Volta Industries, Inc., an industry leader in commerce-centric electric vehicle (EV) charging networks, announced a strategic partnership with StreetLight Data, Inc., the leader in big data analytics for mobility, to use their combined analytics for the intelligent deployment of EV infrastructure. The partnership is intended to spur public sector agencies, utilities, transportation planners and engineering firms, among others, to accelerate EV adoption through Volta’s PredictEV™ SaaS solution and StreetLight’s industry leading mobility data.
PredictEV™ is a machine-learning tool that helps utilities, municipalities and companies predict electric vehicle adoption and demand for EV charging. Through this partnership, Volta Charging will provide its PredictEV™ tool to StreetLight customers needing comprehensive, data-driven analytics to intelligently place hundreds of thousands of EV chargers. StreetLight will also provide Volta Charging with opportunities to expand its market footprint across the U.S. through increased collaboration with transportation planners, engineering firms and public agencies focused on transportation electrification.
StreetLight CEO Laura Schewel said, “When I started StreetLight over 10 years ago, site selection for EVs was a prime use case and I am excited to partner with Volta Charging to help organizations accelerate their ability to capitalize on the electrification of transportation as it is one of the largest macroeconomic shifts of the century.”
EV adoption has reached a tipping point and building out a nationwide charging infrastructure is necessary to enable mass adoption of electric transportation. EV chargers deployed at scale are a new infrastructure “asset class,” and their rollout affects more than just transportation; electrical grids, utilities and the entities “hosting” chargers, be it retailers, employers, or residential complexes, are impacted. Optimizing charger deployment for the grid, the transportation system, site hosts and consumers requires new data sources and analytics.
“PredictEV™ uses an extensive dataset based on a wide number of parameters—from driving patterns to population distribution to dwell time at locations,” said Praveen Mandal, Chief Technology Officer of Volta Charging. “Our partnership with StreetLight is intended to take PredictEV™ to the next level by leveraging the industry’s best source for transportation data.”
Machine learning and artificial intelligence play integral roles in optimizing the expansion of Volta Charging’s charging network. Ultimately, both StreetLight and Volta Charging want to build a charging network that is designed to deliver an optimal experience for drivers, to be capital efficient and to deliver the most electric miles per dollar invested. This all starts with leveraging PredictEV™ to place stations in locations where people visit, shop and spend time.
