Volta founder on strategies for electric vehicle charging stations

Scott Mercer, Founder and CEO of Volta, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss Biden’s EV push, consumer acceptance of electric vehicles, and future outlook on EV charging.

Video Transcript

- Welcome back. Last week, President Biden signed a new executive order, calling for up to half of new vehicle sales by 2030 to be comprised of electric vehicles. So let's talk about the future of EV.

We're joined now by Scott Mercer, founder and CEO of the EV charging station company, Volta. Great to have you here with us. So one of the biggest hurdles that has really been highlighted as essentially to the president, so President Biden's plan has been building up this network, this infrastructure of charging stations for these electric vehicles. How much money do you think we would need? What do you think it's going to take to really build up this infrastructure of electric charging stations, so that folks don't have to get anxiety of their car running out of juice on the way to their destination?

SCOTT MERCER: Certainly. Thank you for having me. I think it's really, at this point, about acceleration. You know, electric cars are becoming less expensive to manufacture than gas cars over this decade. Electricity is already cheaper than gas as fuel, and with these mandates, now, the question is, really, how quickly can you build critical fueling infrastructure in the electrification system to replace gasoline?

- Now, Scott, I guess, I just want to ask you about the plug then, right now, that you need to fill there. Because, obviously, the aspiration to get to a certain amount of electric vehicles by X year implies that you also need to have X amount of charge stations at that point as well. And I believe that the statistics, at least, on your side the business, you've got about 1,700 EV chargers right now. You hope to have 3,000 by the end of 2021. Is that going to be enough to service, or is that going to be on the road to getting enough in place by the time the White House hopes to have X amount of vehicles on the road by then?

SCOTT MERCER: Oh, there is a massive acceleration in the number of ports needed as we start to move towards scale adoption of EVs. But the key for Volta is we focus not on the number, the quantity of ports, or the speed of the chargers. We focus on the energy we can deliver per dollar of capital we deploy and on the return that we can get from each dollar of capital we deploy, both for Volta and for our partners. So that energy delivery is key, how many gasoline fueled miles can you replace with electrically powered miles as efficiently as possible when building the infrastructure.

- Scott, how do you think that we can get consumer acceptance of a plan, like this, and to get folks really on board with purchasing electric vehicles, and not worried so much about their ability to charge?

SCOTT MERCER: Yeah, I think that the vehicles need from a consumer standpoint to be three things. They need to be exciting, or cool, or something that people really are happy about. And we're seeing a massive sort of breath of electric vehicle options out there. They need to be inexpensive, and we're watching the price of the vehicles fall over the next several years. And they need to be dependable, and that's really where building that public EV charging grid comes in.

How do you put EV charging stations at locations that people can depend on? How do you put them in locations that people find convenient? So for us, really, getting that infrastructure out now is the critical piece of that puzzle to focus on.

- Scott, where are the areas of focus in terms of developing the infrastructure in places where it's not as developed? And, I mean, specifically, geographically. Is it in certain rural areas? Is it in certain cities, where it might be hard to find parking lots to even put these chargers? Where do you see the specific geographic areas, where there really is opportunity to build it up here?

SCOTT MERCER: Our focus is really on locations in which we see demand from electrification over time, and the fun thing for me has been to see that shift from being a coastal strategy to being something that is national and something that is really truly about sophistication of the revenue streams you can get from charging and of scale. So for us, we think of that, over the next several years, as you see EV's fall below the cost of gas cars, electric vehicle drivers will be, like, cell phone owners or people who use the internet. It will be truly ubiquitous, and it will happen faster than you think.

- Well, can I just drill down on that? I guess, because what's been interesting, I see that your focused on maybe looking at Whole Foods or Macy's, Kohl's, places, where people might be shopping and can leave their car for a little while. Is that a better strategy in, let's say, more suburban areas than they would be in more urban areas? Do you feel like there's actually a tailored approach that you could have to targeting, OK, if this is an area that needs more chargers, we should target these types of businesses or locations as opposed to those?

SCOTT MERCER: Yeah, I think for Volta, our strategy is matching charging locations to visit behavior. So not necessarily providing the fastest charging, but putting charging out that matches how long someone is going to stay at the property. And then on creating revenue streams from that charging infrastructure that are more diverse and more sustainable than just the energy side alone. So we're looking at where people will go, and what they'll do while they charge their car.

We don't think you should sit in your car and charge. We think charging should really be a five second activity, plugging in right before you go into a restaurant, into a grocery store, into a drugstore. It could be anywhere from a 20 minute session or a 10 minute session all the way up to a two hour session if you're at the movie theater. We just don't think it should interrupt your daily life.

- And Scott, Volta is set to go public. Can you give us any insights as to what we can expect when that happens?

SCOTT MERCER: Yeah, we're very excited. We're going public. The ticker for the business combination, right now, is SNPR. For us, the focus going forward is really on that national footprint, building out the infrastructure, and on creating a sustainable revenue base. I mean, Volta is, I think, on par a little larger than the revenue of our two next largest charging network owner operators combined. So it is about building a sustainable business quickly.

- All right, Scott Mercer, founder and CEO of Volta. Thanks so much for joining us.