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David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
Why buy when you can rent? That’s the question behind a new business model rapidly gaining popularity among transportation companies looking to transition to electric vehicles. The “Transportation as a Service” (Taas) or “Fleet as a Service” (…FlaaS?) solution offers a way for companies to cut carbon emissions from their operations without investing millions into new vehicles and charging infrastructure.
It's a decidedly un-sexy facet of the electric vehicle market, but that’s sort of the whole gambit: A low-risk path into reducing emissions without radically changing day-to-day operations. The general structure of the arrangement goes something like this: A transportation as a service company buys electric vehicles from a manufacturer. It could be a delivery van, a shuttle bus, a Class 8 semi-truck, or whatever else might be in demand. The TaaS company builds the infrastructure to charge, maintain, and store the vehicles while recouping their investment through leases to clients who want to move people or freight on an electrified platform.
For medium-sized transportation companies that can’t afford to invest millions into a new fleet, as well as new chargers and personnel, the arrangement offers a viable path to electrification and achieving environmental, social and governance goals. Not to mention, a way to test the waters before making a larger investment—a way to “try before you buy.” In addition to the environmental benefits, switching to electric also allows transportation companies to access financial incentives like California’s low carbon fuel standard, which pays companies to reduce emissions. For equipment manufacturers, the model provides another buyer and a proving ground for their tech. The TaaS company functions as the middleman and collects money on the leases.
In Southern California there’s a number of companies entering this space from different angles. In Inglewood, Zeem Solutions is operating as a TaaS company with a depot of 77 vehicles ranging from Class 2 and 3 electric vans all the way up to class 7 and 8 tractor trailers. In July, Zeem secured a $50 million capital investment from Affiliates of ArcLight Capital Partners, which CEO Paul Gioupis plans to use to build their fleet to over 100 vehicles by the end of the year. By the end of 2023, he hopes that number will be closer to 400-500.
The plans for growth may seem aggressive, but Gioupis says the demand is astronomical. The limiting factor is supply. Zeem is technology agnostic, meaning the company will use any battery, vehicle, charger or platform as long as there’s demand for it and the engineering meets their standards. Their current crop of offerings come from Lightning Systems, Volvo and Green Power, as well as four partnerships with Southern Californian companies Xos, SEA Electric, Phoenix Motors and Maxwell. This complicates life for the company as a depot since the operators have to learn the specifics of each platform for the purpose of maintenance and repairs. But it also gives Zeem the flexibility to work with any number of manufacturers on the market so they can offer whatever sort of vehicle clients need. So far, Zeem has found a niche in large airport-shuttle-style vans due to their proximity to LAX: 54 of its vehicles currently fit that description. But Gioupis says they’re seeing incredible demand for class 8 big rigs as well.
Class 8 trucks are designed to pull loads in excess of 33,000lbs; doing that with batteries is no small feat. But Los Angeles-based Xos is one of several startups throwing their hat into the ring. The electric truck company also makes a suite of other electric platforms including a delivery “step van” and a class 6/7 that can haul up to 33,000 lbs. Xos doesn’t publicly say exactly how many vehicles they’ve sold, but Head of Strategy Ivan Goldensohn says the number is in the hundreds, 90% of which are step vans. Their biggest clients, by far, are FedEx independent service providers.
Goldensohn takes great pride in the company’s pragmatic and plain approach to electrifying the industry. Xos isn’t concerned with adding autonomous driving as a feature (anymore); it’s not interested in futuristic designs or flashy technology. In fact, other than the lack of a tail pipe or exhaust stack, there’s almost nothing that would indicate to an observer that the vehicles are even electric. “We're focused on building trucks that people use right now,” says Goldensohn. “And what we see from the customers is that they aren't coming to us and saying, ‘Hey, we want a massaging seat with a light show and a projected GPS module on the windscreen or whatever.’ They're saying, ‘Can they be cost competitive? Can they save us on total cost of ownership? And can we use them right now?’”
