Why IONNA Is Designing More Than Just Charging Infrastructure

In Episode 30 of Field Frequency, Jason sits down with Seth Cutler, CEO of IONNA, to discuss one of the fastest-growing EV charging networks in the United States. Backed by a coalition of major automotive OEMs, IONNA is redefining public charging through its “Rechargery” concept, blending high-power charging with premium driver experiences, simplified pricing, and strategic site design. Seth shares his journey through the EV industry, lessons learned from GE, Electrify America, and EV Connect, and how IONNA is building charging infrastructure focused on reliability, scale, and consumer trust. From 400kW charging to driver lounges, canopy-covered charging bays, and integrated OEM ecosystems, this conversation explores what the next generation of EV charging in America could look like.

Show Notes 

• Seth Cutler’s 14+ year journey through the EV charging industry, including roles at GE, Electrify America, and EV Connect
• The origin story and mission behind IONNA and its OEM-backed joint venture model
• How IONNA surpassed 1,000 high-power charging bays in just 26 months
• Understanding the “Rechargery” concept and how IONNA is building charging destinations, not just charging stations
• The three tiers of IONNA charging experiences:
  • Rechargery Relay
  • Rechargery
  • Beacon sites
• Why canopy-covered charging bays, 24/7 bathrooms, driver lounges, and retail integration matter for EV adoption
• IONNA’s partnerships with brands like Circle K, Wawa, Casey’s, and Sheets
• How IONNA is using customer feedback, focus groups, and UX testing to improve charging experiences
• The importance of consistency, simplicity, and “muscle memory” for EV charging networks
• Competitive charging pricing strategy and OEM-specific charging discounts
• Why IONNA believes “quality and scale” are the keys to mass EV adoption
• The future roadmap for IONNA, including its goal of reaching 30,000 charging bays by 2030

Seth Cutler Bio 

Seth Cutler is a seasoned electric mobility and infrastructure executive with more than a decade of leadership experience across the EV charging ecosystem. As CEO of IONNA, Seth leads one of the fastest-growing EV charging joint ventures in North America, focused on delivering high-quality, high-power charging experiences backed by major global automotive manufacturers.

Throughout his career, Seth has played a pivotal role in shaping the evolution of EV charging infrastructure in the United States. He began his journey in the electrification space at GE (General Electric), where he worked as an engineer developing early residential and commercial EV charging solutions. He later joined Electrify America as one of its earliest employees and served as Chief Engineer during the company’s formative deployment years, helping establish the technical foundation for one of the nation’s largest charging networks.

Prior to joining IONNA, Seth held leadership roles at EV Connect, where he focused on software and charging network solutions that enabled charge point operators to scale and manage infrastructure more effectively. His broad experience across hardware, software, charging operations, and network deployment has given him a unique systems-level perspective on the challenges and opportunities within transportation electrification.

Recognized for his technical depth, strategic vision, and collaborative leadership style, Seth is passionate about improving charging reliability, customer experience, and infrastructure accessibility to accelerate mainstream EV adoption. Under his leadership, IONNA is redefining public charging through its “Rechargery” concept, combining premium amenities, streamlined user experiences, and scalable infrastructure designed for the next generation of electric mobility.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

