When Kameale Terry, who grew up in South Los Angeles, returned to the area nearly a decade ago to help care for her ailing mother, she found work in customer support at EV Connect Inc., a company now headquartered in Lake Forest that makes software for electric vehicle charging stations.
That’s where she got an earful from customers about one the biggest problems plaguing the fledgling industry: charging pumps that weren’t working.
Subsequent studies have underscored the size of the problem: At any point in time, anywhere between 20% and 33% of non-Tesla charging pumps are not working, a problem so big that it is often cited as one of the key factors behind the recent slowdown in electric vehicle sales.
“I saw an opportunity for reliability management at charging stations,” Terry said.
She also had another insight: most of the reliability issues with charging pumps weren’t mechanical – rather, they stemmed from software problems. If enough people could be trained in how to fix those software issues, it could make a huge dent in the charging pump reliability problem.
But before she could act on these insights, life intervened. Terry’s mother was once again diagnosed with cancer, and she had to leave her full-time job to care for her mother. When she was able, Terry volunteered at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator in downtown Los Angeles.
Training technicians to maintain charging station software
It was at the incubator that Terry met Evette Ellis, who spent years working in job training at the federal Department of Labor’s Job Corps program.
In 2019, the duo decided to join forces and launch ChargerHelp!, with the aim of developing a trained workforce that could spread out across the country and fix downed charging pumps. These service technicians would repair software glitches that triggered pump shutdowns and, if necessary, travel out to the charging stations to address any remaining issues.
“We may have to deploy a technician to a station experiencing problems a couple of times in the first year, but by the second year, the hope is that the technician can solve it over the air,” Terry said.
Another key component is proactive maintenance. For example, Terry said, knowing through ChargerHelp’s database of past performance when certain parts are likely to fail and then getting replacement parts installed before that happens.
Terry said the company gets up to 90% of its revenue through contracts with electric vehicle fleet and charging station operators.
“We use fixed-price performance guarantees,” she said, noting that the contracts stipulate that ChargerHelp! keeps a pre-specified percentage of charging pumps operating at all times.
Later this year, Terry said, the company plans to offer guarantees that give the customer a clawback option: essentially, penalties for ChargerHelp! if the charging stations are not operating as intended.
“Until now, our customers have shouldered most of the risk here,” she said. “With this new insurance product, we’re taking on the risk.”
Terry added that the company is considering expanding its technology-based solutions to the European market, but said it was premature at this stage to say which countries or to give a timetable.
ChargerHelp! has raised $21 million since its founding, about $17 million of that coming from a Series A fundraising round last year led by Century City-based Blue Bear Capital.
On the training side of the business, under Ellis’ guidance and using training manuals that both Ellis and Terry have developed, the company has trained more than 1,500 technicians since 2020, Ellis said. Some are still working for ChargerHelp!; others are working for electric vehicle charging companies.
Ellis said some of the funding for the training comes from companies that want to upskill their employees or workforce development entities at community colleges or elsewhere.
Moving beyond race and gender challenges
As Black businesswomen, Terry and Ellis say they have faced their share of challenges in getting financing or having industry doors open for them. But they say they don’t dwell on those challenges.
“What we’ve learned is that when a charging station isn’t working, the operator doesn’t care what the color of the skin is of the company that’s coming to fix it,” Ellis said. “And even on the fundraising side, people are more interested in getting the problem solved.”
Terry added that the duo’s attitude has been to keep pushing on.
“We are relentless in pursuing our business, even if it’s hard and painful,” she said. “And because no one else is doing exactly what we’re doing, that does give us an edge.”
That said, both acknowledged that some other minority business owners have not been so fortunate.
“Our message for the industry and for those who finance it is to look for brilliance, good products and business structure and bones to a company,” Terry said.