Percepta — How Customer Experience Will Become Mobility Infrastructure

Omar Riahi, Global EV Enablement and Sales Development at Percepta, joins Field Frequency to discuss why customer experience is becoming essential mobility infrastructure. From EV onboarding and charging reliability to connected vehicles, fleet electrification and autonomous transportation, Omar explores how reducing friction could accelerate EV adoption and strengthen customer loyalty.

The future of mobility depends on more than innovative vehicles and charging technology—it also requires an ownership experience customers can understand and trust.

In Episode 36 of Field Frequency, host Jason Cortes speaks with Omar Riahi, Global EV Enablement and Sales Development at Percepta. Omar explains how Percepta supports the automotive customer lifecycle, from presale and onboarding through charging assistance, connected services, dealership support and resale.

Drawing on his experience working directly with EV owners, dealerships, charge point operators and engineering teams, Omar identifies fragmentation as one of the industry’s most significant challenges. Charging procedures, payment systems, adapters and digital platforms can vary widely, creating unnecessary friction for drivers.

Jason and Omar also explore how software-defined vehicles are reshaping transportation. Over-the-air updates, connected services, telematics and bidirectional charging could turn vehicles into increasingly integrated parts of our homes, businesses and energy systems.

The conversation covers:

• Why customer trust and effective support are critical to EV adoption
• How proactive onboarding can improve the ownership experience
• The need for simple, consistent and reliable charging
• Why charging availability may be the key to making charging feel invisible
• How customer experience can support loyalty, revenue and ROI
• The growing role of software-defined and connected vehicles
• Differences between retail and fleet electrification
• Home-charging reimbursement options for fleet vehicles
• Vehicle-to-home, vehicle-to-building and vehicle-to-grid applications
• A future shaped by autonomous mobility and wireless roadway charging

Connect with Omar on LinkedIn and learn more about Percepta at percepta.com.

Omar Riahi is the Global EV Enablement & Sales Development Manager at Percepta, specializing in innovative customer support strategies for the EV industry. With over 15 years of expertise in customer service operations, process optimization, and EV support technologies, Omar has driven initiatives that enhance satisfaction, streamline workflows, and reduce costs. A Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, he is known for implementing data-driven solutions that elevate EV customer experiences while creating new value for automotive clients.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Is the future of transportation only going to be defined by vehicles, batteries, chargers, and software? What if customer experience is the real differentiator? In this episode of fill frequency, I'm joined by Omar Reyes with Percepta. Percepta is a company that sits behind some of the biggest automotive brands in the world and touches the entire customer journey from vehicle purchase to charging, ownership, support, and beyond. We explore why transportation is becoming a connected digital ecosystem. We talk about how software-defined vehicles are changing driver behavior, how targeting can become frictionless, and what the future looks like when vehicles, infrastructure, commerce, and economy are all working together. This is a conversation about where mobility is headed, and it goes beyond the headlines. Let's get into it. Today I'm joined by Omar Riothi, who is over Global EV enablement and sales development at Percepta. Hi, Omar, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Hi, Jason, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Doing well. Glad to have this conversation with you. Thanks for coming on Field Frequency. Uh, wanted to kick off the conversation with your professional journey into the automotive and mobility space and what led up to Percepta. And then let's uh let's outline the Percepta story, what what you know, what the company is doing inside the mobility ecosystem, and uh let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Absolutely. So I'm Omar Riahi. I started at Percepta back in December of 2019. It was six months after they opened the Houston office. They were uh expanding you know their their their their presence in the U.S. to have a new contact center to handle specific. One of our our co-founder our joint venture partners is a global leading automotive OEM and they wanted to expand it to their truck team. So I got hired on as an agent, and I I've had I'm ASC certified back in the day during high school. I took automotive tech. I loved it, but I didn't make a career of it. So I got to utilize all that knowledge as an agent because basically I could talk to the service departments in their language. I understand what was happening, what the problems were, what parts were needed, what the repair consisted of. And from there, I then got promoted to an interim team lead where I ran a team. It was on the truck team. It was I was basically the assistant to this, the business operation supervisor. And then I got promoted to a team lead, then a business operation supervisor where I ran the entire company passenger vehicle team nesting program. That is where agents come out of training and then they sit with me for two weeks and I walk them through the systems, the process, how to handle certain cases. And then from there, I moved to mobile global mobilization. That was project implementation. I also founded the BEV team for the OEM, and that team consisted of handling all the electric vehicle calls, which gives me the absolute unique perspective is that we touch the entire customer lifecycle. I get to deal with the customer from pre-sale all the way to resale, and every step in that journey in between. I get to discuss home charging, public charging, adapters, vehicle to grid, uh vehicle to home, vehicle to load, energy solutions, energy rewards. Uh, and then on top of that, the vehicle side too. Software, software-defined vehicles, connected services, stuff like that. So I get to see all the issues that customers are having, and then I went from after I was in global mobilization, I went to global EV optimization, where I got to utilize all that knowledge to work with engineering directly to improve the product and the customer experience. So that has been a tremendous feedback loop to the OEM where we literally get to, we have a three times a week, we meet with them, we discuss what issues we're seeing, and they resolve them. And it is it is completely enhanced the EV ownership customer experience. The this Our our joint venture partner who owns us, their product is now number one on the best EV ownership experience for the US, and they are every day it gets better and better. But I get to see customer pain points, customer friction, gaps in the customer journey, which home charging, public charging everywhere. And uh that is what gives me the absolute unique perspective that I also work with CPOs because all the CPOs are part of this our OEM partners network. So it doesn't matter if they're in the network, they're gonna call us uh when the vehicle doesn't work because they trust the badge on the vehicle. So Percepta uh, and then I got promoted to global EV enablement uh just January. So that is my professional journey. I've been at Percepta six years and four months now, and it has been fantastic. I've got to be on the front lines of EV adoption, help reduce customer pain points and friction, and improve the ownership experience, which will all lead to EV adoption. Because if the customer doesn't trust the product, the process, or the support, they don't trust buy in. That's right. That's right. And to explain what Percepta is, Percepta is a 26-year-old automotive customer experience company. We were founded in 2000 with between as a joint venture between a global leading automotive OEM and T Tech. And TTEC is a global customer experience company. Percepta, we strictly do automotive, and we have nine OEM clients, but TTEC does everything. They do healthcare, financial, government sector, which is utilities, travel, entertainment, every anytime you have to call a service number, most likely it's them, and they touch, they have multiple verticals. But Percepta is strictly automotive. And so in 2018, the decision was made to expand our capabilities from just this one uh luxury OEM that we are partnered with to their entire product lifecycle. So we now touch every vehicle. The the multi-million dollar supercar, we have white gloves concierge service, down to the work trucks, down to the vehicles, vans, fleet applications, we touch it all, including uh dealership support. This is where Percept is unique. We also do B to B to D, business to dealer. We are the back-end support for dealership, OEM dealerships. When they say they call the manufacturer, they're talking to us. We're the ones doing the warranty approvals, we're the ones getting the loaner rentals, we're the ones doing technical assistance when the technician can't figure out how to diagnose the vehicle or what next steps. That is all of us. We that entire back-end support model for the OEM dealerships is us, as well as their CPO network. So if a customer has a problem at a charger at their dealer, they call us. We also do onboarding, which is the biggest one that I've been pushing lately for EVs. Even, even best case scenario, if you get the best sales guy on the planet and he covers it all in the sales price, it's too much. It's way too much to cover: home charging, public charging, adapters, subscriptions, how the vehicle works. So what we do is once a vehicle is sold, we send a welcome call and we let them know. And if the customer wants, they can sign up for an onboarding where we will do a video tour of the vehicle, reveal the Easter eggs, answer any questions the customer has, and we love to do it around 72 hours because that's when you've had the vehicle for three days and all the questions pop up. So we literally assist the brand and the dealership in guiding onboarding a customer to rewarding ownership experience. And the best part about our Proactive Solutions is that we not only show you the vehicle, we let you know where to get help and where to find help. Specific self-help articles, there's a QRC code on the charge port you scan that no one knows about that leads to a quick help website that answers the top charging questions that we see. We worked we worked really hard to improve the EV ownership experience, and it it's it's taking off. It's uh we're we're filling in the gaps, and there's new vehicles coming that I'm really excited about that will just help the every all the lessons we've learned, we've applied, and this will be the best ownership experience yet.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Fantastic. So double-clicking on the the port of the EV, you're saying that the charging port door, when it's open, there's a QR code.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