A lot of EV charging conversations have been centered around infrastructure, sites, more power, more hardware, but that doesn't always translate into a better experience for the driver. On today's episode of Field Frequency, I'm joined by Seth Cutler, CEO of IANA, a company that's scaling fast, but with a different thesis. If charging doesn't feel simple, consistent, and predictable, nothing else really matters. In this episode, we talk about the rechargery model, why they're aiming to standardize pricing instead of complicating it, how their OEM partnerships are showing up directly for drivers in terms of value, and what it will take to build network that drivers will choose. The next phase of EV adoption won't be one on hardware or software alone. It'll be one on an experience. Let's get into it. Today I'm joined by Seth Cutler, CEO of IANA. Since the 2000 or 2023 launch announcement, I believe it was, IANA has had one of the fastest ramp-ups in the U.S. charging uh space and with a port count exceeding, I believe, over a thousand. We've seen tremendous growth out of IANA. And I'm excited to have Seth here today to share more. Seth, thanks for being on. Yeah, thanks for having me. Great to be here. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing some time. Before we get uh you know get into all things, INA, I'd like to uh just get a little uh background on you. If you we could just hear, you know, your your career journey that led up to you leading IANA, if you could just share some of your background, your role, and then uh like to get into the origin and and kind of thesis for for IANA.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, absolutely. So so I've been I've been in the e-mobility space going on uh probably about 14, 15 years now. So started my career with with GE Gen Electric uh as an engineer, and then uh got involved back in like 2011, 2012 in uh EV charging back with GE. So we were making uh home chargers and uh L2 home chargers, L2 commercial chargers for you know workplace, hotel, et cetera. Uh went on from GE to join Electrify America early on. So I was the chief engineer at at EA from uh 2017, employee number 12 or 13 uh to about uh the summer of 2019. So about two and a half years I was at EA on the early part of the build cycle and developing the tech the tech stack for for that. And then uh before IANA, I was at um EB Connect, uh, where we did uh software for CPOs for charge point operators to to support them as they rolled things out. So I've had an opportunity to kind of see all different uh life cycles of of the sector. Uh learned a lot, learned, made a lot of failures, honestly, right uh in the industry like like a lot of others. And I think that's kind of the genesis to to why I really wanted to to join Ayana and and try to make things right in the industry and and set the the course electrification on a really good trajectory.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

14 years is is uh quite an accomplishment and not something many can say in such a nascent space. So you've been up and down the value chain. Working with obviously a legacy uh CPO like EA, and then of course EV Connect is a well-known brand in the space. Uh that's quite a journey and quite a testament to probably the the institutional knowledge that you've gained along the way. Talk to us about Ayana. What what you know what's the thesis? Obviously, we know, you know, well backed by seven legacy auto OEMs, but uh tell us kind of what what was the thought process behind bringing that to market?

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Yeah, so you know, the OEMs really came together on this back in you know before even 2023, 2022 to to rethink charging in the U.S. Charging has been you know the number one obstacle, honestly, from uh the adoption of the EDs and um electrification from a from an infrastructure standpoint has has struggled, honestly, in the United States with respect to reliability and charging experience, et cetera, um, and availability. So really the OEMs came together to say, hey, how do we rethink charging? Um I think there's been a lot of different puts and takes and programs and grants and other ways to support existing um infrastructure providers. And they believe, based upon what they had done in Europe with Ionity, that the best chance was to build a joint venture for the eight car companies to come together and say, hey, we're gonna fund this thing and have influence over how it gets deployed and what gets deployed. And so I joined, I joined in 2024 in February of 2024 as employee number one, and we built the company. You know, basically it's been 26 months since we've started the company and and got things rolling. And actually the OEMs came together back in 2015, 2016 at an attempt to um deploy JV then. That's that's where Ionomies got started in the US. And um, IANA at that point didn't actually take shape. Uh Volkswagen at that point had launched their Electric America platform. And um and so we're you're kind of at it again this time. So I think it's a really wonderful opportunity for you know competitors, eight competitors to come together to say, hey, we're gonna go solve a problem together for the benefit of everybody in the country.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Aaron Powell You called out IANA a moment ago. You mentioned that. And for those that are listening, might not be familiar with a with a CPO in the the European market. Uh what is the relationship maybe between IANA and Ionity?