The Xos partnership with Zeem was a logical one for both parties. This past July, Zeem purchased 10 of the step vans to validate and test the tech. Three have been delivered to date. So far, the experiment is going well and there are plans to expand the partnership, the details of which are still being hashed out. But Gioupis sounds like he believes there might be an opportunity to electrify drayage operations using Xos’ class 8 platform. Drayage—the movement of goods off ships and around ports and onto trains or long-haul tractor trailers—is a key target for electrification. Often referred to as “first-mile” transport, drayage trips are typically short, meaning range isn’t as much of a factor. Charging infrastructure can simply be installed in the port and at destinations. “You're at the same depot, you're at the same location every day,” explains Goldensohn. “It's only one place you have to put infrastructure.” And because drayage trucks spend a considerable amount of time idling, stopping, and accelerating, switching to electric represents a real chance to meaningfully reduce carbon emissions and pollution.
If Zeem’s expansion plans go as intended, the company will compete with yet another Southern California tech startup, WattEV, in the drayage space. Based in El Segundo, WattEV is another TaaS company that’s building charging depots at drayage hubs around southern California with the goal of electrifying first mile transport and adding 12,000 trucks to the road by 2030. Their pilot program is already running in Bakersfield, with plans to expand to three additional sites by mid-2023 and over a hundred locations by 2035.
Zeem’s expansion plans are equally as ambitious, with plans to expand to 50 locations in multiple sites over the next three years. “We're not Hercules over here. We understand what would be required to do something like that,” says Gioupis.
As they expand nationally, Zeem will face competition from companies like Terawatt Infrastructure, the newly minted unicorn based in San Francisco. As well as NextEra Energy in Palm Beach Florida. In terms of funding, Zeem sits solidly in the middle, having raised 65 million to date–a far cry from Terawatt’s billion, but dramatically more than the $500,000 that NextEra has raised. Still, Gioupis doesn’t seem too worried by the funding mismatch. He believes Zeem has a leg up on competitors due to the company’s deep knowledge of the equipment that comes from his past experience working as a private equity investor and an investment banker in the EV sector. “Everybody may know stuff about chargers, or grid, or maybe a little bit of the stuff in between,” he says. “I would argue that there is a lack of knowledge around the equipment. We know the vehicles extremely well. We know all the OEMs extremely well.”
Assuming the supply chain eventually does recover and manufacturers like Xos can deliver more and more trucks, the tides certainly seem to be rising rapidly in the TaaS sector. Even the state of California is adding fuel to the fire: Earlier this month the California Air Resources Board (CARB) announced a $25 million dollar fund dedicated to helping small businesses transition to electric fleets. Dubbed the Innovative Small E-Fleet (ISEF), the fund is available to privately owned trucking companies with fleets smaller than 20 vehicles and making less than $15 million in annual revenue.
“ISEF incentive funding will allow small fleet owner/operators to utilize flexible financing, lease, rental, and truck-as-a-service options, as well as offset infrastructure/charger costs, insurance, and fuel costs,” said CARB in a press release. The initiative is being administered by CALSTART, a national clean transportation nonprofit consortium, and Niki Okuk, Deputy Director, Trucks and Off Road at CALSTART confirmed to dot.LA that both Zeem and WattEV were approved providers eligible to participate in the program. “We're seeing such amazing developments,” says Okuk. “When I started Castro three years ago, there was one electric class eight truck in our catalog. And now there's a half a dozen and every year the ranges are improving. The vehicles that used to be able to serve only the most local duty cycles are able to go further and haul more.”
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
According to a Forbes report last April, both the viewership and dollars behind women’s sports at a collegiate and professional level are growing.
In 2022, the first 32 games of the NCAA tournament had record attendance levels, breaking records set back in 2004, and largely driven by the new and rapidly growing women’s NCAA tournament. WNBA openers this year saw a 21% spike in attendance, with some teams including the LA Sparks reporting triple-digit ticket sales growth, about 121% over 2022’s total. In 2023, the average size of an LA Sparks crowd swelled to 10,396 people, up from 4,701 people.
Women make up half the population, but “also 50% of the folks that are walking into the stadium at Dodger Stadium, or your NFL fans are just about 50% women,” noted Erin Storck, a panelist and senior analyst at Los Angeles-based Elysian Park Ventures.
Storck added that in heterosexual households, women generally manage most of the family’s money, giving them huge purchasing power, a potential advantage for female-run leagues. “There's an untapped revenue opportunity,” she noted.
In the soccer world, Los Angeles-based women’s soccer team Angel City FC has put in the work to become a household name, not just in LA County but across the nation. At an LA Tech Week panel hosted by Athlete Strategies about investing in sports, Angel City head of strategy and chief of staff Kari Fleischauer said that years before launching the women’s National Women’s Soccer League team, Angel City FC was pounding the pavement letting people know about the excitement ladies soccer can bring. She noted community is key, and that fostering a sense of engagement and safety at the team’s home venue, BMO stadium (formerly Banc of California Stadium), is one reason fans keep coming back.
