JT Franklin from Franklin's Charging

[00:00:02] Listeners, I'm joined today by JT from Franklins Charging. JT has an awesome charging business that kind of came across a rich land, Kyle Conner's Out of spec YouTube page and thankfully I was able to reach out to him and JT decided to join us today for today's episode.

[00:00:19] So JT, thank you for joining us and can you just give us a real quick intro about how this whole started and what you're doing right now? Absolutely, hey, Tase. We started, I started, I should say, looking at DC fast charging infrastructure and

[00:00:38] charging infrastructure in general around 2010, 2011 when I became aware of what Tesla was doing and coming to market and thinking, you know, if these guys are crazy enough to actually pull it off then there's going to be a great need for, you know, the Navy,

[00:00:53] Navy and our Johnson's of the next generation and I fancy myself is a jerk like figure. So I was like, okay, let's look into it. So that's when we really started kind of looking at how do you make this work and of course

[00:01:05] on the front end there's a lot of naive ties when you're background as biology and chemistry and you know, just then starting to get into a nice school, I was a school teacher, teaching biology in physical science and started really trying to get into, okay, how do

[00:01:21] you make something like that work and so in the meantime, I thought, well, I need to be more financially literate. So put myself through an MBA at nine school while I was teaching and focused

[00:01:31] on Tesla and then focus my business modeling on how do you charge these things and actually make any kind of money off? I think that's a great overview and what you hit on there at the end is probably one of

[00:01:46] the biggest questions a lot of people have about the space and I think it's great to hear that obviously it's taken some hard knocks but definitely went in with a plan and what you're

[00:01:57] being able to do and kind of now scaling up is already generating quite a bit of revenue and obviously a lot of interest. So I think just with all of that, can you talk about,

[00:02:08] I think really what kind of made you, when you're doing all this research, what made you decide that charging was what was needed and more charging locations. And I think specifically the way you approach it is really interesting because it's more in like the traditional,

[00:02:27] I would say maybe even high tier but like traditional gas station experience where there's there's things there and I know that's so I'm sure because you have a lot more than that just

[00:02:36] at your location. So I would love to kind of hear how you got to that and then some of these supplementary businesses that you've built on the actual locations as well to really make it a awesome place for

[00:02:50] EV chargers and even people just in the area to stop buying check out. Yeah, Chase. I mean that's you started looking at cash flows and you can put all the numbers you want to together before you

[00:03:02] start and again, I was very naive to what are demand chargers or what I'm actually paying on a commercial setup for kilowatt hours. So I did as much background research as I could but was

[00:03:14] still fairly green coming into this whole thing. And so it's basically like once we were able to raise the capital to actually do the build out of our first station here in Litterock, I'd already acquired that land and then subsequently acquired the shop next door to that

[00:03:33] at my lady's a potter and so if you've seen the call counter video thing you know that we have an artist kilowatt next door now will we put that commercial project together first and I gave

[00:03:43] them a sweet heart deal on a lease? Well that's the cash flow, right? So you start putting these cash flows together everything goes into a pot and because you know on the front end that it's going

[00:03:51] to be very difficult to try and drive enough traffic to your location to be able to make the cash flows work for just the charging end of it. I knew that before I ever even got started and so originally

[00:04:04] we had planned our Litterock location to be a restaurant when I was seeking financing I've spent a lot of time in my younger years in the restaurant industry and so thought okay well you

[00:04:15] know you put booze and food together and if you're lucky enough to be able to make your margins on the food then the booze should follow and you make pretty good margins on that so that would maybe

[00:04:27] support our charging habit. And so once we were actually able to raise the capital the plan changed and it was like okay let's not do that let's do more of an kind of an autonomous all-hours

[00:04:38] lobby with you know the vending machine and that kind of thing so let's talk about ancillary cash flows we made sure that we had air stations slash vacuum on site and motorock which is

[00:04:48] actually a little beast as far as money making. We have the the vending machine we just now open our coffee bar three days three mornings a week when they once they fry the in Litterock

[00:05:00] and really try to kind of get you know all of our methods behind us on that I was never a bereaved of but you know the marketer so that's it's it's it's fair you know fairly similar kind of

[00:05:11] job a job description there but any house so kind of just putting all those together and then it was like okay well we need another big cash flow or and so the Litterock location

[00:05:23] again with my biology background chemistry background I thought I found this this company I've been watching them for a long time in freight farms and so I thought you know it would be super cool

[00:05:33] to be a farmer at the same time that we are farming electricity and so in that and so they not to catch you off I think for anyone listening who might not be familiar with freight farms

[00:05:46] because it is an amazing company it's when I've been following for what a while too and I think what makes it so fascinating is essentially these large dropship containers that have small

[00:05:58] farms ready to go that you can start growing quite a few different crops that I can you maybe explain a little bit more about that and how you can evolve with them.