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Yeah, I mean there's no there's no actual relationship other than the fact that we share some of the same shareholders. Um not all of them, but some of them, right? And there was a model for that in terms of hey, in in Europe to your point, back in I think it was 2016, 2017, um, the OEM, some some overlap, some don't, with IANA came together and said, hey, let's let's build a joint venture in Europe to deploy infrastructure across across the continent. And so you know they've had you know seven plus years of of road road time, so to speak, windshield time, so to speak, to to build it a JV and see kind of how to go do this. And you know, I think a lot of that went into or some of that, some of that went into the original formation of uh of IANA.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

So I I think you guys uh the rechargery count has exceeded 1,000 ports, is it is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Yeah, exactly. So look, we've been we've been in operation for you know, like I said, about 26 months now. Today we have 108 sites uh as of today, which which is before this thing will actually go live, it'll be higher by the end of the month. And we have over a thousand high power charging days deployed. So, you know, everything that we deploy is what we call high power charging. So, you know, every charger is capable of 400 kilowatts, every stall can go up to 400, and and we power share it to 200 kilowatts. So we're really trying to make sure that we're taking speed off the table in terms of in terms of charging speed and also taking charging quality off the table. So not just the fact that we deployed a high quantity count, but also the quality of what we've deployed is pretty high. You know, 35% of every one of our sites has a canopy over the charging stations to provide protection for drivers and and and over the environment. So 10% of what we've deployed, we've actually deployed our own amenities. So you know, where we can't deploy an am uh deploy with a partner for an amenity, we're actually building access of bathrooms, we're building a driver launch, et cetera, to make all that possible.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

That is a that's a game changer. And that's where I want to get off into the charging experience. Uh rechargery is is is the brand naming of of all sites for Ion. That's correct. Yes. So rechargeries, to your point about the canopies, the amenities, rechargeries have gone beyond the transactional experience of, you know, here's a site, maybe it's in a parking lot, you know, two, three hundred feet from maybe access to some type of retail experience, you know, food, et cetera. Rechargeries seems to have gone beyond that. And and there's a brand and experience that that is that is evident as one externally looking at there's there's brand and experience associated. So what what brand or experience are you creating beyond just drivers having somewhere to plug in? And I I think you've kind of already alluded to it with with the canopies, but there's some some thought there behind that, it looks like.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

No, for sure. You know, I think w w when we when we start to build the company, you know, it was very clear for us that the world had changed. We we like to joke around. Like the world has changed over the charging in the fact that in a lot of ways the overall industry has gotten better from a specific charging quality standpoint. You know, the the days, you know, you know, three, four, five years ago, there were a lot more cars getting stranded. They just couldn't charge payment applications to go down or vehicle interoperability issues. And so a lot of that, not all of it, but you're seeing that perform a lot better in the industry as the whole industry gets better. Still a lot of work to be done. And obviously, some networks perform better than others with respect to uptime and reliability, et cetera. What we want what we wanted to really hone in on was how do we up-level the entire experience we have with the site, whether that's the labeling to make sure you understand which which charger is available for you based upon the inlet on the vehicle, Max for CCS. Max has predominantly been a Tesla standard, and now it's being adopted by others, and CCS has been more of a legacy uh standard for for non-Teslas. So how do we make sure the labeling's right? How do we make sure that every site has trash cans and windswiper cleaners and sweeps so that you could take care of your car while you're while you're charging, which has become commonplace in the gas station world? How do we make sure that there's access to bathrooms? And if um if we can't partner with a partner that has bathrooms, how do we go build them ourselves, right? How do we make sure we can go put up canopies where possible, right? Like to have them everywhere. It's not always possible from a zoning or permitting standpoint or from a timeline. So we haven't done it everywhere. But that's really the thesis that went into taking kind of this idea or theory of Ana into reality with respect to taking care of that driver and really putting the driver at the forefront of the decisions that we're making. And so we have we have three levels of uh product types that we put into the field. One is what we call a rechargery relay. This is kind of the bare bones type site where you've got chargers. You may or may not have a canopy, um, and you may, and you probably won't have an anchor tenant, so to speak. You know, you're probably gonna be in a parking lot shared across a few different quick serve restaurants or a couple of different gas stations, et cetera. Then the next step up is what we call a rechargery. And this is a much more, much fuller offering that we provide. And we'll either do that with a partner or without. And so with a partner, you know, we've made announcements out rechargeries at Circle K or at Sheets or at Wawa or Casey's, et cetera. And that's a case where we're putting them in a parking lot but tying it to a high premium retail partner. The other rechargery is where we actually build it on amenity. So we've done this before multiple times where we've actually bought or leased old gas stations, converted them to you know, 24-7 access driver lounge with vending machines, a place to sit, recharge yourself as you recharge your car, 24-7 access of bathrooms. And then the highest tier we have is what we call a beacon. And right now we have our first beacon in construction in California. It'll be you know 22 high power charging bays, full power. Um, we're actually building our own C store. So we're partnering with Amazon with their just walk out technology and have we'll have outdoor seating with canopies over the seating area, et cetera. So really we tried to think about hey, how do we get to scale fast? Which if you did everyone building a store, you wouldn't you wouldn't get there fast. You'd have a great experience, but you wouldn't even get there with speed. And so we've tried to do is say, how do we get to quality at scale? And that requires a bit of a tapestry approach of you've got different product mix and types of how we deploy in the field.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Beacon, that uh that that model of site that sounds certainly compelling. You said 22, uh 22 spaces, parking spaces. Wow, that's uh a lot of energy and then on-site retail. And is there some forecast in terms of uh beacon quantity throughout the US? Are you targeting markets? Are you is this gonna be a you know kind of East Coast, West Coast thing, or will be some of those peppered throughout the Midwest and other other It's a great question.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

