Nicholas Johnson founded the company after losing a bet.
Johnson was having dinner with several investors in Light, the congestion management company he co-founded. As the dinner conversation meandered, we settled on a conversation about EV charging and the best way to bring it into apartment complexes.
Apartment dwellers who own EVs are often left with two less-than-ideal choices: use a public charger or plug the vehicle into a regular 120-volt outlet. This adds about 3 to 5 miles per hour of mileage. Johnson wasn't interested in the issue, so one of the people at the dinner table made him a suggestion.
“We took a bet from one of our investors that he would charge his EV for six months using only Level 1 outlets to drive to and from work, which at the time was about 78 miles,” Johnson told TechCrunch. “He said, 'If he doesn't need to connect to a DC fast charger for anything other than a weekend road trip, then I win the bet. Build a prototype.'” He won the bet. So I made a prototype of him.
That prototype will become the basis for a new startup, Orange Charger, of which Johnson is now CEO. Orange Charger, which sells 240-volt smart outlets to homeowners, among other products, has raised $6.5 million in an oversubscribed seed round, Orange Charger tells TechCrunch exclusively. The round was led by Munich Re Ventures and Climactic, with participation from Baukunst, Crow Holdings, Lincoln Property Ventures, and Space Cadet Ventures.
Charging has long been the Achilles heel of electric vehicles, and few EV drivers are as familiar with charging as apartment dwellers, many of whom aren't guaranteed a place to charge overnight. Currently, the majority of EV charging is done at home, but most apartment complexes don't even have chargers or outlets in every parking space. With the mass adoption of EVs in the United States, the 40 million people living in multifamily housing will need a more convenient way to access electricity.
A number of startups have emerged to solve this problem, most of which focus on selling and installing enough charging equipment to serve a certain percentage of tenants. Still, it can be an expensive proposition, often costing thousands of dollars per store. Landlords are hesitant to introduce EVs unless there are enough tenants with them. “If you're installing 100 or 200 parking spaces in an apartment complex, you definitely don't want to run 200 cables in the parking lot, especially if there are about 10 or 20 cables in use on the first day. Even more so,” says Johnson. But at the same time, tenants may be hesitant to purchase an EV if they don't have a convenient place to charge it.
Orange Charger believes it has a better solution and is betting that landlords will like it. Rather than installing a bunch of Level 2 chargers that provide enough electrons for several days of daily driving, the Orange Charger offers a 240-volt outlet packed with smart features. EV owners can often connect the portable Level 2 charger that came with their vehicle and use an app to activate the outlet.
The Orange Charger's Level 2 outlet provides less power than commercially available units, but it's still enough to give you about 150 miles of overnight range. Lower power consumption means electricians can use thinner gauge wire, which Johnson says costs about a third less. “The savings per foot add up very quickly.”
The outlet design is tested to withstand at least 10,000 plugs and unplugs. “I didn't want to go through the experience of plugging it into an outlet on an airplane or hotel and then having it unplugged right away,” Johnson said.
Orange Charger sells a Level 2 outlet for $750, not including installation costs, and Johnson said it is the company's “flagship product.” He also has a Level 1 compliant outlet for $600 and a full cargo Level 2 charger for $2,000.
Each Orange Charger product has a built-in circuit board that acts as a node on a mesh network, which can run over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, allowing each outlet to continue operating even if the connection to the Internet is lost. Send session data to all outlets. Once the connection is restored, it will return to the cloud. “Imagine not being able to charge for five hours because someone cut the wrong cable on the street,” Johnson said. “We wanted to build something rugged.” So far, he added, the company has been able to start more than 99% of all charging sessions attempted.
Orange Charger charges homeowners a subscription fee based on energy usage, not the number of outlets installed. The company has so far installed approximately 2,000 units nationwide.
“There's no downside to installing 50 outlets on day one,” Johnson says. “You're only charged when the device is used.” It's an approach that could solve the thorny chicken-and-egg problem that's holding back EV adoption.