[00:06:08] Sure like said that's with the with the background that I already had and then on the front of my teaching career I'd use a small grant about a little hydroponics that up for my kids and we

[00:06:18] we mess with that for years and I never could really get that going when I found freight farms and started watching what they were doing and then finally we decided we were going to go ahead

[00:06:26] and do the development here and we're lucky enough to do that I thought okay instead of the restaurant let's be farmers because that's fun everybody loves it in a way and potentially

[00:06:37] that would be a good cash flow machine so you know we just we just went for it and at that point we found out that there was probably for us anyway there was like a really steep learning curve

[00:06:49] for like a year to try and really get our operations down we were lucky enough that one of our initial partners that we brought to our initial partners that we partnered with stuck with us

[00:06:59] through our hiccups on the front end and our still customers today which is fantastic distributing to restaurants which is a little bit easier than trying to do our retail type of situation and then of course make sure that we're under it's a boutique, a boutique law or

[00:07:16] whatever for farming to how you can sell that without having to involve yourself too much in department of health and all that still still following best practices but without having to have all the certificates and everything it goes along with that so where it breaks forms is pretty

[00:07:32] good about being in the realm of having the crops that you grow in that vein so makes it easier for the farmer to be able to get their products to market but right now I mean currently we have

[00:07:45] we're ramping up our capacity for basil again that's really our cash crop and so currently we're doing about 50 pounds a month of basil and we're about to get close to doubling that we are doing sage we're doing

[00:08:03] oh good goodness dill and then we have a romaine as well and so romaine was really what I wanted to focus on come to find out your head let us is are not real good cashflowers not great

[00:08:14] mine makers not a lot of margin there but that was me thinking okay you know as far as logistically and then on a water that we use to try to offset anything we can coming out of the valleys

[00:08:26] southwest that are desperate for water and having to tap back anyway that was kind of part of that mission it's all about sustainability right so we're looking at the future and thinking

[00:08:35] how do how do our we able to do this at all in the future and feed everybody and get them new at trusty and so we have you know the solar setup that helps supplement our electricity

[00:08:45] some stationary storage on site which we hope to upgrade in the future and just put putting all that together but as far as going back into the freight farm and I'm getting off

[00:08:53] topping but the freight farm you know again it took us about a year to really get all that rolling and we're still building to where we're gonna have more produce and especially like microgreens

[00:09:07] we want to do those but we've got to get the rest of this online before we can use our seed table to really do microgreens on the top so that's kind of I just happen stance ran across

[00:09:19] freight farms and love to set up was just doing research about hydroponic grows and came across them did some more research talked to the company and that's the Rob we went there and how do I'm glad we have now and that's just great to hear because it is

[00:09:34] such a fascinating company and I guess to clarify how many is it just one shipping container on what's roughly the size or how many of them do you have at each location?

[00:09:45] So we do we only have one freight farm it's at our Loderoch location it's a 40 foot shipping container the company boasts that annually annual output is equivalent to about two and a half

[00:09:57] acres which how an annual base is yes I can see at any one point in time no we don't have that much produce in there but on an annual basis yes we can we can put out that much produce and

[00:10:07] work are working toward making at a reality but there's always you know always challenges to keeping an acefistic environment to make ensure that everything is not getting any kind of

[00:10:19] infection I mean we've had on the front and we got a we got an algae bloom or equivalent to a bacterial infection kind of thing and so it's like okay we had to rip everything out and start over

[00:10:31] and so let them learn money spent and let's move forward so I maybe I got off topic again chase but then no no it's all very fascinating and I think it's really I think it's really great

[00:10:50] just how you approach looking at kind of the cumulative cash flow for scaling up a business that a lot of companies are having trouble to just do one of and you're doing you're right right now

[00:11:04] scaling up the second one and you're in Arkansas which I think a lot of people would be kind of surprised just given it being maybe one of the states with less EV adoption but to see

[00:11:14] everything that you're doing kind of nullity future planning but also finding these other kind of new technologies to supplement the business is such a very fascinating thing that I think our listeners will

[00:11:25] be pretty just excited to see more about into anyone that is listening that's going through Arkansas please check out Franklin's charging and little rocky and also in hot springs because I think

[00:11:36] both of these are just gonna be phenomenal additions to what makes kind of an EV road trip so much fun but I think to go a little bit back can you can you show share kind of maybe

[00:11:51] how you've you mentioned count some of the things you've put at the location and building these different cash flows but as far as the charging side of it can you share what was kind of how you

[00:12:02] came to the current amount of chargers you have on site and anything that you're seeing is kind of where the right pricing and market is for that and how maybe even plan to expand from there.