I I think we're still learning from some of the stuff we're putting in the field to see what works, what doesn't, what what really drives customers into some of these locations. How do we unlock um electrification, you know, adoption electrification? So I think we've got some semblance of an initial strategy of how we want to see beacons roll out across the US. This this first one will be a really good test for us and a lot of learnings, and we'll apply that to other sites. But you know, we we really deploy our sites into two main areas. One is along interstates, we call them corridors, um, the other one is inside of uh metropolitan areas, known as MSAs. And so 70% of what we're trying to deploy from an investment standpoint will be inside the cities, 30% across the corridors. And you and so you can imagine the higher-end products, the the beacons, these full-scale rechargeries, we're intending to be inside of cities. And so then using relays and partners to really fill in some of the gaps of the scaleful structure between between these locations.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

That's that's fascinating. It sounds like uh some of the strategy is is going beyond, you know, okay, so I'm an EV driver. Sometimes, you know, charging is easy. Of course, if I'm using a home charger, if I'm out moving around, need public charging, et cetera. It becomes it becomes something I have to do. It's it could be a burden, could could be just something I need to make time for, et cetera. But it sounds like you, your your vision and and the vision behind is is create and destination rather than just something just have to stop and do. And so I would say messaging to the market for for, I mean, it's this is an invaluable resource that's you know you're bringing to the EV community, this type of resource, whether you're looking at you know beacon level sites or or anything, you know, in between. That's um what is the thought behind as you the vision behind the beacon? What where where do you tap into what the drivers are actually caring about, what they're wanting to and and how much is that pulled and extracted into the development of sites like the beacon or the other types of uh sites that you've mentioned here?

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Yeah, no, it's it's a good point. You know, I think we we definitely want to make sure that we're working with drivers and with the ED community to understand what the pain points are. And we did a lot of that early on. That's how again that's how we came to some of the um uh conclusions that we came to and drove some of the product decisions and and product archetypes that we deployed. We're do we're continuing to do a lot more of that, right? So we we use you know influencers, we use social media to engage, we do focus groups, we do driver customer clinics, we actually bring people into our office at times and we'll we'll walk through things, even down to the screen flows to understand how they interact with the stations because we know based upon how those screen flows may go, it may and it may cause people to have charging quality issues where they get confused about you know, do I plug in first, do I pay first? What's the timeout? So we're we're very much trying to engage with drivers to drive decisions and understand specific pain points that we can alleviate to drive utilization, but more importantly, to to take charging off the table as the reason why people don't want to buy EVs today.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