There's a QR code right there that you scan, and it strikes you, takes you to a charging assistance webpage that leaves the that has troubleshootings for the top uh drivers that we see of that people call in for. How do I do this? Everything from the mobile charger, home charger, public charging, and adapters. Wow. As well as our chat team, we have a digital engagement team. We also have a text message team that is uh a specific one where the customer can sign up and text any hour of the day and get support, and then also the phone number to call support if you need real-time human assistance.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Yeah. That uh that 72-hour post-sale support call and and kind of you know in intro to your car 101. If if if a if a consumer goes through that and then wants a revisit, is is that is that an option for them?

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Uh that I am unsure of. I believe there's ways to do it, but the whole point of the that for the proactive solutions that we have is we also do roadside. And so here's the the best part. This is one of my favorite programs that we launched. You have a check engine light on your vehicle. We will call you and say, hey, you need assistance. We'll we can schedule an appointment at the dealer. We'll get you in and get it resolved. Also, if your vehicle is towed, we will get the uh we will call you within 24 hours and see if you need assistance from the manufacturer. This all improves the customer experience, shows the customer that we support them, and makes a rewarding ownership experience. You don't have to contact them, we contact you.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

You know, uh Omar, in the last eight, you know, seven, eight minutes, you have you have touched on so many value propositions that Percepta is doing. And then it's almost like Percepta is that brand behind the brand leading the consumer to a successful experience in vehicle ownership. You you touched on substantive, you touched on you touched on different aspects of the customer themselves doesn't understand because it's almost like they've it's like moving from a PC to a to a Mac. You've got a whole new learning curve to go through. All the memory and the buttons and the keyboard, it's all it's all relearning and to me. It sounds like this is this is a a response to how the market is misunderstood where customer experiences, where customer experiences role in transportation technology. Because that's what you're talking about. You're talking about transportation and technology. Transportation technology that's come together. And so what do you think? You've been on the front lines, you've seen all of this, you you've you've developed these programs and these these paths to educating the consumer. Where is the market missing it or misunderstanding about the needs of that customer?

SPEAKER_00 11:28

The the number there's several things. My I'm gonna start with my favorite quote from Steve Jobs. You first design the customer experience and work your way back to the technology. We don't do that. We've been working on that ever. It's not just us, it's most people. What they do is they design the technology and then try to have the customer adapt to it. Now, if you apply this to public charging, look how many different processes there are per CPO per charger. This one requires you to initiate the charger first, then plug in. This one requires you to plug in, then initiate the charger. This one requires you to scan the payment terminal before you do it. This one does it through the app. That fragmented customer journey is the biggest pain point. We need to make the EV charging experience frictionless. And that entails, and the comparison and the litmus test and metric I love to hold people accountable to is it has to be as simple as gasoline. It is the exact same process anywhere on the planet to put gasoline or diesel in a vehicle. The only differentiation is is it diesel or is it gas? Yes, there's a degree of error there, but that's it. That's simple. That's simple. And we are getting there with plug and charge being enabled on the networks, e roaming, and that you know, EMSPs, that is improving the experience. But we still need to make it frictionless and simple. And I love to tell the CEOs of ChargePoint operators when I talk to them, if I cannot explain your process to my grandmother, we failed. That's simple. If I cannot get my grant explain to my grandmother on the phone how to charge an EV, we we failed. And that is where customer experience plays the absolute key part because you have a software-defined vehicle, you have new fueling type charging, you have a new process, and it varies per CPO and OEM. And you know, then they have to learn the two different the home charging, J1772, public charging, CCS1. If it's Europe, CCS2. And luckily the industry is moving to the NACS port, but just the complexity between the multiple charge port couplers, the multiple adapters, what supercharger works with the EV new uh non-Teslas and doesn't, how to navigate to a charger, do I have range? This is where customer experience at Percepta own the space. We uh we are unique because we own the entire customer lifecycle. No one else does. So we have insights, outcomes, and processes and support things that people can only dream of. And this is why we are the best. As my senior vice president of business development and customer success, James Goldberg, says we are the automotive industry's best kept secret.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