[00:12:13] Sure so our little rock side is a little under a half acre all together and so when we started putting it together and putting the plan together to speak with my architect and the engineers

[00:12:27] and then looking at what was going to be the future of what is the standard and we kind of already had in our heads that 150 kilowatts per pedestal and four pedestals now we didn't start there

[00:12:39] but so we knew that with a larger location a larger for us location that we wanted at least four pedestals so that's what we went ahead and built out in Lutterrock and then when we got to hot springs

[00:12:53] and I found this old building station in hot springs there were only two old pumps and the old portico was there where the pumps were and so when we did all the underground and the site work etc

[00:13:05] we just went ahead and duplicated that and then of course ran some more pipe under the under the concrete to add one on site later if we would like to that's not under the portico

[00:13:18] but kind of looking at a boutique type of setup you know I mean it's not right again right now we're running CPU 250's at two in Lutterrock two in hot springs and then we've got a free wire

[00:13:28] boost 200 here in Lutterrock as well and so we're still a pedestal less than we could be with capacity there we've got a Tesla destinations at both which I just leave on some people taking

[00:13:41] advantage of I'm not in the meeting most people want to want to try to support the small business in the Senate but it wants to know why if somebody had come plug into the Tesla destination

[00:13:50] but then we have me my 1450's at both sites that could double as both an EV plug and then a oh goodness food truck plug which is no we're we're we're we're gonna do it there as well

[00:14:05] and so that's just kind of trying to future proof underneath as well we put in the CPU 250's with charge point really like they're hardware but we went ahead and made site ready for the express plus units as

[00:14:17] well so we wouldn't have to rip out the concrete later and we have plenty of tubes that are plenty big for whatever kind of setup we want to put underground in Lutterrock and in hot springs

[00:14:28] so I think for people who are listening who don't know the difference can you can you share kind of what they express plus would unlock for your locations sure so CPU 250 units as far

[00:14:41] as fast charging goes you'll see them all over Colorado I think the state of Maine has been really proactive about putting them in Georgia etc. that charge points are very popular brand

[00:14:51] there the CPU 250's output max output per unit is 62 and a half kilowatts they pair that you can pair the units which we do so a total output of 125 kilowatts out of each one which is limited on

[00:15:06] many vehicles by the I believe it's 200 amp cable that's associated with the units but the express plus is it touts a modular setup where the units that are internal right now that look like big AirPods, AirPods cases that are the actual drivers for the DC or whatever

[00:15:30] they're they're expressed plus that is actually like a cabinet and you can scale that to where you would start potentially with like 150 kilowatts a unit and you can scale up to believe 800

[00:15:43] total kilowatts over maybe maybe two units maybe four I don't know I spoke with a charge point got earlier this morning actually one of their SPPs and so we're looking at the different types of

[00:15:55] setups there but he's gonna send him more that literature tonight so I can get a little bit more red up on that before we would potentially ask for netty monies but essentially what it does is it just

[00:16:03] allows us to in place with the underground that we already have to go from an outfit that's doing right now what 2325 a 35 kilowatts of DC to up to I mean we could do a lot but I mean

[00:16:22] what we would look at for the next step would probably be more on the more on the order of a mega wide. Wow big stuff up. Yeah yeah which is one of the reasons why we we got in bed with

[00:16:37] freewire is they already come equipped they're units already come equipped with stationary storage in the units so they really only eat about 37 kilowatts off the grid per unit for a 200 potential output out the front. Right which is kind of a really interesting technology I'm not sure

[00:16:55] a lot of our listeners are aware of essentially what it does is it has a battery inside the charger itself so that the for a couple reasons one not only doesn't make it a lot easier for sites

[00:17:05] that might not have a large potential to have a continuous power but more importantly it helps can indicate some of the charges especially demand charges and other things that pop up when you are

[00:17:16] doing EV charging. I think that's something probably a lot of our listeners don't realize on the back end a lot of those costs and some of those things that come up. Can you share I think maybe in

[00:17:28] two parts it'd be interesting to hear as you've kind of built this out anything that have caught you off guard or surprised you and then maybe kind of do an overview of some of the charges that

[00:17:40] as a site provider that you have to deal with and try to kind of almost manipulate and figure out how you can get the best return for your investment in the infrastructure avoid the cost and then also

[00:17:51] not have to raise the prices to the in consumer. Well I think it's probably best to preface that with we've had some hiccups with our freewire unit and I've been looking to raise our prices right now

[00:18:05] we're only 30 cents per kilowatt hour on our charge points litter off we're 32 and hot springs and we're 32 with the freewire unit but we're about to go 35 across the board which will help us get

[00:18:16] to our cash flow goals but yeah I mean on the front end and unless you're I wasn't in a electrician I'm not an electrical engineer so it was definitely a humbling experience to find out

[00:18:33] just exactly how much you pay for not just a man-chron. I mean that that energy and who is our local provider here in both of our locations in Arkansas they're other co-ops in Arkansas different spots but that's who we're working with for our two installations. They you know

[00:18:54] I don't know that they know exactly how to charge for DC fast charging can I have I've heard talk if they want to give a little bit of a break on demand charges for the first five years of an installation

[00:19:06] kind of thing have not seen that come to fruition you end up with a pretty good hit on demand charges being your kilowatt hours on a commercial setup are I mean you pay almost nothing's like two cents

[00:19:18] and it flips these in a season you pay up with nothing and so anything that we would potentially put back on the grid with our solar which we have 30 30 kilowatt solar umbrella and litter

[00:19:28] rock in about 15 and hot springs so you know I mean that's it's very negligible how much of that we're able to offset with the actual DC because if you're going to back up a DC unit then

