know a six-month servicing every six months that's under contract, you know? Yes, absolutely. It's it's not as great for you guys, but for the operator, it's amazing because they don't have to spend that extra money to do a lot of that. And if there is an issue, you know, you talk about truck rolls and how much time is on site, it's shortened that as well because you're all you're doing is if a power module's out, you're unplugging the top of the unit, powering down the unit, of course, but it's a five-minute job. I mean, I've done it myself. I'm I'm just a sales guy. I could I could change out one of these power modules in five minutes. So really thought about those aspects for it.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Well, in in lieu of the support of to the operator or the benefit value props to the to the operator, one of the things that you called out that listeners may not be aware of is as it relates to the cooling. A moment ago when you were talking about the cooling design, it's typically in NEV charging, you know, DC fast charging cooling is limited to liquid cooling or kind of passive cooling. I like how you called out that it's it's it's not really either of those. You you're bringing in cool air and passing it over and then you know sending it back out. And so it was I imagine people are listening, I was like, well, how are you pulling in cold air without filters? Or how are you pulling in external air without filters? Wouldn't that bring in particles and and and so forth into the into the into the unit? But the design is is is thought about that. And so we won't get into the secret sauce about how, uh, but I think it's an important I think it's all black magic.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

You know, it's all black magic out. I I know there's these little boxes that are sealed and go on the side and it does its magic.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Well, we won't we won't talk too much about it in details because your product folk might uh might get all up in the air about sharing the sharing the black magic. Yeah. But uh no, it's it's it's a cool, cool uh idea and cool design because when you talk about the serviceability standpoint, I know uh you know any asset manager is going to be looking at not only the CapEx but the OpEx. When you talk about OpEx from the standpoint of of the serviceability module failure, you know, okay, the unit stays stays in operation and you've just lost that module, that module is swappable in in a matter of minutes. And then of course you're derated by that kilowatts, but it's it's it's not the end of the day. And then of course the serviceability standpoint, those are those are game changers. So I I like uh you know, thanks for sharing, you know, kind of some of the ideas behind the design philosophy and and operability of the unit. I'd like to kind of zoom out and and look at PII and its its charging products from the standpoint of kind of the marketplace and maybe get your comments around where you see other OEMs. And you alluded to it, even to the what even to the install, you know, the large sizing of water uh wire rather that needs to come up inside the unit and and be in landed on a bar somewhere, landed on a terminal block. You alluded to that. So I'd like to hear some other comments on where kind of you see the biggest disconnect between how chargers are spec'd and how they're sold, because you know, perf how how something is sold versus how it's actually performing and maintained in the field can be different experience for the operator, for the for that asset manager that's got to make sure these units are operational, especially in a in a fleet context.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Yeah, yeah. And I think right now the you know the big disconnect is hey, there's a lot of guys that just jumped in from other fields, you know, not the power conversion world, not not, you know, they came from different areas of the industry, and we've seen a lot of this, right? We've we've seen a lot of guys jump in, try to dip their toes into it, and they just fail. You know, they they don't understand a the power conversion of it, and they didn't do a good job of looking at, okay, how do these go on the ground? How long, you know, do these things need to be reliable for? And I think with our three really key points that we've you know looked at for the operator is that serviceability, that reliability, and just uptime hits all the buttons and really I'll go back to the cleanliness of our design. We put less failure points into our design to make sure it held up reliably. And you know, I don't don't want to talk ill will about a lot of the other manufacturers, but but when you do open up another manufacturer's product, there's a lot of different components that are spread about that unit, and each one of those different components gives you a different failure point. So we tried to reduce the number of components that go into our product, hence reduce the number of failure points. So that was a big thing for us, and I think just being coming from the power conversion world, coming from our heritage of you know, PII started out as a UPS backup company, being bought by Light on in 2013, having the capability to use Light on factories for building our rectifiers, you know, being able to be vertically integrated within ourselves, being, yes, we have access to our factories in Light On, which are overseas, but all of the operations for power innovations are integrated in North America. You know, our electrical electrical design team is based out of Plano, Texas. Our firmware team is in Plano, Texas. Our operations is all out of American Forth, Utah, but we have control of all of it. So if a customer does come to us with an issue, with a vehicle, with something, we have total control to look at the firmware side of it, to look at the hardware side of it, and really be able to fix any issues right here, right in the US. You know, so it it makes it makes that partnership so much easier because you're not waiting on having a phone call with overseas someplace. You know, you can get to people in your time zone in the U.S. You have customer service issues. Our customer service is based out of Utah. So everything being North America-based, you know, we can do, and we put it this way, we can also do build America buy America units. So we can do US content to get us to Baba compliance as well. And all of it right out here, the great USA.