I can see why. Let's uh let's talk about vehicles uh to uh as you know as a connected platform or maybe vehicles to connected platforms. Vehicles, obviously passenger light duty vehicles, they've they've evolved. They are a part of a digital platform now, it's a software, of services, subscriptions, uh payment interfaces, just you know echoing some of the things you already said, the the the charging interface from your from your vantage point, from the the the role that you're in and what you're doing in the market, how fundamentally is is this reshaped the transportation that we've known?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Oh, it it has completely shifted it. So we are a global company, so I get to see all this on a global scale. Every single market, Europe, Asia, Australia, South Southern Pacific, Thailand, Vietnam. The way connected vehicle platforms have changed, the just the EV, just a vehicle ownership experience, it's everything. Because you're seeing some of this technology from the EVs trick matriculate matriculate into the gas vehicles now. Uh and it is changing completely. You have a software-defined vehicle. I love to tell people the simplest way to explain that is it's a big cell phone on wheels. If you think of a cell phone, when it vibrates, that's an electric motor vibrating it. So you just scale it up. And so what what it's changed is makes it simpler. It's a simpler thing. So, perfect example I love is over-the-air updates. Your vehicle now will get continuous over-the-air updates for updates, product relevance. You can make uh software patches. The vehicle can now be fixed in your garage while you sleep, while it gets an update overnight. No longer do you have to schedule an appointment at the dealer and bring it in. Some up, some, some require, sometimes it does, but most of the time, the small things were my vehicle, I have a Mustang Mach-E. I keep getting little infotainment updates. They change the icon on my dashboard, they enhance the view of the vehicle, they added some more detail, they put some cool graphics in there. These are things that enhance the product over time. And being a software-defined vehicle, it also opens up subscriptions to new technologies never heard of. I love my blue cruise. It is my favorite. Uh, it's self-driving on pre-mapped highways, which I live in Houston. I don't deal with traffic anymore. I love it. I turn on blue cruise and it does that takes freeze the mental load of creeping through Houston traffic, which, in case no one's been to Houston, Google Maps turn shades of red, you didn't even know. There's a cranberry color after red. So it creeps through there, and I just get to sit there and relax. It's these are all things that were not possible until software-defined vehicles came came around.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Uh, for those that aren't familiar with the product that you're referencing, what what what is the what is the vehicle that you drive?

SPEAKER_00 16:49

I drive a 2024 Mustang Mach-E, and it has it's uh it's a Ford brand, a Ford vehicle, so I get I get full access to the Blue Oval Charge Network through which gives me all the major charge point operators. I can pay for it through through the app to one credit card in my Ford.com wallet. I then also have the entire software suite of subscriptions. I and one of the ones I pay for is Blue Cruise. And it's it works on pre-mapped highways, and it is the best thing I've ever had in my life. Once I had it, I couldn't live without it because it handles the traffic, it drives. It is not full autonomous driving like Tesla's FSD. It is level two autonomy, which is hands-free. Because the way autonomous driving works is level one, level two, level three, level four. It works as hands off, eyes off, mind off, are the scales. So mine is just hands-off. So I still got to pay attention. It monitors to make sure it complains to me if I touch the radio saying, hey, watch the road. But it is the greatest thing I've experienced, and that changes everything, as well as some of the other things that that EVs can do is if I plan a route, let's say I'm going across Texas, it will locate charge points along the way for me to stop at. So I arrive with that state of charge.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Yeah. You know, on the field uh full service driving, rather, even that in Tesla, it's still monitoring, doing the same thing. If your hat's too low, it's gonna let you know if your sunglasses are on, it's gonna let you know I can't see your eyes. I don't know, maybe your eyes are closed. So all those control points are in place to uh, you know, to protect us. So yeah, all good. Doesn't sound like the Ronkey has is any less than uh the for uh full self-driving or the FSD for Tesla. Sounds like about the sounds like the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yeah, it's uh it only works on highways that are pre-mapped and it does it doesn't work in the rain for safety. And then also if it doesn't think it can navigate certain curves, it will make me take control. So it's it's fantastic. Like if it's a sharp corner, it'll say, nope, you take it just in case. So for safety purposes, it put safety number one in it. Also, it's I'm not gonna lie, it took me it took me about nine months to trust the vehicle would stop in traffic. After that, it's got my full support because in Houston you can be going 65 to zero in maybe a mile, and I didn't think it would stop, but it does. So it it it's once you once it earns your trust, it's it's the greatest experience ever. It's so relaxing.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

I want to move over to conversation around uh just mobility uh and the ecosystem at a macro level, uh and and kind of citing the branding, because obviously like you like like what you were referring to, you quoted your leadership as saying that industry's best kept secret, you know, kind of tapping into that uh and understanding where Percepta uh is is bringing value into the uh the evolution of mobility. Um we we can look at brands like Chick-fil-A or others that have a have a have an operational uh excellency to them, an operational efficiency to them, customer simplicity. You have kind of the same experience every time you go to Chick-fil-A, it's it's consistent, whether in Houston or San Antonio or another state. It's gonna be about the same experience. When you look at the e-mobility sector, who is uh who is trying to understand that aspect of it? And and execute uh a friction reduction. I don't know that we'll be able to have friction elimination, but at least a reduction of it. Or is is is our industry still under mess underestimating how important it is for us to be pursuing that Chick-fil-A excellence?