[00:19:42] you have to have a pretty substantial battery to do that and we're just working with power wall ones and litter active power wall twos in hot springs right now three for each set up and so

[00:19:54] really were just backing up the farm and the sitting here at slash bathrooms slash coffee bar and litter off and I'm running obviously running those a little bit during those batteries a little bit

[00:20:07] at nighttime to try and offset some demand but yeah that that that was a big surprise to me that not only were those two costs associated with this commercial installation but then this just mystery energy charge which I'm supposing is a delivery charge but I have yet to

[00:20:30] look all over the PSC public service commissions website with this literature to try and match my billing schedule with a schedule on there and I can't find an exact match but I've got one that

[00:20:44] looks like the same kind of deal but I'm still trying to suck out what is this mystery energy charge I mean I'm paying more for that monthly than I am for a demand charge right now

[00:20:54] and so you know all in all at the end of the month you end up looking at this huge bill and it's like well that just ate most of my profits for the month so where do we where do we go from there

[00:21:05] because then you have to pay for obviously maybe any kind of fun and we have one piece of fun answering and what are I on our free wire units and then we lease the charge point units so that's a

[00:21:14] big you know that's a big yearly cost anyhow so trying to suck out okay how many kilowatt hours and what rate do I need to be selling on a daily basis to break even there and so what we've

[00:21:27] come up with is 35 cents kilowatt hour and we really need to be doing a thousand kilowatt hours per day yeah well yeah but I mean in the in the in the grand scheme so right now on my numbers

[00:21:43] I'm just and and I may be a little off I have my dashboards I look at and all that can get stuff for all of our units but you know you think about well what is that in tail what I'm saying

[00:21:53] about an average at 35 kilowatt hours per charge because you'll have any sun leave it does 12 kilowatt hours in an hour and then you'll have a you know and I won't say rivions with the with the free wires

[00:22:07] because they're limited currently to kilowatt but you'll have an F150 come and sit on that free wire station and pull 125 kilowatt and do it for 100 kilowatt hours you know so that that's those kind of

[00:22:21] charges if you do 10 of those a day you think you've got your numbers and that's between those both sites obviously but that's that's our first milestone goal that we're working for

[00:22:33] working toward to get cash flow neutral which we hope to be by the end of 24 with all of our operations now that is that's real estate cash flows and all the ancillary cash flows included

[00:22:45] going into one big pot to try and make the whole thing work. No I mean I think that's awesome if anyone I can't recommend watching the calcone or out of spec video about the site location I mean

[00:22:58] it's a beautiful site it's very well done it doesn't by me no means does it look like it's a cheap build so to hear that you're able to kind of scale and get that point by even at 2024 I think

[00:23:09] it's an amazing return for those kinds of investments. When talking about the different chargers I didn't realize that you it was common to lease the charge point chargers are you kind of able to share some of the different models as far as what you are seeing kind of

[00:23:30] compared to like leasing the free wire system or the charge point. As of now is there a model that you're kind of seeing makes the most sense for the amount of traffic you're getting or just

[00:23:41] financially with your business model? Well so again charge point really wanted to push the CP-E250s when we started with this whole exercise here and it was 2017 2018 it really when we were hitting the

[00:24:00] engineering card on that end of it and talking to charge point about what we were doing so at that time you know 62 and a half kilowatt 125 period it was like yeah that's going to be awesome. Yeah and my

[00:24:09] apologies again I'm sorry not to catch you off the way wind wind did the sites officially open for people to come in charge. So a official opening Lutter Rock April 22 hot springs for charging in Lobby officially February 23. Okay great great and I'm sorry continuing that's really interesting

[00:24:31] about to hear how long it kind of takes to do the planning getting everything together and then to open then but yeah please tell me more about kind of the charge point and looking at the different models

[00:24:42] that were kind of available to you at the time. Sure well before I say that I will say that there there was definitely a quiet period that we did not pursue this development in between 2018

[00:24:58] and then 2020 and that was all that was all about kind of a secure financing and so you know I kind of kind of table it for a while and then we just got lucky and that's where we were able to

[00:25:10] actually have the cash flows to do it that we were doing so that being said the charge point units again we've got the CP250's right now and we're working our way up to the express plus but the next

[00:25:23] set for us would probably be the two 80s which I believe with our financing with them which is a lease so with our lease and then it's kind of a turnkey deal because they do their own software they do

[00:25:33] their own hardware and so the package that I have with these guys covers all repairs that aren't you know that I mean any kind of reasonable repairs it covers all the software and all that for a

[00:25:48] yearly flat rate and then in speaking with the SPP this morning in our area over at charge point apparently we are able to upgrade with a max plug for free and we're also able to upgrade to the

[00:26:09] 280 units for free which would give us the capacity of not 125s paired but 160 kilowatts pair and so if that is the case he's supposed to miss him what a trip this evening and that's what

[00:26:24] we would look at is next immediate step here is to go ahead and upgrade to the two 80s and now I have spoken with them and I don't think it's proprietary information but I've spoken with them about

[00:26:35] a buyout type of situation you know I mean because your at five year lease they're going to they're going to write that off their books that they've got capital lease on them I'm at it so they're

