The hardest part of charging an electric car is how long it takes. Sure, you can plug it in at home overnight, but if you’re running low on charge while you’re driving, you’ll quickly realize that the public charging infrastructure is disturbingly insufficient, even in places like San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
That’s why every country on the planet is trying to build networks of chargers across the country. One of those companies is Volta, a San Francisco-based startup that approaches the game with a different business model.
It doesn’t provide free charging as a perk of buying an EV like Tesla does, or charge the customer for the electricity consumed. Instead, the chargers have ads on them! In what they call a “sponsored service” model, the advertising pays for the charging sessions, sort of like a billboard that charges.
They’ve already set up these self-serving chargers in 110 locations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, and Honolulu, and hope to expand the network, both within those cities and beyond them, to 400 units, using $12.5 million in equity and debt financing.
It’s a great way to urge parkers to pay for their own charging sessions and an interesting way to use the ad-viewer’s attention as currency! Even if no one ever charges at Volta’s chargers, it still gets paid by the advertisers. The viewership of the ads on the chargers will be maximized by the chargers by choosing good locations, but it also works as a silent pitch to property owners and parking operators nearby because of the near-zero cost to them.
Also Read: Wireless EV Charging Is Around the Corner
In the future, all charging stations will have ads on them! In a world where an ad viewing equals to actual currency, it’s interesting to see how the world of parking and mobility will soon be swarming in ads.