That's that's fascinating. Getting getting down to the the granularity behind you know the process flow in interacting with the screen, plug-in first, quiet card swap first, which one is it, all of that. And and that is uh that is the recipe for a long-time viability for for sites. That's what's going to create that stickiness to the EV driver, is is the simplicity and the consistency experience. I imagine there's got to be some consistency. I would think that you probably want the driver that's having experience in Texas to have a similar one in California, same on the East Coast.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Exactly. And it and it builds that familiarity, right? With they now hang out. But the idea being is hey, when we when we build this thing at scales, we can grow grow it out. Because today we're a network, I like to say, but we're not the network, and that's where we want to be to become the network of choice for consumers. And what what what I know success will look like is when someone drives on the highway and either because they see it in the NAS system or they see it on a sign, when they see AANA, they they have trust that that brand is there for them and they can charge a car and they'll have a great experience at the same time, right? That's what we're trying to build towards. And so to your point, we can't do that in a vacuum. We have to do that with the community, with the drivers, both both current drivers, but also potential drivers that are going to go uh make the conversion to electrification to make sure we're we're adjusting their needs.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Yeah. And the and the easy muscle memory to the experience is is really important. You mentioned, you know, the partnership that Ayana has with uh certain retailers, brands like Circle K, Casey's, et cetera. For the most part, the footprints of those retailers, their sites, I mean, it varies based based on the the location and where they're at, what markets they're in. But for the most part, their footprint is experience. If you've gone to, you know, enough of them, especially if you're used to traveling, you you know where the bathrooms are, you know where the food are, you know where the you know the the the drinks dispensers, you know where all that's at. And it's a it's a common experience. And so partnering with brands, I imagine that's that's part of the mission is is as you are not really competing, but you are expecting to have some of that mind share with the EV driver as it's been informed with the r the maybe the experience they have on the their the ice side of their house with with the vehicles that they drive that maybe aren't EV or you know, maybe they're new to EV and they're they're used to those experiences. So I can see where there's a need to have um a commonality to the experience. So that's that's that's great. You know, if if uh you know drivers well, it depends on the market. Uh obviously they they have options. Um and so I would say that the real world reasons behind someone choosing IANA is is of course the experience, but pricing, um pricing and accessibility over complexity is important to EV drivers. And I've I've seen some very competitive pricing come out of IANA. Um charging pricing in some sectors, it can feel opaque and inconsistent depending on where you're at. And so it it seems like you've positioned IANA's positioned around competitive kilowatt hour pricing and OEM linked programs. Could you maybe speak to that? Yep.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, for sure. Y'all, I think it all goes back to we're looking at this holistically in the market. And so we're trying to make sure that we can unlock this logification piece. And so to your point, we've seen pricing all over the map, both in terms of the business models, you know, session fees and subscription rates and um, you know, pricing ranging all the way. I've seen 70 cents a kilowatt hour for DC fast charging, which if you do, you know, gas and equivalency is extremely exorbitant, we'll say. And so we wanted to make sure that when we launched this thing, it was about the best value, right? Going back to the customer experience. So, you know, we may we may not always be cheapest, but we'll be pretty close, or we will be if if possible. But right now, all of our sites are at 39 cents a kilowatt hour or below. And so we're trying again going back to consistency, you know, how many, how many networks today have a different price based upon a different zip code, based upon a different state, time of time of use, and fees, et cetera. And so we're trying to, you know, we're we're exploring time of use, we're exploring different business models, but we're trying to make sure whatever we do has simplicity tied to it. So people aren't trying to download 18 different apps to figure out, you know, which which price they're gonna get based upon whatever app they're using or time of day or it might be. And so that's one thing we say we got to be simplistic how we do this, and we have to be the best value in the marketplace. That's uh that was number one. Um, and you'll see us come out with, you know, we're coming out with some ads as well about how look, we've got subscription pricing without subscriptions, how we make sure we take care of the driver in a way you know they can have you know flexibility of choice at the right value. And then the second thing we're doing, and we rolled this out starting in March of this year, is starting to roll out discount programs with our investors. So GM was first to launch. Um so you know, GM driver today gets 10% off already best value pricing in the marketplace for being a driver of one of the investors inside of the Ayana JV. The next OEM will launch um, you know, in the next week or so, and the rest will start rolling out uh thereafter. So you're really trying to make sure that again, we're creating this environment for folks where charging isn't the issue. Really, they can go out and go buy an EV and feel comfortable and trust in the brand and in what we're developing for for consumers.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Without getting into too much detail, but for the listeners, so they understand what uh the value behind these programs. In other words, so I'm I'm a new EV driver, I walked in, I just bought a GM, I bought you know whatever model of EV they have. And I now have specialized pricing or what's that program, maybe if you without getting too granular, but just to help help the audience understand what that value looks like.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