[00:26:44] going to write that off their books and depreciation in five years and still get the cash flows from it so you know how much is it worth to you to have them sent back California for refurbishment and

[00:26:55] potential resell versus me just keeping them and putting them down the road somewhere because that was kind of the plan from the beginning is is it the end of the lease can we just do

[00:27:05] kind of like any other car lease or whatever can we do a little bit of a bloom payment or whatever it might be for residual value at that point pick them up and take them down the road as we have great

[00:27:14] site and yes is the short answer to that that is an option but in in lieu of that we may be looking at going ahead and trying to upgrade to the 280 units from the 250s here's intermediate

[00:27:28] later interesting so with these kind of lease agreements does that usually mean as the site host you kind of have to figure out all of the electrical all of it essentially up to the pedestal

[00:27:42] and then you would lease those peddles so's from charge point or is there a bit more that's kind of going on that they take care of when it comes to actually bring these online. Well with our first

[00:27:53] kid to what our first new developments that is exactly the cases then we took it right to right to the pedestal and then we had the lease agreement for the units with them. Interesting okay

[00:28:06] and with I'm just generally curious I don't know if this is something they sell or not but in your kind of decision to go with leasing with them whether you could buy them out or not at

[00:28:17] the end do you think that there is actually a common element of the leasing brings down the total cost of the installation because traditionally that's a pretty expensive point but more importantly

[00:28:28] it might even give you some future proofing like in this example where they'll come out an upgrade those charge points for you. Yes I think that was my initial thoughts with the leasing was that hey you

[00:28:42] know 62 and a half kilowatt 125 paired and on cut it in five years so let's do a lease instead of purchasing these units and then as I started as we started operating and I started looking at okay so

[00:28:56] if we're actually able to get into the black which was you know that's the exercise for everybody with small business from the beginning then how do we scale and so you know we're not going to be

[00:29:06] a bucky so we would scale in a more rural area where you have people that are driving to whatever kind of I mean whether it's national we have a buffalo national river up in North Arkansas

[00:29:18] it's gorgeous area there's nothing up there nothing um so I mean if you had even a 50 kilowatt unit sitting there that sucker would get used I mean you have all kinds of people that have these

[00:29:29] ventre vehicles and I mean go out and buy a really on R1T and then get up to you know the wilderness area in North Arkansas and high pecky charge so that was that was kind of the thought from the

[00:29:42] beginning is okay with leasing and then we'll upgrade when the time comes and then as we've got more into it's like okay I'm interested in is there a buyout option then it wouldn't make financial

[00:29:54] sense to buy these pick them up the road and operate them for another five to seven years before the units would actually be out of you know out of warranty out of an extended warranty kind

[00:30:05] of thing and so that's uh that's something that we're still working out but like said this morning conversation that I had with the rep there great with great conversation super cool dude and potential

[00:30:20] to upgrade our site without having to pay extra because of what we're doing with our lease package already but like yeah that's great um I'm kind of curious with what you uh already installed and some

[00:30:34] these kind of first iteration of upgrades where do you see these sites maybe longer term like are you expecting them to have maybe like eight pedestals or do you expect the total of pedestals

[00:30:46] total pedestals may just stay the same but just increase the rate. So the way we did is on Lutterrock uh we have our pedestals sitting in between two parking slots right so you could

[00:31:01] if there are two heads that you can charge off of then each person gets a slot that's already there and it's already ready made for that um so potentially you could have four units with eight charging

[00:31:11] right so if you look at like and again I'll I'll go back to uh bread and flash calcone or those kind of guys that are very active on the zitter um that uh bread and has just gone to from what

[00:31:27] I understand it I don't know the guy personally seemed like cool guy but he's just gone to I believe out the tronic um yeah we just said that in a couple episodes again but yeah he just uh started

[00:31:37] that stuff yeah so that that's a European outfit but this 400 units that they're testing out each coast I mean that's pretty killer man I mean you got a pretty pretty tight little package there with

[00:31:50] two uh plugs uh that that has the 400 capability um you know then then the equation becomes okay how much stationary storage do I need on site how much solar can I reasonably add to my site to actually

[00:32:04] offset some of the uh the demand and then the energy charges that we would incur but that's that was kind of the that's kind of the rationale and lutter rock uh again in hot springs we knew from the

[00:32:15] beginning as starting as a thing that that's going to be a boutique you know a Tesla will eventually find there's horse races that um they're going to be a big casino uh Tesla's of the world are

[00:32:25] going to find that place eventually they're going to build out there eventually so what is our what is our grab well we're on the very edge of right downtown that's a big attraction uh and we're uh we're

[00:32:39] uh we're boutique I mean we're we're going to have the two pedestals potentially three in the future and that's what we're looking at yeah so that's you know it again he started looking at okay

[00:32:50] well what kind of hardware do you have for that and like I said we um we we we want to head and plan for the at least the express plus underground so we wouldn't have to be pulling up a bunch of