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Well, I uh I realized an oversight on my on my part, so I want to take a step back. Uh, I do want to put a pin in something that you mentioned because you talked about the limiting of the components to limit to reduce the you know places of failure, fail a failure point, you know, reduced. So I want to talk, I want to talk a little bit more about that in a second as it relates to durability versus cost. But one of the things I wanted to go back to that I should have asked on the beginning, you mentioned uh Light on and uh it you know, Lighton's parent company to power innovations. Tell me how PII, tell me what the relationship is between Lighton. People would hear Light on there think, well, man, those are the L2 chargers that are out everywhere, branded this, that, and something else. So maybe really quickly for the for the audience, share the connection, share who Lighton is and share the connection to PII.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Yep. So Lighton is, as mentioned, number two power conversion manufacturer in the world. They are also a large LED manufacturer, communications equipment manufacturer, data center power. There's a lot of facets to the Lighton, Light on group of companies. And in 2013, Light on acquired power innovations for the UPS side of the business. And as most people know out there, Lighton does make a lot of the L2 versions that are out there in the field. And I'll give you just a quick story how power innovations came into the L3 side of it. And part of it was our old president that ran PII, a guy by the name of Ed Carter, was he'll put it, I was getting crabby with Lighton because they weren't moving fast enough into the L3 space. And his idea, just knowing power conversion, was let's take these light on data center modules, make that different powertrain, make it so it's 250 to 920 volts DC output. We can build fast chargers, and that's where power innovations got into the L3 game. Um, Lighton owns us 100%, so we are 100% l under Lighton, hence how we can get aspect to their manufacturing facility, and that was a great thing for us to be successful. You know, we've seen in this game that a lot of people jumped into the power or into the EV charger world and had no production facilities, so they had to spend billions, hundreds of millions on production facilities, and we've seen what happens to a lot of them. They couldn't they couldn't survive because of that huge capex. And we didn't have to do that because we could, you know, gather all of that manufacturing of the electronic components, the power packs, if you would, from our partner, our owner, Light on. And it made it a really easy production rush. So that's kind of the background from where Lighton and PII came from and who Light on is.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that. I probably should have called for that earlier on, but uh, since it they got brought up a couple of times, I wanted to key in for those that aren't sure or aren't familiar with with Lighton, but uh thanks for that. And then going back to the to the comments around the internal product, uh internal components, rather, excuse me. Um, and the reason why I want to talk about this is is kind of that cost factor as it relates to hardware. There's because there's always the tension, especially in DC Fashion, there's always a tension around upfront cost and then the long-term durability. And you made a comment about reduced components to limit fail points. Of course, obviously you're bringing the the total cost of the charger down by having less parts in it, but you're also reducing areas of failure in that charger. And so, you know, talked about early generation DC fast chargers. I've seen inside of them, you open them up, and man, it is a smorgasboards of wires and boards and this, that, and something else. And you might need to get to a breaker, an internal breaker to replace it, but you got to remove like parts just to get to the thing you're focused on. And so that simplicity in design is is one of your value propositions at PII. That uh that that that that durability is there, but there's also the factor of reduced components. And so I would like to hear your comments around, you know, maybe competitors that overbuild or overdesign, or maybe you want to talk about it from the standpoint of you've brought to market a product that would appeal to the uh customers who are cost sensitive or limited. You know, talk about a fleet, especially public sector fleet that's looking to electrify. They are limited the message to them is cost containment. And so you probably you're probably uh very competitive in terms of pricing when it comes to your hardware.