That's great. So, you know, you know, as a GM driver today, if you use the uh the GM, the GM app to start a charge either through the app or or through um uh auto charger plug-in charge um through the GM program, you automatically get 10% off of whatever the price is listed on the chargers. It's not going before you know all of our charges are 39 cents or below. You know, now all of a sudden you're paying, you know, 35, 36 cents a kilowatt hour uh for for that charge session without a subscription just for being you know a GM driver using the GM ecosystem. And that same approach will roll out across all eight OEMs this year.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Wow. It's a game changer. It's a game changer. Because, you know, you mentioning the 39 cent average average price, uh, that is uh extremely good. Uh it's very well priced. And there's been obviously from from other other sectors, other CPOs, some pushback on maybe, you know, that higher price that you alluded to earlier, you know, 60, 65 cents, 70 cent kilowatt. And um, you know, there's been from an industry perspective, there's been kind of more than one reaction, obviously. The re initial reaction is, wow, that's getting up close to gasoline prices when you when you look at what that will equal out to. But then others that are are s understanding it from the industry standpoint, oh well, they've got to set that price point because they're trying to get that ROI moving forward from from all the capex that went into building the site. But um that that pricing that you've said is is or that is average right now. That's uh that's compelling to the driver. Do you is there any concern that maybe today's pricing being as competitive as it is within IANA that that later if if there's a need to increase that, there there could be a maybe a market reaction from the drivers, or is it just you know you're not worried about that?

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Yeah, okay, it's hard to it's hard to peg what's gonna happen, you know, in the future in terms of you know inflation, inflationary forces, et cetera, or electricity prices. You know, I think what we've been trying to do in everything that we do is be hyper focused on where we place our investments. Right. So every every dollar we spend tries to go to a better experience for the customer at the site. And so because we run the business very efficiently, what we're able to do is try to pass that savings on to the drivers in terms of how we actually operate the business as well, in terms of keeping the price where we're keeping it. So I can't promise the prices won't ever change in the future. But I what I can tell you is that we're gonna always intend to be the best value for drivers in terms of the experience they're gonna have and the price we're gonna offer at those locations, right? So even though we're putting canopies in, even though every site is gonna have a trash and window cleaning service with respect to yeah, pick up the trash and maintain these sites, and even though we're putting in 24-7 access to the bathrooms, what we're ensuring is we're still at a very reasonable price for consumers and in most cases below where some of our competitors are. So again, best value is really the name of the game to continue to move the needle on easy adoption in the country.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Yeah. It's funny. I feel like you just answered a question I was fixing to ask you, and that was, you know, drivers obviously they they don't just want a charger. They want confidence in the experience. You alluded to the bathrooms, 24 hour access to bathrooms, can to offload trash from inside the vehicle, something to clean. All of these things um are are, I'm sure, embedded in the DNA of what you believe has to be true for someone to say rechargeries are going to be my go to charging network. There's got to be some other things maybe in there that that maybe they're not appearing right now. And so you can't refer you. Can't you know you can't talk about them, but maybe there's something else on the roadmap. What what do you think has to be believed be true for someone to say that? You know, that recharger is where I go exclusively. What's got to be true for that to be the case for an EV drive?