[00:33:02] uh concrete and trying to trade that out later I'm kind of curious uh just when you talk about like Tesla or the other uh charging uh companies that are kind of the space given that that is just one

[00:33:16] part of your cash flow have you I'm I'm sure you have but uh I'm just curious like that um I was just curious how maybe you were looking at him. Oh yeah I can still hear you. Oh good god I can hear you

[00:33:37] still there JT yes I'm sorry about that I had I had a there was some kind of snappy with the phone there no no worries um I can hear you find though but uh I guess my question was in this process and I'm

[00:33:52] sure there's a lot of people who are listening there it's just find this really fascinating where there at any point that you were kind of looking at maybe you know I'm going to do the

[00:34:01] freight farm I'm going to do the coffee shop and maybe I'll just lease out some of this to Tesla or Electrify America or some other company like that was that something that ever kind of cross

[00:34:12] your mind or was it just you wanted to go all in and kind of the vertical integration of the location yourself uh either or working here me now I'm sorry yeah yeah um yeah I mean

[00:34:26] the thoughts always there that okay uh you're in the business of doing this and trying to build yourself and the company around the charging I mean that's my that's my goal is to become at

[00:34:41] least a a small regional player and uh in the charging business and then the answer Larry convenience is that go along with like a sea store or whatever else that our implementation may be

[00:34:53] of that we go absolutely but then owning the site uh you also have in the back of your head okay you know where's comes to worst we don't have to be the operator we have the infrastructure already built

[00:35:07] so the you know the the rivions of the world with their brand network or whatever else sure I mean that you could you could say okay well let's explore getting embedded with one of those

[00:35:17] guys and have an image just do the operations and we'll just you know go climb them out and there's something um but yes that that that that thought was there from the beginning of our exercise here

[00:35:32] Gotcha it kind of looking at the space right now what um I guess I'm curious what are you most excited about is it kind of getting these up and then building three four more locations

[00:35:44] whereas it kind of leaning into the community that's already kind of come up with the current to you have and just trying to double down on what kind of cash flows you can build at those locations

[00:35:55] Both of those I mean number number one is let's you know I'm I'm pretty vested in this neighborhood that I'm in anyway and I kind of grew up in this area in Litterrock and then I grew up

[00:36:06] uh you know going to hot springs when I was young as well and it's a real kitschy little town too so it's you know freakskeaks and weirdos everywhere and both of these areas and both of them are being

[00:36:19] kind of having a second look a little bit of a Renaissance as well and so I don't like to use that term that everybody uses for oh I think it's gentrification yeah we're not we're not trying to use that term but

[00:36:33] but all the same yes being an active role at the being an active member of the community that's that's moving in that direction and building our businesses with that locally

[00:36:46] and then with the thought okay in the future how do we scale where do we scale and how do we do it with staying out of the shadows of the big players that are obviously going to eat a lot of

[00:36:57] little launch in the end of that. Yeah I mean I totally make sense and that's great to hear I think anyone that is a current EV driver in your area if they don't know if you're ready

[00:37:08] I mean it's it's it's such a cool looking setup that you have these two locations and I know next time on a road trip on in there I'm definitely going to even just take a detour to

[00:37:17] come check out person because we just need to see more of these honestly around the world but especially just across the US and I think the location you chose and it's such a great addition for drawing people in. With the goals of scaling and trying to make

[00:37:35] Franklin's charging into a larger player and have more locations what in your experience is kind of been the biggest challenges I think you've hit on a little bit but what have been the biggest

[00:37:44] challenges for making DC public fast charging more common. I mean number one as it is with many businesses but especially with something in his scale is I mean it's cash man cash is king so how

[00:38:03] how do you how do you come up with the capital this necessary to do that and so that's that's really the big the big part of any any calculation to start any business but it's like okay

[00:38:15] so how do you set something up how do you get the cash flows there in the front end how much run way do you have what you're working capital and then how do you make that all work

[00:38:25] and then include the okay now we jump to the next step and then when do you bring in outside investors etc etc so that's I don't I don't know of a more blunt way to put that that this is

[00:38:37] you know it's a blessing and a curse to have such a high barrier of entry with it being such a capital intensive kind of endeavor and so you don't have just a whole bunch of others

[00:38:50] that are just trying to jump head first in but then on the other hand it's like okay but that calls a lot of money so how do you do that okay so the biggest issue is money and then what

[00:39:04] do you have the money what do you find is the biggest hurdle to put that money to work oh good lord I think I went through two electrictions that I was like oh these guys are going to be awesome it's

[00:39:19] gonna work and then they were smaller outfits that I didn't mark man so I and my you know my contractor I used this smaller contractor when I started this thing because I wanted to use my

[00:39:30] subs and I wanted to learn how to build these things out from the beginning so it's like I would have that that knowledge implicit that nobody's else is gonna impart to you I've done some building in the past

[00:39:41] but nothing on a commercial scale you know and nothing like this and so I definitely wanted to be able to try and learn how to turn key aside myself with you know subs that I knew and people

[00:39:54] that I needed to be able to do that not that I want to open a construction company but wanted to know that end of it for books and everything else but that was that was painful and in some aspects