SPEAKER_00 20:55

So from the charge point operators, they are working on reducing friction. Most all of them are enabling plug-and charge, which is a massive friction reduction. You don't have to deal with apps, payment terminals. You just plug it in and it bills. The e-roaming, also friction reduction. I'm a Lean Six Sigma black belt, so I love to optimize, reduce pain points, and eliminate friction. And the best, the best one, the reason why I love to use Chick-fil-A is such a great experience for customer loyalty and ownership experience. Or sorry, customer experience is when I'm sitting there and I'm ordering, I look at how optimized their drive-thru is. They have someone up front with the simple soft skills. Please, how's your day? Thank you. Those little soft skills equate to awarding eat uh a rewarding customer experience. Then also if they make a mistake, it's instantaneous, they apologize, they fix it, and it goes they they move through. And then if you look at the numbers backing up Chick fil A. So I found out that they hired the Ritz Carlton to lower to to build their ownership experience. They s they hired the world standard to do it, and it paid off. Because they are making 20% margin per location, only open six days a week with a smaller only US footprint compared to their competition, who generally puts about 8%. And you can go to their competition and you know it's not the same experience. And that customer experience is driving not only loyalty but revenue because it's easy, it's fast, it's optimized, they're friendly, they're out there in the rain, so you don't get wet. They're in their little tense. I don't know if you've seen the little bubbles. I saw that the other day. But that when you put customer experience first, and it basically puts it it equates to a healthy ROI. Customer experience equates to customer loyalty, which equates to revenue, which equates to ROI. That's how it works out. And the companies that prioritize that, CPOs are getting there, they're working step by step. There's a lot to overcome, but you know, the charging industry is only 10 years old, so they're making milestones and incredible leaps and bounds. For the EV side, the vehicle side, they're also improving really quickly, too. And the the lessons learned, they are not applying it the way they did with ICE vehicles. They're not waiting for, you know, to get enough data from the field to then fix it. They're doing it in real time. They're looking at the data, they're they're getting feedback, identifying trends, and then writing an OTA and pushing it out. And that is how everyone's working towards a better customer experience because a happy customer is a loyal customer. And if we can take the friction out of their that experience, the happier they are. You just want it to work, you want it to be easy, you want it to be intuitive. Those are the three things that customers ask for. And once you do that, customer experience becomes infrastructure. It becomes not CapEx, but OpEx, because it will equate to a healthy ROI when you start prioritizing the customer experience in your ownership experience.

unknown 23:57

No.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Kind of double-clicking on your your comments around all CPOs moving toward or in offering now plug and charge. CPOs, retailers, auto OEMs are all building these membership ecosystems around mobility to uh help. Well, obviously it's it's uh it's twofold. It's uh sticking it to the customer, but also the the re the reduction of that friction point, like you were talking about the elimination of of credit card terminals for plug-in loop, plug-in charge. At the same time, it it seems like vehicles are becoming a gateway into commerce and customer engagement, like what you were talking about. You delight the customer, uh, they're gonna return. So you delighting them on the front end is going to drive your longer-term ROI. And so vehicles are becoming that gateway into commerce and and customer engagement. So to that end, what how how competitive does that ecosystem layer become when we look at what it could be over the next three years, five years? What's what what's the blue sky around all of that?

SPEAKER_00 25:02

The the blue sky. So there's two different ones. We do retail and fleet, and they both have different ROIs, but I'll start with retail first. So by building mobility membership programs, brand loyalty like Iona, launching their OEM discount for specific vehicle manufacturers to charge their gift cards, these are all fantastic things because not only do they drive loyalty, they'll they'll customers will go out of their way, but all of that comes into the ownership experience. It has to work. Reliability is the number one metric. And the industry standard for this is Tesla. They run at 99.997% uptime. And the the with I looked at the data for the holiday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the lion's share of charging went to Tesla. And I had to do the five Y's process when we said, Why? So the first process is it's reliability, it's gonna work. Second is if I've got my kids and family in the car, I want that charger to work because I'm on my way to someone's house. I don't have time to mess with all these problems and troubleshoot, get on the line with support. So by making it frictionless and reliable, frictionless equals reliability when it comes to charging. And from an ownership experience, the more frictionless I make it, the better and the more happier I am as a customer. Because how many times have you ever if if you look at the industry charging standard of right now, I think we're at 93.5%, which is milestones from two years ago where it was at 70? If you did the math at 70%, that means when you went to a gas, if you applied it to gasoline, that means one out of four pumps didn't work. One that was so there'd be riots in the street. So we need to we're getting there better, but mobility memberships and experience for the ownership, it it touches every part of the journey. So by being loyal to a brand, they reward you. And by making the ecosystem and ownership experience frictionless, you get the companies get ROI out of it. And that is the simplest way to put it. So it gets competitive by pricing. And that is from a charging perspective, that that's so many variables. You have the the PowerPoint agreement with the charge point operator, you have the price of the utility, what the the it costs to generate the power. But we see time of use pricing models that are competitive. We also see the the biggest success is brand membership discounts for charging. Those are extremely competitive. You get a discounted kilowatt rate because you pay a monthly subscription, which drives utilization to your charge points. Because customers will drive out of their way to go to that charger because they pay a subscription because they get a discounted rate. That is that is wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