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Yeah, look, you know, for us, the model we use internally is quality and scale, right? We have to make sure that no matter what, we're delivering quality, charging experience, site inside experience, quality. And then the second one is we have to deliver scale. Because if we're just a boutique or neat niche offering in in in just the state of Florida, for example, that's not a network. If I go buy an EV in Florida, is that I'm where we've got a lot of sites, I gotta know I can leave Florida and go somewhere else on a road trip or I can go across the state. Same thing for any other state or any other location in the US. So quality of scale is very much in our DNA of what we're trying to go build. Um and that ties in into a lot of other things that can then happen. How do you do integration to the OEMs, our partners, whether it's discounts or you know, navigation or you know, other things we might be working on in the near future? Um, and then how do you think about what the experience is at that site, irrespective of the charging piece, right? Because I think, you know, I think when we get to a place where people stop talking about the uptime of a charger or the uptime of a charging site, you know that the market's reached this next level or next or step function change of maturity. But in the electrification world, there's still so much dialogue on uptime or charging quality. You know, we're trying to take the take that off the table. So people are talking more about the site, you know, whether it's an honest site or on an amenity, or they're talking about the Walla they went to because the charging does work. I plugged it in, I charged. Yeah, whatever. That's fine. By the way, I got a hoagie at the Wawa. Right? That's what we want people to be talking about, not about how good of a charging experience it was.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Well, the rapid growth, you know, you mentioned it already. I I've brought it up, the rapid growth in the last 26 months, um, you know, over a hundred sites, over a thousand ports. As you expand, how are y'all keeping the experience consistent to get ahead of the fragmentation? And and that question I'm I'm asking because you you may even have, you could even cite your personal experience over at EA, where previously, you know, when you go to an EA site, you might have one brand of hardware at this site and one brand at the next, and maybe different payment processes or terminals or workflows, you know, attached to the screen because it's different types of hardware. How's the vision set for avoiding fragmentation as a brand? Because you, you know, consistency muscle memory, I would think we've talked about.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Yeah, no, it's it's it's a good question, right? Because I think that's that is always the complexity. And so we've you know, we've intentionally and strategically started with one manufacturer of charging stations. It doesn't mean we won't expand outside of that. Um, we're always evaluating the market, but yeah, for right now we've got one, which made things a bit easier in terms of that consistency. But what's good is because of how we're deepening our integration with our investors and our partners on the OEM side, we can make sure that irrespective of the hardware, plug-in charge works the same way. People understand how to start a charge from the app, they understand how to use the credit card terminals, et cetera. So, you know, what we want to make sure again is that just like you when you go to any type of retail environment, you know when you step into insert retail partner here, you know what the experiences you're gonna get. That's exactly what we're building uh or trying to build at scale now with IANA in terms of that experience. And so you'll see that in everything we do from again, trash can, sweeies, the the labeling, the messaging, the integration piece at our locations.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Um as, you know, maybe you know, three years from now, as as you continue to expand, I mean, with the amount of growth that's happened just in the last 26 months, it's it appears to be a rocket ship moving forward, you know, as you continue expanding. You know, again, this is a question that's maybe broad butt brush, you know, blank sheet of paper. What are what are some of the next things drivers might experience in a notable way over the next you know two to three years at a at a at a rechargery site, whether it's a beacon or or otherwise?