[00:40:06] I ended up with a larger electric outfit that was able to come in and really help me go from a really kind of nasty stop and spot and hot springs to get in head turn key interesting sorry to

[00:40:22] hear that but glad it's up and running now. I guess you already it may be metric of these things but for anyone listening that they think oh maybe I want to do something in my

[00:40:38] town or regionally or work with others to kind of make this more common are there any recommendations or tips to think about when kind of starting something like this um it may be cliche and it may be true for whatever business but do your research put your

[00:40:57] numbers together I don't know if you're familiar with DCF so like this kind of cash flow what you're gonna have to have some cash flows laid out anyway for a financing if you go talk

[00:41:07] to a bank but know those numbers know it's inside out it was my research as you can to see what your cost that you might not be including are gonna be you know make sure you tried to

[00:41:20] cross-lark tease and dot all your eyes and then double that number. That it makes a lot of sense I'll give it everyone I've talked to that usually works for the other even just traditional

[00:41:33] gas stations trying to make this change they're realizing that there's a lot more cost that they weren't expecting with it but I think that adds just to how impressive it is to see what you've

[00:41:42] done and kind of how fast your teams grown with it. One of the things you mentioned earlier I mean obviously this industry's counter-end issues around supply chain and the overall cost and you mentioned

[00:41:56] earlier kind of nevy funding is that something that as you've kind of been researching is that something you're cautiously optimistic about or is it just in your experience any sort of kind of

[00:42:10] outside thing that might be a government funding has it just been moving too slow to be a benefit so far for you as you try and grow your business? Okay, so be honest with you I'm glad

[00:42:22] it's getting rolled out slowly. Now that we're already up and running here a couple things number one the state of Arkansas had the VW settlement monies and so that was for on the DC side of it that was

[00:42:36] for and still is for 150 kilowatt plus units and two of those that they would set aside that funding yearly for I think five year period on that one too could be wrong about that but anyway

[00:42:50] I applied for the first year that one and I wrote my own quote and quote grant and put my numbers in there and I was already starting to operate the charge point units in Loderock and so had some

[00:43:03] had some legit experience there and then came to find out really quickly that between intergedeer local provider Francis energy who is you know born of some I think will ingasts in Oklahoma that's putting them up everywhere as far as DC goes and shell that those

[00:43:25] calves probably had not just better grant writers than me but probably had some some wobbly pulling as well abilities to that green enough palms to be able to be a little more competitive than

[00:43:38] a little guy like me. Now on the back end of that now I've gotten great feedback from the state and their programs they've been very communicative with me about what's out there the nevy funding

[00:43:51] on the front end when we get this thing done in Loderock. Arkansas Department of Transportation did a story about charging and they came out and did a lot of pictures at our place and interviewed

[00:44:01] me and and put that into their their issue for that year or that season I think they do it by by a yearly but but anyways so they they printed their mail or whatever with their magazine

[00:44:17] with our with our station on and then in the article as well you know pictures of our students. In addition to that they went ahead and earmarked us for an upgrade with nevy

[00:44:27] money in Loderock and so that's not to say we're a shoe in for anything like that but where you know right now it's all about cash flows right I don't want to throw another you know

[00:44:40] big chunk of money at this thing and then had these other stations that I need to put down the road somewhere before we're able to actually make these cash flows work. Right and so it's like

[00:44:53] let's get all systems going let's figure out where we are with our numbers. So yes is the short answer to that we are very interested in the nevy money is especially for our Loderock location because it's eligible and it's already been here marked apparently by our sub-blocked transportation

[00:45:08] so we think we'll be very competitive there when we're ready for it and we're looking at probably if our cash flows are increasing and growing like we're looking at right now into 24 going into 2025 we would look at it really doing the deep dive and get in the weeds

[00:45:28] which we're already going to do a charge point after my discussion this morning he's going to send me a bunch of literature about their nevy funding packages but we're looking at at least

[00:45:37] trying to do that in Loderock for sure. That's great and when you say little rock is eligible what makes that location I guess better or eligible for nevy funds versus the hot springs location?

[00:45:50] The corridor. The large corridors where did yeah got you interesting okay well I mean that is all very exciting and I'm sure just kids can add more I was going to say fuel to the fire but maybe

[00:46:07] that's the wrong analogy for this but definitely just really seems to take them the men of you've already got going and really make sure I mean it sounds like you haven't such a solid kind of

[00:46:17] business plan and having just the additional revenue sources really are kind of making used be able to scale this to a very sustainable and lucrative even size when you look forward you've kind of mentioned some of these site locations with the solar addition

[00:46:38] it helps but it's not really a huge thing have you explored or kind of looked at doing larger solar installations in the future with more battery backup or is that just it just doesn't really

[00:46:51] pencil out. It depends on how you pay for it again if you get a grant for nevy money and you've already put into that grant you know 100 kilowatts of solar umbrella or 200 kilowatts of solar

[00:47:07] umbrella and you're going to have up to a megawatt of charging for future installations that are going to cater to simis and or larger vehicles and you're doing that on the side of a highway