Yeah, to kind of flesh that out for those that are listening, it's it's it's the Volkswagen vehicle that has subsidized cost or reduced rate cost at an Electron America site versus a heavy bolt that might be charging there. Because of because of part because of OEM and CPO partnership. And that's that's that's the that's the OEM finding a way to bring comfort and a sense of security, reduced you know, range anxiety for the operator, for the owner, for the driver, but then also for the CPO, it's it's driving utilization up for them. So you you you were you were breaking your answer up into two parts. There was the retail and and yeah, so I don't want to interrupt you.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

So so fleet, their their operational, their their ownership experience is reduced total cost of ownership. Diesels, man, they get expensive and trying to operate them. I'm on an EV school bus task force here in Texas, and just the thought, uh, when I when I talk to these school districts, the they get all happy when they realize they can reduce their operating expenses by reducing the diesel cost. But then they get afraid when it comes to charging, which is the exact there's an absolute correlation with retail customers on that too. They're afraid of charging. And if you look at a root cause analysis of why they're afraid, it's because it's unknown. They don't understand it.

unknown 29:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Uh they don't understand what a kilowatt is, the difference between a volt, a joule, an amp. They don't know the different couplers. And with when it comes to fleets, their their primary focus is on uptime. And an EV gives you higher uptime because it charges. Uh depending if you're running 24-7 ops, you could have three vehicles, one charging while one's in service. Depends if you're doing you know night and day operations, you know, open at 8 a.m., close at 5, maybe a skeleton crew at night. Depending on their fleet setup, they they also can see the value in I don't have to pay for diesel, I get reduced maintenance costs. EVs only require cabin air filters, tires, and wiper blades. If you are using one pedal driving, you never change brake pads. So I there's actually a study out there I saw on LinkedIn where a guy who drives Uber with his EV has 216,000 miles on his original brake pads because he does one pedal driving, which is amazing. So if I'm looking at that from a fleet manager perspective, I have reduced maintenance cost, I have reduced gas fuel costs, I have the ability to run to use my vehicles for vehicle to building. So that's a fun future that uh value stream proposition that no one likes to talk about, but it is so valuable for fleets. It is where you can use your fleet to power your business or building to keep it operational in a power outage storm. You can also put vehicle to grid where your fleet that's not being used, you know, your backup fleet, can be used to make money by putting power back on the grid during high demand times. And for the the the value proposition for EV school buses that I found out when I was talking to someone was they can use the school bus to power schools as emergency storm shelters in storm situations. So even if they don't have enough diesel gas to last a week, they can use the full the school bus fleet to power it and keep power on. Or in Texas, cooling centers because it gets hot here in August. So it does. And from a fleet perspective, oh yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

No, no, no, go ahead. No, keep going.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

So from a fleet perspective, it's a completely different focus, but they're all focused on the same thing. Reduce total cost of ownership and a frictionless customer experience. The op the fleet manager doesn't want a down vehicle because that's a loss of revenue, and the the per retail customer doesn't want their vehicle down because that's a loss of transportation. So it's all towards frictionless ownership experience. They have different ROIs for between fleet and and retail, because we support both and luxury brands, and it is the basically the simplest part. So if you make it frictionless, you have a reliable vehicle that gets software updates while you own it that prevents you from having to put it in the shop to get a service done on it, reduce maintenance cost, everything equates to a happy ownership experience.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Yeah. On the fleet side of things, especially in the vein of the school bus commentary, if the design of those of those products, uh the OEMs are you know, bringing to market school buses, electric-powered school buses, if those purchase prices could be reduced to move more people every any given day than any other public transportation system in the U.S. And they're operating nine months out of the year or something like that. You know, eight months out of the year, it's nine to ten months out of the year. So it's like they could be the ones to be moving. I remember I used to see a PL that had detail costs for school uh you know school buses and the and uh the it's always over budget when it came to detail purchases. And uh, you know, you look at the operating costs, maintenance costs are reduced. There's so much, it just it's a no-brainer for migrating to just got to get that acquisition cost down on the vehicle themselves. They're just so expensive. But uh it just it totally makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Um the one of the uh the I was talking to the superintendent of a school district, he uh I can't remember his name was Doctor or something, but he said uh his concern was with EV school buses. It it's a it's it's laughable, but it was a hilarious joke he made. He goes, I'm afraid the kids might be all late to school because they won't hear it coming. Because just think how loud a school bus is when it comes down the street. They won't but if they're running late, it goes by without them. And I was like, that's a good problem to have. Noise reduction, carbon emissions reduction. Yeah, you don't have to smell diesel while they're going down the street. You know, the the smell of it also, I mean, that's a that's a good problem to have where I reduce noise, carbon emissions, and diesel soot by making the vehicle electric. Yes, your kids might be late to school, but uh because they didn't hear it coming, but that's a that's a that's a side effect of it.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Yeah, yeah. They pull up, they pull up to the school ahead of ahead of pickup time and they're they're waiting. They can't be running the buses because all the fumes would be gassing out to school, and then they got to turn them off. So then it turns into uh you know basically a sauna in there by the time the kids get out of school and on the bus, they're climbing onto a sauna, especially here in Texas. So electric powered vehicle, yeah, it's it's cool and nice and it's quiet and it's not polluting anything. I was recently hiking up in Mount Zion with a friend of mine, and and there were some shuttle buses, and they were the articulate, so the articulating bus that you know basically the brake in the middle where they can make the sharp turns. But those were 100% powered electric, and they they had signage all you know talking about emissions reductions, all the stuff that they were eliminating with the these po electric powered buses shuttling us hikers, you know, up to up to the hiking point to go up into the mountains. And yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

