The observant follower of Hive.Mobility may have already noticed that start-up EVoltify has been housed for some time in the container of Hive.Mobility on Zernike Campus. Time to take a look at this special start-up. Who is EVoltify and how are they working on the future of mobility?
Mobile charging station
Many motorists who own or are considering purchasing an electric car, wonder whether their electric car can drive enough kilometres on a full battery. In short, EVoltify was founded to put an end to this ‘range anxiety’. EVoltify wants to make charging electric cars easy and simple. The idea is that motorists no longer have to search for an available charging station. After they have parked the car, they let EVoltify know via an app where the car is and that it needs to be charged. Subsequently, EVoltify ensures that a mobile charging station is brought to the car to charge it.
Product development
Riko Kruit, Co-Founder and CCO of EVoltify, says: “EVoltify brings the charging station to the car instead of the car to the charging station. In the Hive.Mobility container on the Campus, we are currently working with students from the University of Groningen and the Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen on the development of our product. This includes issues such as the right choice of battery cells, the (functional) design of the mobile EV chargers, safety and, not unimportantly, the revenue model and financial plan. We also compare the generation of energy with the actual energy demand on the Campus and what role EVoltify’s batteries can play in this.”
According to Riko, a mobile solution, in places where fixed charging infrastructure is (too) expensive or technically impossible, is an alternative to meet the growing demand for charging options.
Pilot
In the short term, EVoltify will start a test on the Campus in which the electric shared cars from CommShare are provided with the required kWh. Riko: “The challenge we mainly want to take on is proving that ‘Charging as a Service’ by EVoltify is interesting enough for the various parties at the Zernike Campus Groningen. At the same time, that is the main goal of the StartUp in Residence program, in which we are now completely involved. Thanks to Campus Groningen, Hive.Mobility and BuildinG, we can really test our solution on the Campus. By actually showing our solution on the Campus and demonstrating its ease of use, we hope to create sufficient support to start an extensive pilot at the end of this year.”
Ilse Mensink, program manager Hive.Mobility: “Within our ecosystem, our partners are working hard on sustainable and smart mobility of the future. As an extension of this, we have started an exploration with EVoltify to investigate the possibilities for a pilot with mobile charging stations in our region. It is great to see that this pilot is now actually getting off the ground and how the connection has been made with our knowledge partners.”
Do you want to know more about EVoltify? Contact us via riko@evoltify.com or info@hivemobility.nl
