Attack of the High-Voltage Zombies – Electrify America and Stable Announce Robotic Fast-Charging for Autonomous EVs

How are you going to sell services and deliver goods to unemployed people?

Electrify America today announced a deal with San Francisco-based electric vehicle (EV) fleet charging company Stable Auto to install robotic charging for self-driving vehicles in a pilot demonstration site in San Francisco. Both companies want to develop the as yet unknown infrastructure needed to deploy self-driving and electric vehicle fleets.

Electrify America has provided two 150kW DC fast chargers to Stable’s charging facility for initial development work behind demonstrating the commercial viability of autonomous charging services for self-driving EVs. Thereby begins another job-destroying Green Economy effort. The zombies in this case are dead unemployed people.

Electrify America and Stable want to make money on the emergence of both electric and autonomous vehicle fleets. They are jointly working to address the absence of dedicated charging facilities equipped for such vehicles with this demonstration.

No minimum wage or benefits required for this “worker.”

The pilot in San Francisco aimed at charging autonomous EVs without human intervention using a robotic solution attached to a 150kW DC fast charger. This charging location will be Stable’s first commercial autonomous charging site and could open in early 2020.  As part of this agreement, Electrify America will evaluate the hardware, network, operations and billing of its charging systems for autonomous charging fleets.

Stable will manage the overall project and pair its robotic technology and scheduling software located at its facility with Electrify America’s chargers. The dedicated fleet-charging facility will allow self-driving EV fleets to charge with no operators present: vehicles can park themselves anywhere inside a standard parking space, and Stable’s robot will automate the connection between the vehicle and the charger.

Stable has selected Black & Veatch to be the engineering company for this project. Stable pointed to Black & Veatch’s experience in delivering global infrastructure items for “cleantech transportation markets” as a factor for its selection for the role.

As a part of Electrify America’s so-called Cycle 2 plans, the company announced will conduct autonomous charging demonstrations to better understand the optimal charging site design, hardware and back-end support. Information from this first site will also help both companies evaluate appropriate business models for different autonomous fleet holders across various locations at commercial scale.