Adding free metro rides to BMO stadium and private rooms for nursing fans to breastfeed or fans on the spectrum to avoid sensory overload, were just some of the ways ACFC tried to include its community in the concept of its stadium, Fleischauer said. She noted, though, that roughly 46% of Angel City fans are “straight white dudes hanging out with their bros.”
“Particularly [on] the woman's side, I'd like to think we do a better job of making sure that there's spaces for everyone,” Fleischauer told the audience. “One thing we realize is accessibility is a huge thing.”
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
L.A. Tech Week has brought venture capitalists, founders and entrepreneurs from around the world to the California coast. With so many tech nerds in one place, it's easy to laugh, joke and reminisce about the future of tech in SoCal.
Here's what people are saying about the fifth day of L.A. Tech Week on social:
#LATechWeek has been on 🔥🔥🔥. Yes the events are super cool at amazing venues. But, I’m blown away by the people. I’ve met so many founders building generative AI companies from the ground up. I’m so bullish on LA right now🥳. LA is for builders #longLA
Thanks @rpnickson 📸 pic.twitter.com/B6rT2jJYIs
— Dr. Kelly O'Brien (@Kvo2013) June 8, 2023
Successful LatinxVC Avanza Summit 2023 in LA! It’s been an amazing few days near the beach w great company. Thank you to our panelists & participants.
Huge thanks to our incredible sponsors SVB, Chavez Family Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, PledgeLA, Fenwick & West, Countsy! pic.twitter.com/oVuGIgFurk
— LatinxVC (@LatinxVCs) June 9, 2023
30+ gaming startups presented at the A16z Speedrun Demo Day in LA yesterday. Great thanks to the @a16zGames team for an awesome day of events! #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/DKq8IFo5QZ
— Grace Zhou (@graceminzhou) June 9, 2023
📣🤩 What’s the buzz? It’s #LATechWeek from @TechstarsLA & @TechstarsHealth joint demo day with the #Techstar HC team where our @fyelabs founder/CEO Suvojit Ghosh mentored both cohorts! #TechStars demo day highlighted 12 amazing emerging #startups in #healthtech #innovation. 🩺 pic.twitter.com/0RXClCtfDQ
— FYELABS (@fyelabs) June 9, 2023
Another successful Coffee On Slauson in the books for #LATechWeek.
Special thanks to the good people at Pledge LA, SVB and @GundersonLaw for the ongoing support and the @findyourhilltop staff for providing the space, eats & vibes. ♻️ pic.twitter.com/51cMDoEn30
— Slauson & Co. (@SlausonAndCo) June 9, 2023
The perfect combo to start #LATechWeek Day 5: pastries, coffee, and great convos with industry founders ✨
Fireside chats with @enriquealle, @wp, and @robynpark pic.twitter.com/booYPdekVV
— Tech Week (@Techweek_) June 9, 2023
Of course @designerfund has the most amazing pastries at their event. #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/PjyWlGTQI4
— Jesse Pickard (@jessepickard) June 9, 2023
My favorite event from @Techweek_ has to be "Modern Storytelling & Business Building." Hosted by @STHoward #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/SV1eexMJ4k
— JonnyZeller (@JonnyZeller) June 9, 2023
And the finale of the night was courtesy of the one and only @zedd for an unforgettable end to the "City of Games" party! Hosted by @a16zGames and @100Thieves #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/hliI9yLKse
— Tech Week (@Techweek_) June 9, 2023
Excited to be at the @a16zGames Speedrun Demo Day! Loved the energy and excitement from the companies that pitched there. It was also great to see @Tocelot and @ndrewlee at this amazing #LATechWeek event pic.twitter.com/NfLQO5lR27
— Andy Lee | andypwlee.bit (@andypwlee) June 9, 2023
Thank you to everyone who joined the Sony Venture Fund US team at #LATechWeek for our screening of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Last summer, we started building a presence in LA. Today, it's exciting to host such an event with the @Sony family and the LA VC community. pic.twitter.com/wdDm6qtHdL
— Sony Innovation Fund (@Sony_Innov_Fund) June 9, 2023
Time to eat, connect and build while @remi_rodney provided the vibes. 🙏🏽#LATechWeek @BuildOnBase @developer_dao @WeAreRazorfish pic.twitter.com/QIPh1gjvoA
— Hola Metaverso-Blockchain & New Web Tech Events 🎪 (@holametaverso) June 9, 2023
@Lux_Capital at #LATechWeek advancing the impossible to inevitable, from..
