For people driving an electric vehicle in the U.S., there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that companies are building more and more chargers, meaning that it’s easier and easier to find a place to refill your battery close to home. The bad news? Just because a charging station exists doesn’t mean it’s always operating correctly. This isn’t necessarily shocking news — vending machines, ATMs and other widely-used and publicly available devices have similar issues. But it’s also eminently frustrating to pull up to a charging station and learn that it’s either out of commission or performing under par.
Still, one person’s technical difficulties is another person’s business model. The Associated Press’s Isabella O’Malley, Krysta Fauria and Eugene Garcia recently spoke with Kameale Terry, co-founder of the company ChargerHelp!, which — as you might be able to guess — repairs and maintains charging stations, with clients in 17 states.
Again, this makes sense! If you have infrastructure, sometimes that infrastructure needs to be fixed — whether that’s filling a pothole or upgrading local internet services. Much as the ride of bike-share programs in cities has also upped the demand for services to keep them running, so too is there a need for dedicated repair staff to make sure EV chargers are working at their peak.
“When I saw that the charging experience wasn’t a great experience, I wanted to figure out how could I be helpful in ensuring that it is a great experience,” Terry told the Associated Press.
Building More EV Chargers Is Important — But They Also Need to Work
When fast charging isn’t as fast as you’d thoughtChargerHelp! isn’t the only company making inroads in this space. The likes of Tiger Electric and Amerit Fleet Solutions also offer EV charging station maintenance services as well. EV charging stations aren’t quite as regular a sight as gas pumps, but they’re getting there — and the more charging stations there are, the larger the industry keeping them running will be.
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