SparkCharge

A startup called SparkCharge recently took home the top, $1 million prize at a Buffalo, New York, competition called 43North. Founder and CEO Joshua Aviv says the company’s device is intended to relieve range anxiety, an ailment suffered by electric vehicle drivers who worry they’ll be stranded if their charge runs out.

SparkCharge‘s technology consists of a backpack-sized case of lithium ion batteries. You fire up an app to have the case delivered to a location, it charges the car quickly, and you’re rolling again, at a cost of about $20 for 100 miles of juice.

“It’s super small. It’s super lightweight and it’s modular,” Aviv explained. “It’s meant to be connectable. Think of it as LEGO blocks: You can connect as many blocks as you want to get the desired range.”

Aviv, 26, of Syracuse, N.Y., says SparkCharge plans to use its winnings to hire about 90 staff as it expands into a relationship with a roadside assistance company, and manufacture the devices out of Buffalo. SparkCharge hopes to ship 1,000 units by the end of 2019.

On-demand delivery is the way electric vehicles should be charged, rather than relying on stations scattered here and there, the CEO says.

Of course, SparkCharge is starting small. But ideally, the goal is to partner with taxi services like Uber or Lyft and roadside assistance companies.

We’ll have this really good landscape, so EV owners can have a charge delivered to them wherever or whenever they want … It’s the way that the infrastructure should be. It’s the way that life is going. If you want a pizza, you open up your phone, you hit a button and it’s delivered. We thought, ‘Why can’t we do that for electric vehicles?’

Aviv says he too suffers from range anxiety. He drives a Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt, and recalls extra hours spent on road trips because he to had to stop frequently for charging sessions that took hours. SparkCharge can reportedly provide 1 mile of charge in 60 seconds, at a rate that’s 14 times faster than a typical home-based unit.

SparkCharge, with its recent $1 million infusion, hopes to go live in early 2019. It’s taking pilot signups on its website. People who sign up will be invited to download the app and receive a “substantial, first-come package,” Aviv says.

The company is working out of Greentown Labs, a clean tech co-working space in Boston.

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