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah. You know, I think the number one feedback we get from Jarvis right now is can you build faster and come to our town, right? So I think I think what you're gonna see in the next two to three years is we we we need to get to much more, much more scale, right? We you know California is a place right now. We've only you know we've got four sites out of the 108 that are live, only four of them are live right now. I think five number five is going live today in California. So we want to make sure that we're we're more present in in in other locations across the country where we haven't been. And that some of that's just the kind of normal course of doing business in some parts of the country in terms of permitting and power. Um, we're starting to come there. So really that'll be a big noticeable difference is continuing to grow scale at the same or faster rate going forward, number one. Number two is what we want to make sure, right, is that as we start as we continue to grow scale at the same rate or faster going forward, is that we maintain that quality. You know, we've been we've been diligent about quality, but as you grow, you know, you've got to make sure that you combat any growing pains. And every day we've got a team out hungry to make sure that we're taking care of drivers. And so that's the next thing is as you see the scale, we're gonna maintain that quality the whole time. And then and then the the next piece, what that then leads to is once you've got scale and you've got quality and consistency is integration to the OEMs into the vehicles, right? And so you're starting to see that in this first phase of discounts. You know, I think there's there's other phases we've got planned for later this year with with with the OEMs, uh, with the car makers. And we've got a we've got a trajectory, you know, kind of a multi-year trajectory after that, 2027 and beyond, in terms of how do you make sure that the it's not just a charging network, it's really the strategic value proposition of the vehicle and the charging station. Because as you know, and as most people know, the drive in EV, the experience you have with the charging station doesn't happen in a vacuum, it happens in concert with the car. And so that's you know, that is the value of this strategic joint venture is you know, we do a lot of testing with the vehicles. We do a lot of, we have a lot of conversations and integration with with the OEMs with respect to the different product teams and technical teams to make sure that as they're launching new products, new cars, new apps, we're part of that conversation early on, early on in that planning process to make sure that we're thinking about the ecosystem, not just a singular piece of the charging station.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Yeah, that's that's so critical because there's been some false positives around charging sessions being um um incomplete and it had to do with you know software updates on a particular vehicle and uh and a disconnection there that, you know, a mass rollout of software that changed the way the charger and the vehicle communicated, it would signal to, you know, that would impact uptime at the charging site when really that's on the vehicle side. So I think that um that ecosystem talking to one another is so valuable. It is so valuable. Well, uh, you know, it's been good good conversation, Seth. Thank you for for sharing uh these insights with us. I I would say that, you know, I I I meant to look it up before we got on got on online here. I want to say that 30,000 port counts was probably the the goal when when the announcement came out in 22, 23. Is that is that still uh a number on the board or or is so site count or what what's what's some of the growth metrics that you that that that's on the target board?

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Yeah, so th so it's all about the targets, right? Yeah, so we our ambition is to be 30,000 uh charging bays by end of 2030 in in that vicinity. Um and so that's what we're marching towards. You know, I think we we wanted to get to a thousand bays live by our second year anniversary, essentially, and and we just came within a few weeks of that. So you know, we we've got the trajectory that we need. You know, we just announced our partnership with Circle K that that both sides, them and us, are really excited about that. Another you know 150 sites that we're we're aiming to get deployed here over the next few years. So you know, we've we've built a really great pipeline um of sites and days across the United States, you know, working their way through permitting and construction right now. And so you know, we've got goals in mind of what we think we need to be at to become the charging network that people can rely on. And so we're marching towards that and continuing to uh quicken the pace, so to speak, to get the quality at scale.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Well, Seth, I appreciate you you sharing some time with uh the field frequency audience for those that want to you know keep up with what you're doing in the space, uh, learn more about IANA, what's the best channels and what's the methods to follow you?

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Yeah, follow us on social media and then uh on our website, you know, hit the subscribe button and join our mailing list, email mailing list. We get emails out all the time, newsletters out to our drivers to keep them informed of uh what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Well, Seth, thank you for being on Field Frequency today. 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.