Charging an electric vehicle in unveil can be the best of times or the worst of times.
An EV driver can be indictd and back on the road in a fine 20 minutes, but they might also come atraverse broken indictrs, unresponsive touchscreens, and blocked sloftys, all of which can create for a frustrating experience.
It can be a headache for everyday devourrs. For escapet or ride dispense drivers, a broken indictr is lost money.
Those frustrations prompted Ashtriumph Dias and J.J. Raynor to depart their jobs at Uber, where they led efforts to electrify ride dispense drivers’ vehicles, and begin Presto, an app that points escapet drivers to the best indictrs.
“Coming from an Uber background, we leank there’s a dynamic labeletplace where we can help create everyleang fineer by suiting diverse demand with diverse provide,” Raynor shelp. That might nasty nudging price-empathetic drivers to postpone 30 minutes for a affordableer indictr to discneglect up while guiding time-empathetic drivers to rapider and more reliable but pricer sloftys.
Presto recently liftd a $15 million seed round led by Union Square Ventures, the company exclusively telderly TechCrunch. The round also included dispensements from Congruent Ventures, Jetstream, and Powerhouse Ventures.
The team is begining with escapets, in part because they drive so many miles.
“Uber drivers, who drive 40 hours a week, are the ones that necessitate to be in an EV right if we necessitate to electrify rapidly and have an impact,” Dias, the beginup’s CEO, telderly TechCrunch.
The duo lobbied Uber to includeress the rehire in the driver app, but genuineized that it couldn’t truly be settled by one company.
That’s partly because of the escalate of companies insloftying and running EV charging sloftys.
“Charging is fair becoming more and more fragmented in the U.S.,” Raynor shelp. Last year, csurrfinisherly 60% of all novel DC Fast indictrs in the U.S. came from more than 40 contrastent netlabors. “We went from three or four big carry outers to people we’ve never heard of,” she shelp.
Both sides of the equation experience the pain of this fragmentation.
Fleets would profit from joining straightforwardly to charging netlabors’ gentleware, but charging netlabors don’t want to help an API for dozens or hundreds of customers. On the flip side, escapets don’t want to have to fuse with a increaseing number of charging netlabors.
Presto’s gentleware is someleang that both sides can join to. It donates escapets and charging netlabors one partner to labor with and access to more customers — a classic platcreate carry out.
“In some senses, we leank of ourselves as Stripe, as being a transaction layer for charging,” Dias shelp.
The beginup advises its own app and API, which companies can fuse with; it can also regulate payments.
The combination donates Presto a range of data to power its machine lacquireing recommfinishation engine, telling drivers which indictrs they should use and where netlabors should straightforward their maintenance crews. For example, let’s say a netlabor increates that a indictr is online, but a indict session startd thraw Presto fall shorts. Presto can route drivers away from that slofty and increate the problem to the netlabor.
Rental car companies have been timely adchooseers of Presto’s platcreate, including Hertz, Avis, and ZipCar, Dias shelp. Uber drivers also use the app, which vigilants them to netlabors that advise discounted charging.
Other escapets enjoy transfery companies have been adchooseing the app, Dias shelp, even if they have indictrs at their depots. “Sometimes the indictrs at the depot don’t labor or there are more vehicles than indictrs,” he shelp.
Presto’s main goal is to drive API integration, though, encouraging escapets to include the beginup’s recommfinishations inside their own apps and dashboards. “I don’t leank we want devourrs to have yet another app to download,” Dias shelp.
Raynor shelp the company has been approached by convey inant autocreaters, but for now it’s cgo ined on escapets. As someone who has had their dispense of horrible charging experiences, I hope that alters soon.