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Yeah, and and here's the problem that that we get hit with all the time is customers look at the DC charger itself, right? Now, they don't always understand that if I don't have 480 volts coming in, that DC charger is a brick. Do anything with it. So a lot of times what happens is we are a little more expensive, you know, than if you were to look at some of the competitions, just look at that DC charger. On if you look apples to apples, we're probably a little more expensive. Now, taking that same fruit analogy is you can use our apple straight away. You can eat that apple, you know, you can plug it into your power grid, and your apple's gonna work. If you don't have 483 phase, you are in it another 10, 15, 20, 30 grand for a step-up transformer because that apple needs a watermelon to run, you know, and that watermelon is a lot more expensive than just our apple over here. So it all depends on, you know, where what infrastructure do you have currently available to you? You know, so our advantage, our real cost advantage comes in at if you want to run single phase, if you want to run 208, 240 Delta, you know, 480, three phase Y, I'll admit it, we're gonna be a little more expensive. DC running straight DC power, we do not require an inverter stage. So you do not have to go from DC to the battery back to AC to run the charger. We can run our charger off a high voltage DC battery, so you gotta look at it kind of in the big picture where a lot of people don't. They look just at the price of that DC fast charger, but they don't look at what's all this other switch gear that I might need. One being that step up transform. So that's where we have saved and can save customers $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 on their deployments, but there's also another aspect within there. You're now not installing a bunch more of that switch gear. You don't need as much permitting, you don't need as much wiring, you don't need as much trenching, you're saving time, and that all adds up to money. So that's where we get lost sometimes is people just look at the price of the charger, not the price of the overall project.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Right. And I would say those that are just factoring in on the price of the hardware probably haven't deployed many chargers because they would understand the all-in cost, and not only the cost, but the lead time. You're you're you're faster to to a charging destination when you can use existing infrastructure. If you know a site doesn't have three phase, doesn't have 480 volts, and your product can work in those environments, then then the path to a charging destination just got a lot faster and cheaper from an installation standpoint. You know, you talked about the permitting, you talked about just the utility and interconnection and utility upgrades and all the stuff that goes into that, especially for fleet that's got a bunch of vehicles that they're trying to electrify, or maybe they're trying to add to their fleet additional electrically powered vehicles. You're talking about feasibility studies, you're talking about all kinds of stuff that needs to go into building out of site. And so, yeah, um, you can't just fixate on the price of the hardware, you got to fixate on your total cost to deploy. And um that's uh that's good.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Well and and the one thing that you look at right now, step up transformers can be 12 to 18 months to get. So now you've delayed your ability to get chargers in the ground by another year, you know, and yeah, it's just it's looking at that overall feasibility and the overall project, and we see way too many people that just focus on well, this DC charger is three thousand dollars less. Yeah, it might be, but now you're gonna buy a fifteen thousand dollar step up transformer to run that three thousand dollar less DC fast charger. So I really could have just saved you 12 grand that you didn't see. And a lot of that doesn't come into play a lot. And it, like I said, like you said, I think a lot of people that haven't deployed a lot of chargers don't look at the large infrastructure piece that goes along with it. You mentioned, you know, the utilities themselves too, and a lot of time the utilities would rather give you a larger 240s transformer because they've got that service there, than have to bring in a new 40 three-phase line. So even if you have 240 and you don't have enough 240, say to run enough of the chargers, you don't have enough amperage, a utility makes it easier for you to bring in existing 240 power than brand new 480 power. So all of those things need to be looked at. And I I'll tell you, we're not the cheapest. You were at EBCS, you saw a lot of the you know, cheap stuff going out there, but they're not gonna have that reliability. They're not gonna have a US manufacturing company based, US based company behind it. And it's all you've heard the outage, you get what you paid for.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Well, Tim, this has been a good conversation, and I've appreciated you coming on, Field Frequency. I thank you for you know sharing some time and sharing some insights around Power Innovations International. For the those listening that found the product compelling, want to reach out to you, want to connect to learn more about PII, where where can they reach reach out to you? Where can they connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 41:07

So LinkedIn is always a great place to reach out. You know, feel free to make a connection there. You know, my email, more than happy to give out. It's Tim T-I-M dot r-e s at power dash innovations.com. Come visit our website, powerinnovations.com. There's a contact us sheet there. Love to talk to any of the guys that are looking into getting more highly reliable fleet applications going.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Love to talk to you. Right. Well, you heard it here on Field Frequency. Thank you, Tim, for sharing some time with us. It was a pleasure to have you on. Great. Thanks, Jason. Appreciate the time, buddy. Field Frequency is produced and edited by the team at Atozi. To find out more, visit Atozi.co