..defense primes partnering with cutting edge defense tech startups, to..
..hardware x LLMs improving mental health.
From the rich and diverse LA ecosystem stems generational companies: pic.twitter.com/v5S5r8JtbU
— Shahin Farshchi (@Farshchi) June 9, 2023
LA Tech Week has been a blast! Met some amazing creators, founders and investors from all over the world! #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/AAh9JFELhe
— Chris Germano (@netslayer) June 9, 2023
Had such a blast at LA Tech Week and hosting events for @brexHQ
Top highlights were collabing with @pulley on an Emerging Managers / Founder mixer at the @poplco House, rooftop event in Venice, creator panel with @thechangj & proper Korean food with in KTown.
Exhausted is an… pic.twitter.com/mGQnSYGPdg
— Τyler Robinson (@TyyRob3) June 9, 2023
Did you have fun at @sophiaamoruso’s launch party for @trustfundvc? #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/gbrbXRQ9Xx
— Kay (@KaySnels) June 9, 2023
y00tilty in every city with @KaylaLor3n & @cryptochrisg813.
Welcome to the LA @y00tsNFT fam! #LATechWeek #3XP week. pic.twitter.com/6wWKlsTacx
— VanG0xH (@CryptoVanGoghs) June 9, 2023
Really enjoyed #LATechWeek. Here are some observations I made 👇
— s.personal.ai (Suman Kanuganti) (@SumanPersonalAI) June 9, 2023
Thank you @TheKofiAmpadu for including me in #demoday with the latest @a16ztxo cohort! It was a real full circle moment to witness the brilliance of both @ChrisLyons & @ZMuse_ & #PledgeLA very own. She’s why we’re #LongLA 🚀💕 #LAtechweek pic.twitter.com/itkKXMxQRb
— Qiana Qiana! (@Q_i_a_n_a) June 9, 2023
@upfrontvc Gaming Founders Podcast #iLOVELA #LATechWeek @Techweek_ @KatiaAmeri @mucker @fikavc @bonfire_vc @TenOne10 @WatertowerGroup @ganasvc @IAmRobRyan @john_at_stonks @eva_ho @dereknorton pic.twitter.com/LCbaGXCoW7
— Sean Goldfaden (@seangoldfaden) June 9, 2023
Hosts Kevin Zhang, Partner at @upfrontvc, and Eden Chen, CEO of @pragmaplatform, interviewed two special guests from @raidbaseinc Stephen Lim, Co-Founder & Product Director, and Trevor Romleski, Co-Founder & Game Director. 🎙 #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/hxHEAoELZ6
— Tech Week (@Techweek_) June 9, 2023
Kicking off @a16zGames @100Thieves City of Games party at #LATechWeek 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/zQcZedG15f
— Jon Lai (@Tocelot) June 9, 2023
Yesterday at @socinnovation I got to have this AWESOME conversation with @iamwill — musician, producer, technology entrepreneur, and Founder & CEO of https://t.co/D60y1e2JOu #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/KBxK6rXyTG
— Anna Barber (@annawbarber) June 9, 2023
I absolutely love this game. Proud moment for the team @investwithatlas. #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/fPZvKXU7TC
— Tobias Francis (@TobiasFrancis) June 9, 2023
Had a blast at LA Tech Week this year with @brexHQ
From hosting & moderating my first creator panel featuring @BlakeMichael14, to a fun rooftop night in Venice, and to attending some amazing events such as Watertower’s emerging manager panel and a VC/founder tennis tournament pic.twitter.com/udjfmLHE0L
— Jonathan Chang (@thechangj) June 8, 2023
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
At Lowercarbon Capital’s LA Tech Week event Thursday, the synergy between the region’s aerospace industry and greentech startups was clear.
The event sponsored by Lowercarbon, Climate Draft (and the defunct Silicon Valley Bank’s Climate Technology & Sustainability team) brought together a handful of local startups in Hawthorne not far from LAX, and many of the companies shared DNA with arguably the region’s most famous tech resident: SpaceX.