Well, another fun thing when I look when they gave me a tour of one of their electric school buses, it's even a better driver experience because on the button, on the discer on the steering wheel, it the door opens electronically with a little like how you toggle your volume, no more swinging that back and forth. They they it's a it's it's easier, it still has air brakes, but it's just so much uh it's a better drivership experience, also, because I can just open the door with my thumb instead of having to swing it open and closed all the time. And it can have a suite of sensors that you wouldn't even think about. It has cameras on it, so you can see if a child is cleared the bus behind your blind spot. You can make sure that a happens all the time. Cars drive past with the stop sign out that's flashing. They can it can warn the driver that's happening so they can stop the children. There's so many things with software-defined vehicles if we start applying them in fleet applications, too.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Well, Omar, we're we're we're giving a free commercial to uh the bluebirds and thomas buses of the world, so we probably better just move on. But yeah, it's it's it but it's fascinating. To your point about the mobile door opening versus a switch. Obviously, there is a behavioral change with these digitally digital devices that we are driving now, these software-defined vehicles as they become more increasingly software-defined, connected, autonomous-enabled, it's got to be reshaping the driver behavior. It's it's it's reshaping the driver behavior and it's creating expectations with the consumer, uh, with the with the operator, with the owner. Are we are we underestimating the psychology in the different transportation that we see today versus yesterday and where we're going? I mean, the vehicle is becoming once the vehicle it starts behaving more like a digital assistant, and it is it's it's gonna condition the drivers in a different way. What's what's your comments around that?

SPEAKER_00 36:31

So, consumer behavior, I'm gonna relate my own personal experience. I have a phone as a key. Do you know how many times I never take my key with me? I take my phone and I walk up to the vehicle, it unlocks, I walk away, it locks. Uh all I have to do is be sitting in it, and it's and it that's it. And it will turn on. If it doesn't, there is a procedure for that in case you lose your phone, or in my case, I got my phone wet when I was and I had to drive from Austin back to Houston without a phone, but I got here. There's procedures for that. But it is software-defined vehicles are definitely changing behavior. You I know better. I go to the dealer and I forget my key fob. They can't work on the vehicle without the key fob and things like that. So you become used to the capabilities of these software-defined vehicles, and then you go back and you can't think, how did I live without this? I can control my whole vehicle from my phone. I can start the climate control, I can turn on the seat heaters, I can honk the horn if I lose it in a parking lot. I can do all these things from the vehicle that are capable because it's software-defined. Things you were unimaginable to do before on the vehicles. And as you become used to them, they add more and more functionality and things change. My favorite is for software-defined vehicles is we're we're just scratching the edge cases of these things. Imagine if you're using your ADOS, your emergency autonomous driving advanced safety systems or self-driving, you have cameras everywhere. Why? Those cameras are scanning the road constantly. Let's say you run over a pothole. Why that because that is software in future state, I think that software-defined vehicles will scan that pothole and then communicate to open a ticket for the for the county or the state to fix that pothole. And as enough vehicles go by, that ticket becomes a priority because so many have been opened, it'll get executed. And there's other I read a fascinating study out of a University of Texas talking about autonomous intersection management, where in the future state they will have an AI that will control the intersection. So no more stoplights. What the AI will do when you when we move over to vehicle to V to X, vehicle to everything, where your vehicle communicates with the other vehicle across to the intersection as you approach it when it's self-driving, it will commute your AI and the vehicle will communicate with the intersection management. It will assign you a time slot and then shoot you through the intersection at full speed. Which I I now, you know, it didn't delve into the the the the minutiae of it, like, well, what happens if an older vehicle is driving through that intersection? You know, so it might have to be its own on specific lanes or like Tesla has the tunnels, maybe, etc. But that is the future state of software-defined vehicles, and we are just barely scratching the capabilities right now. I can watch YouTube videos on my screen in my vehicle while I charge. That's that's never had that functionality before. Uh, you can you can pair Alexa with the vehicle, and when you get an Amazon package or you you're driving home with, well, well, your vehicle's driving you home, and you think, hey, I need to order something, Alexa will order it from Amazon for you because you can tell it. It can find you tickets. It uh, you know, for if you want to go to a show, it can prior, you can ask it a question and it will search for if you're looking for a specific restaurant, then navigate you there. These are all functionalities that were only capable through a software-defined vehicle. And there it it changes not only the ownership experience, it also is what per we get calls on this every day on how do I do this, payment problems, etc. But once you know, how once we you have something, it's hard to take it back. Uh, there's many case studies with subscriptions where OEMs had a feature that was free, and then on the next model they charge a scripture subscription and they the customers revolted. And but software-defined vehicles are completely changing everything about not only EV ownership experience, but just transportation. Uh, for on the fleet side, you get telematics, and telematics is a game changer. You can get driver coaching logs, you can geofence a vehicle into a specific area or route. You can find out if the vehicle was speeding, how many G forces it took there. So, all that improves driver safety. The coaching logs are used to coach the cut the driver back, like here was an incident, what happened. They also are wired to dash cams so they can see stuff now. This is all capabilities that didn't exist with before software-defined vehicles. Now, they do they do have these on ice vehicles, but generally it's its own module. This is now built into the vehicle. Another example is insurance rates. Tesla insurance, they use real-time data feed from the vehicle to adjust your insurance rate. So as you drive slowly and use self-driving, in fact, I saw a promotion, Tesla now gives a 50% discount if you use Tesla insurance and have FSD because the the autonomous driving is so much safer. So that is that is how software-defined vehicles are going to completely change the ecosystem, the ownership expectation, transportation, and just your life. I mean, just imagine how simple that is.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

Well, we've talked a lot about the vehicle feature stats. I'd I'd like to I'd like to pivot to the charging infrastructure side of things. I'd like to I'd like to talk about it from two two perspectives. One is the is the retail side and then and then fleet electrification as it relates to how how fleets are converting to electric power vehicles and what charging looks like, whether you're talking about depot or driver takes a car home. But you know, charging charging needs to become invisible. And that's that's that's a lot in that statement. A lot of consumers still view charging as a complicated, disruptive, time-consuming process. It's it's it's a deterrent in and of itself. And so long term, do you think that the industry wins by by making it faster or by making it psychologically disappear? And and and that kind of goes back to some of the things we've already been talking about. But it's it's it's not a process. It's it it disappears and becomes it it moves into the background of everyday life. And it's comments on that.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

