A pair of young Honolulu entrepreneurs in their second year of business have already scored a number of firsts in Hawaii’s budding electric vehicle market.
Scott Mercer and Chris Ching, founders of Volta Technologies, installed the first EV charging station in the state in a public building last summer. On Sunday the two will be at Pearlridge Center to help unveil the first charging station at a shopping mall in Hawaii.
Until now the handful of charging stations around the state have been mostly installed at hotels and government buildings. And the ones available to the general public require either a parking fee or a charge for the electricity used.
Volta’s business model is the first in Hawaii to offer free charging and free parking as an incentive to attract customers to an establishment, Mercer said. The company also is the first to bring in sponsors to underwrite the cost of the charging stations.
"We looked to the online model and the way they use advertising," said Mercer. "It’s the Google model: Websites are sponsored by advertisers."
Under its business model Volta will install a charging kiosk at a shopping center and generate revenue from advertisers who pay to have their names on the units. Volta retains ownership of the charging units.
Volta’s main competitors in Hawaii for charging station installations are two companies that do business internationally, Better Place and AeroVironment. Both companies charge drivers a fee for plugging into their stations.
Fred Paine, Pearlridge manager, said the mall plans to promote the free charging stations on its website and in other marketing materials. Solar panel installer RevoluSun will sponsor one of the stations in exchange for being allowed to advertise on the unit.
The stations will be positioned at dedicated parking stalls. They will be available first-come, first-served during hours the mall is open, Paine said. One will be in the Pearlridge Uptown parking lot near the main food court entrance, and the other in the Pearlridge Downtown parking lot near the entrance closest to Cold Stone Creamery.
Volta, which has installed about 30 stations in Hawaii and California, has contracts to install them at four more Oahu shopping centers: Kahala Mall, Kailua Town Center, Kamehameha Shopping Center and Pearl Highlands Center. Volta is in talks with other mall owners and hopes to have about a dozen installed by April or May, Mercer said.
Volta assembles its charging kiosks by hand at a shop in Kakaako. The chargers use a standard plug that works with the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt. The electronic components are made by a mainland manufacturer, and the kiosk frame and cover are fabricated locally from stainless steel, Mercer said. Assembly is overseen by Volta’s chief engineer, Michael Menendez.
It was Menendez who found the space in Kakaako where Volta set up its shop. All of the kiosk assembly is done in the evening and early morning hours because during the day the location is used by an auto repair business.
Mercer and Ching, both 25, met each other as college students during a study-abroad program in Australia. Mercer was majoring in economics at the University of Colorado, and Ching in finance at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. Mercer is a Colorado native and Ching is from Honolulu.
"We were brainstorming about business ideas," Mercer said. "We were originally going to do something with a Kevlar-sole shoe, and then we came up with charging stations. We figured there wasn’t a model that solved the way to pay for charging stations, except to have the government pay for them. And that isn’t a sustainable model."
The company foresees a solid stream of business in Hawaii, in part because of a state law that requires all publicly accessible parking lots with 100 spaces or more to have at least one charging station, Mercer said.
Paine said the stations are a first for Pearlridge’s owner, Ohio-based Glimcher Realty Trust, which owns 24 malls around the country.
"Glimcher is a very forward-looking company," he said. The company last year installed a 4.8-megawatt solar array on its Jersey Gardens mall in Elizabeth, N.J., one of the nation’s largest solar projects on a commercial building.
"We’re really excited about the charging stations. Our owners are very proactive as far as energy goes."
RevoluSun officials said working with Volta gave them a chance to support a solid business model and get their message out.
"For us it makes sense to patriciate in their program," said Eric Carlson, a RevoluSun principal. "We’re glad they reached out to us in the beginning."