[00:47:19] and you've got you know a Tesla mega pack there with 1.9 megawatts worth of stationary storage where you can mitigate how much of the grid you're using anyhow and then add to you know it's

[00:47:30] certain time then that start that that starts to pencil out possibly but I have not done that financial exercise yet because I'm looking at what's right in front of me I think okay next next

[00:47:42] meg's five years we want to go into the black and we want to scale the units that we already have into different locations and hopefully you know the next five years at least have you know

[00:47:54] four or five locations that that were that were actually in the black making money on. That's great I mean with kind of the stock of scaling what have you seen been traditionally I guess are they're been any big hurdles financially that you're seeing starting to change with

[00:48:16] the increase and maybe changes in the supply chain or just scaling up of technology like are you seeing a decrease in the price of pedestals and kind of charging infrastructure is it's

[00:48:31] still kind of remaining about the same because of the demand. I mean to be completely honest with you I've not done a lot of shopping lately for new pedestal for new machines but the

[00:48:45] shopping that I have done yes it looks like that the cost are getting more reasonable as the years go by which is any any new technology right I mean the original LCDTVs or whatever were

[00:48:57] five grand and you can buy a flat screen that's perfectly fantastic and has more features in that now for 600 bucks. Right right with the current kind of infrastructure you have these two locations and they're being competitors but obviously you guys haven't got much higher tier

[00:49:15] experience when someone goes to charge are you seeing kind of any trends with who is coming to charge at your location or is it still pretty early days and it's kind of the only option that a lot

[00:49:28] people see as being somewhere they want to stop when they're on camera road trip or is it kind of maybe more of a local crowd or a mix of both that are coming to your charging locations.

[00:49:39] So from what I'm seeing so far with the list start with Litterock Litterock holiday so holiday travels you see more people coming across country or you see more people coming to visit family that are in town and then finding us and being able to charge quickly whether

[00:49:57] around kind of thing and then other times you know just normal normal weeks or whatever like this today I've had an old goodness and in Litterock we've charged with 10 or 11 cars so far

[00:50:12] today and almost all of those are local local folks. Oh it's great. So and then the weekends it'll pick back up with folks traveling and so hot springs is again it's pretty slow still in

[00:50:27] hot springs but what we're seeing is the you know the draw of that being able to resort town and then having gambling and horse races. Now that the race and season has started again I've seen

[00:50:42] some out of towners and then I have a couple of locals that are around and there's really nothing in that area so people that are in more rural areas as they pass through their stop and there as well.

[00:50:54] Gotcha. Yeah that's great to hear I'm also just curious how to imagine I mean that's how I came across you have you seen a kind of bump in interest or people visiting since the

[00:51:05] original video you did with Calconor? Yeah I've had several did it come across I mean I had a family come out of oh my god those people were braze come out of Atlanta and a bolts

[00:51:19] and going cross country and it cheeses and they had the whole family packed in that thing and had seen the video and their six year old wanted to take a picture with me I was

[00:51:32] internet because I was like oh my god okay so yeah I've seen that several times now which is kind of cool that's I mean that's that's great to hear and I hope some of our listeners are able to give you a

[00:51:43] boost as well but congratulations that that's awesome to hear. I think we've covered a lot of really great topics and kind of the questions I had for someone in your position who's being very entrepreneur kind of pushing the edge of really making not only charging locations that are

[00:52:00] reliable but actually places where people want to stop but there is one kind of final question that I ask a lot of our guests and the question is in your experience what are some innovative ways

[00:52:12] either the private industry or government can maybe help accelerate the rollout of EVs and charging infrastructure? Aside from what this infrastructure package that they got passed and is getting implemented with the nebiumunies. Aside from something like that we're basically

[00:52:33] subsidizing our operators to put in new infrastructure. I would say definitely the regulated monopolies that are our energy providers that are also trying to scale that they try to form more partnerships with people that are in this business or want to be in this business even the

[00:52:55] Tesla's of the world that are the big guys to put in the stationary storage and the renewables whatever may be most suitable wherever that location is and give breaks possibly take off at the man charger or levelize that for a number of years before everything this goes full-tilt.

[00:53:19] Yeah. And I guess I'm curious you mentioned the utilities with these locations have you also had come to use around transmission and getting the power that you really want or need at those locations?

[00:53:32] I mean in Litterock we are literally across the street in between the freeway and the street to a substation and so no nothing nothing in Litterock I had to bring three phase power over to the side

[00:53:48] from across the street but same thing same thing in hot springs three phase power we don't have the substation there but three phase power was already available across the street we said

[00:53:59] to bring it across and said a transformer. Oh great well that's that's about as good as it gets if you don't have to bring across the street but JT I just want to say thank you again for this has been

[00:54:10] really interesting and super informative and I know our listeners are definitely fascinated by people like yourself who are really building and kind of pushing their infrastructure and making them much more accessible for a lot of people and making them much more enjoyable experience for everyone.

[00:54:24] So JT thank you again and look forward to having you on again soon. K-SAT appreciate the exposure, appreciate your time, thank you.