I have a completely different perspective on it. It doesn't need to become invisible, it needs to become available. That's it. I'm talking parking lot charging, office building charging. The biggest pain point we have right now is multifamily residential. 80% of all charging is done at home. For me, I come home, plug my vehicle in, it charges. I can set a charge schedule for when I want it to charge at my lowest energy rate or a specific window. But if charging becomes available, it becomes frictionless and invisible. If I pull up to a retailer and they have DC fast charging there, that's that's fast if I want to get in and out. Perfect example, my grocery store has a free DCFC, which it's very slow, it's only a 60 kilowatt, but perfect timing. 45 minutes, I'm in and out. Now, they also have level two. So if I want to sit there and go to dinner, I can hook up to a level two. Charging needs to become ubiquitous, available everywhere, and everyone benefits by that. Businesses get ROIs from dwell time because if you're if you're gonna be there for a while, think of think about the mall. If they had one-to-one charging in the spots and these were all EVs, those people are guaranteed to be there for at least two hours. So that equates to sales. And for multifamily residential, I co authored a book on EV charging for apartments and businesses, and it lays out all the different aspects of it. In my research, most apartments are owned, 100, 500 units are owned by small LLCs, not gigantic REITs or giant national corporations that. Have the cap uh the capital to expand charging for one-to-one ratios per spot. So they use level two pillars with assigned charging rotations. Ideally, it should be a simple NEMA 1415 low voltage 120 outlet that does 3.3 kilowatts because you come home, you plug in, and it charges overnight, and that gives you more than enough range. If or NEMA 1415, which some of them do payment terminals. But doing that is a low-cost solution for multifamily residential where you can get every spot wired up, but you lose the benefits of bidirectional charging. It's a little more expensive to put a bi-directional charger with your EV if because most all EVs coming pretty soon will all be bidirectional. And you could power it depending on how the complex is metered. If it's master metered, it won't work, but if it's submetered, like your unit gets your own bill instead of a power bill distributed across the entire complex, you can use your your vehicle to load shed half your utility, half your energy bill. I can use it to power my dryer, my dishwasher, my AC, and cut my energy usage in half. Now, other benefits for the complex would be imagine for an outage, a hurricane hits Houston. I can use the EVs in the parking lot to power the complex until powers are restored. And that is the benefits of it. But until charging is everywhere, where I can drive my office, plug in and charge, where I can drive to a grocery store, plug in and charge, where I can come home and charge, and that whether that be a house or multifamily residential, it it won't feel invisible because you are hunting and searching for these chargers. Just think about it from a gas perspective. I don't no one thinks about where am I going to go fill up. Nobody. Maybe in Texas we stop, where's the nearest Bucky's? But that's about it. No, no one goes and like, okay, does that part of town have a gas station? No, because it's everywhere. So once we charging becomes available and everywhere, it becomes invisible. Just like gasoline. No one thinks about it. There's a gas station on every corner. The only thing you search for is the price difference and the best deal. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

Yeah. Like your comments around fleet electrification, because we we're talking about charging as it relates to the consumer. But one thing I've heard you talk about is how fleets are beginning to solve the home charging need. And so this obviously doesn't pertain to like the school bus fleets. It's more of the lower light duty vehicle fleet. And so the solving for the home charging aspect of it, you know, the the driver is taking the fleet vehicle home like they would their gas vehicle, but there's there's an opportunity for charging so fast. What uh what does reimbursement for the driver that takes the the work vehicle home look like? What does energy management, the charging coordination, how is all of that brought together? It's through software, I'm sure, orchestration, but how how important is simplifying that process?

SPEAKER_00 47:00

So there's several solutions out there that already exist. So what happens is let's say I go work for, let's just use an energy company. They give me a work truck that's electric, they will come and install a charger at my house. Now, there's two options there. They could submeter it where it has its own meter if that's allowed. If not, what they do is there's uh the company, for example, if this vehicle is a fleet vehicle and is using our OEM owner's telematics stuff, it will tell you the charging, and then they can calculate the price per kilowatt and reimburse the the cut the the paycheck of the of the employee. There's other solutions out there, like Move EV. They're one of my favorites. With uh, if you guys are interested in this, Chris Lamone from Move EV has a wonderful solution. What they do is they look at they take the energy bills, analyze it, and then it calculates it's software that calculates how much the energy was used to charge a vehicle, and then they credit back the employee, and the business gets a transaction record to deduct it as a tax expense. So, same with the telematics software. There's more than one solution out there for this, but generally it always involves a company installed home charger, which means because it's their vehicle, the charger and the vehicle are they go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other. And many, many solutions exist currently. It could be as simple as here's my energy bill, here's the time I charged, here's my because you can look in your in your in my app at least, or in on a fleet management dashboard and see how many kilowatts that vehicle received, and then you can calculate it by the price per kilowatt based on your employee's energy bill, and they can credit back their check and then take a tax deduction for for that. There's there's lots of solutions. It's for everything from good old fashioned slow Excel sheet accounting to software managed systems that will do it for you and deduct it and cut the check to the and deposit the chez the the balance on the employee's check or card. There, there's so many solutions out there. There's also uh similar to for fleet for when they're public space, they can have a fleet charging card. Very similar to a exactly like a fuel card, or instead of having to put it on the company card, they get fleet uh a card dedicated for charging credits. The EU uses this with RFID more than more than the US. So they can just come up to any charger because they're all RFID enabled, scan it, it bills the card, and that's a write-off when they're let's say they're out on their route and they need to top off to get to the next person, or they're at lunch and they have a charger there, they can chart top off while they're there. So this is fleet does manage charging differently, but there's many, many solutions out there to reimburse for fleet vehicles that get taken home. But it all starts with a company installed charger, or the employee installs it and they reimburse him, uh, and the vehicle, of course. So you can manage the the fleet home charger just like a just like a retail home charger's time windows for scheduled charge times, departure times, so the vehicle's preconditioned and ready to go when you you leave every day at eight. Uh it can be heated or cooled through preconditioning. Not many people know that. You can cool a vehicle too. So it is the the the best solution I've seen out there so far is move EVs, as well as the OEM's telematics system through fleet management. They have a fleet management portal.