Here’s a look at the greentech startups that pitched during the Tech Week event, and how they think what they’re building could help solve the climate crisis.
Arbor: Based in El Segundo, this year-old startup is working to convert organic waste into energy and fresh water. At the same time, it also uses biomass carbon removal and storage to remove carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it in an attempt to avoid further damaging the earth’s ozone layer. At the Tech Week event Thursday, Arbor CEO Brad Hartwig told a stunned crowd that Arbor aims to remove about five billion tons of organic waste from landfills and turn that into about 6 PWh, or a quarter of the global electricity need, each year. Hartwig is an alumni of SpaceX; he was a manufacturing engineer on the Crew Dragon engines from 2016-2018 and later a flight test engineer at Kitty Hawk.
Antora: Sunnyvale-based Antora Energy was founded in 2017, making it one of the oldest companies on the pitching block during the event. Backed by investors including the National Science Foundation and Los Angeles-based Overture VC, Antora has raised roughly $57 million to date, most recently a $50 million round last February. Chief operating officer Justin Briggs said Antora’s goal is to modernize and popularize thermal energy storage using ultra-hot carbon. Massive heated carbon blocks can give off thermal energy, which Antora’s proprietary batteries then absorb and store as energy. It’s an ambitious goal, but one the world needs at scale to green its energy footprint. According to Briggs, “the biggest challenge is how can we turn back variable intermittent renewable electricity into something that's reliable and on demand, so we can use it to provide energy to everything we need.”
Arc: Hosting the panel was Arc, an electric boating company that’s gained surprising momentum, moving from design to delivering its first e-boats in just two years of existence. Founded in 2021, the company’s already 70 employees strong and has already sold some of its first e-boats to customers willing to pay the luxury price tag, CTO Ryan Cook said Thursday. Cook said that to meet the power needs of a battery-powered speedboat, the Arc team designed the vehicle around the battery pack with the goal of it being competitive with gas boats when compared to range and cost of gas. But on the pricing side, it’s not cheap. Arc’s flagship vessel, the Arc One is expected to cost roughly $300,000. During the panel, Cook compared the boat to being “like an early Tesla Roadster.” To date Arc Boats has raised just over $35 million, according to PitchBook, from investors including Kevin Durant, Will Smith and Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Clarity Technology: Carbon removal startup Clarity is based in LA and was founded by Yale graduate and CEO Glen Meyerowitz last year. Clarity is working to make “gigaton solutions for gigaton problems.” Their aim? To remove up to 2,000 billion pounds of carbon from the atmosphere through direct air capture, a process which uses massive fans to move chemicals that capture CO2. But the challenge, Meyerowitz noted in his speech, is doing this at scale in a way that makes an actual dent in the planet’s emissions while also efficiently using the electricity needed to do so. Meyerowitz spent nearly five years working as an engineer for SpaceX in Texas, and added he’s looking to transfer those learnings into Clarity.
Parallel Systems: Based in Downtown LA’s Arts District, this startup is building zero-emission rail vehicles that are capable of long-haul journeys otherwise done by a trucking company. The estimated $700 billion trucking industry, Parallel Systems CEO Matt Soule said, is ripe for an overhaul and could benefit from moving some of its goods off-road to electric railcars. According to Soule, Parallel’s electric battery-powered rail vehicles use 25% of the energy a semi truck uses, and at a competitive cost. Funded in part by a February 2022 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, Parallel Systems has raised about $57 million to date. Its most recent venture funding round was a $49 million Series A led by Santa Monica-based VC Anthos Capital. Local VCs including Riot Ventures and Santa Monica-based Embark Ventures are also backers of Parallel.
Terra Talent: Unlike the rest of the startups pitching at the Tech Week event, Terra Talent was focused on building teams rather than technology. Founder Dolly Singh worked at SpaceX, Oculus and Citadel as a headhunter, and now runs Terra, a talent and advisory firm that helps companies recruit top talent in the greentech space. But, she said, she’s concerned that all the work these startups are doing won’t matter unless we very quickly turn around the current trendlines. “Earth will shake us off like and she will do just fine in 10,000 years,” she said. “It’s our way of living, everything we love is actually here on earth… there’s nothing I love on Mars,” adding that she’s hopeful the startups that pitched during the event will be instrumental in making sure the planet stays habitable for a little while longer.
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.