SPEAKER_02 50:13

Yeah. Well, Omar, that's been a good good conversation. I feel like we could probably just keep going. There's there's other things I wanted to talk to you about. One of the things I was gonna ask you was about you know kind of the interstate connected mobility. You were just actually speaking to it right then and there. But you know, it's it's gonna say as we as we as we close out this conversation. You know, we fast forward to a time of migration where the software-defined vehicle and the integrated commerce and the membership and the charging ecosystems have all come together. What is what does that transportation experience look like and feel like for the average person? Again, let's let's take it out. Even to the example of the potholes and the and the managed intersection travel. Like what's what's what's the blue sky around that one? Just kind of forecast it for us.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

I'll be happy to. I love talking about this one. So currently the law of the diffusion of innovation shows an adoption S curve. The U.S. is still in the early adopter phase, but we look at China, Norway, Sweden, Denmark. Sweet Norway is the first country on earth to hit 98.3% adoption, followed by Nepal. Nepal came out of nowhere this year. They're at 76% because they import, they're they're next to China, so they get a lot of EVs. They have to import all their fuel and they put charging everywhere. The future state, what I see based on some of the test roads I've seen in Norway, Sweden, Japan, Dearborn is wireless infrastructure charging induction pads embedded in the highways. So in the future state, you go out to your vehicle or you call your vehicle, wherever it is, if it could be in a fleet, and it pulls up, it's autonomous, no steering wheel. You get in it, then you can drive. I could go from Houston to California on I-10 because it's wirelessly charged the entire way, only having to stop for bathroom brakes and food. Now, some cities that could afford it will probably put it in the city streets, but I only see this on the on the major thoroughfares, which would require only a smaller battery in the vehicle. 40% of the cost of an EV is the battery. So everyone wants that one that they try to buy an EV for that one edge case. I go to I drive 900 miles once a year, towing a boat in a trailer, etc. So that requires a big battery. E-Revs will solve that problem, but if I only use it for daily transportation, I only require a small kilowatt battery, which reduces the cost of the vehicle, which will be out charging will be wireless in the roadways, and it'll be autonomous. That will be the future state that I see. Wireless induction charging embedded in the highways. They're testing this in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Japan, and uh Dearborn. And Purdue University in Indiana. I saw a test road there. And that will be the future state. That way, wireless charging, even wireless home charging is a possibility. Porsche's uh doing that with their new McCann EV, and Tesla just patented it too for their robo taxis. So the vehicle pulls up, parks over an induction pad, and does wireless charging. Don't need to plug in, don't need to worry about adapters, don't need to worry about couplers, don't need to worry about payment. It'll all be done from the vehicle. And that is the future state where that's where we can go. Yeah. And that is as near frictionless as it gets. Wireless charging, self-driving, a connected vehicle that is basically a portable office or lounge, whatever you want it to be, that I can play games, watch movies while it drives me and handles it. That that completely changes the driver experience.

SPEAKER_02 53:43

Oh, yeah. And for me, if if uh the cherry on top would be that I don't even have to own that vehicle. I just subscribe to it and it picks me up and takes me where I want to go. Yeah, that's uh that's what I'm I'm holding out for. That's what I'm ready for. I'm ready to retire from driving, ready to outsource that. Uh don't care about paying for insurance premiums, don't care about paying these crazy uh payments on vehicles for you know they're depreciating, they're just not worth it. And they're they're parked for 94, 95, 96 percent of the time anyway, just sitting in a sit in a parking space. Well, Omar, this has been a great conversation. I'd uh I'd I'd like you to share how for those listening, they can connect with you directly. You referenced the book that you that you you co-authored. I know you got another book uh that's in the making right now. How how would people purchase the one that's out right now? And then how do they connect with you directly? How how how would they learn about Percepta as well? You share that as we close this out.

SPEAKER_00 54:39

The the first way uh to reach us at Percepta is at Percepta.com. You can email me at Omar Riahi at Percepta, or you can contact James Goldberg at Percepta.com. He's also he's the senior vice president of business development, or Paul Felder, F-E-D-E-R. He is our vice president of business development. Uh if you want to reach out, also t tech.com, because t tech is our parent company and they do they have a huge automotive portfolio also. So if uh not just automotive, anything for t tech.com. But for uh my book is available on Smashmouth in Barnes Noble, Amazon. I'm a co-author. I have several other authors, 12, but uh they're all on there. Uh I believe Lawrence Hart is uh the main author, Mike Battaglia, Anuke Park. These are some of the big names you guys might know. They co-authored the book with us. That is on Apple Books, Smashmouth, and Kobo, as well as in Barnes and Noble and on Amazon. It is EV charging systems for apartments and businesses. It has uh an interesting cover. But uh that would be the best way. You can also ping me on LinkedIn if you want to get a hold of me. I I go to a lot of industry events. I'd be happy to have it to discuss with anyone if you want solutions or to find out how you can engage Percepta in our services. And like I said, we touch the full customer lifecycle. Presale to resale, public charging, home charging, energy services, energy solutions, as well as adapters, and we also do ice vehicles too, and fleet. Fleet and luxury white glove retail. Super high-end luxury premium brands that we do have a white glove ownership experience to, as well as luxury brands. And one global rental agency we support.

SPEAKER_02 56:25

Nice. Omar, thanks for coming on Field Frequency. It was a pleasure to have you.

SPEAKER_00 56:29

Absolutely. Thank you, Jason, for having me.

SPEAKER_02 56:31

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.