The transition to electric vehicles (EVs) is reshaping the automotive industry, demanding innovative solutions to meet the growing needs of EV owners. Yoshi Mobility has emerged as a leader in providing convenient and comprehensive vehicle services. In this interview, Dan Hunter, Chief EV Officer of Yoshi Mobility, shares insights into the company’s journey, the evolution of their services, and their groundbreaking mobile EV charging technology. From humble beginnings in 2015 to pioneering mobile charging solutions today, Yoshi Mobility is driving the future of EV infrastructure and transforming the way we think about vehicle care.
What is Yoshi Mobility and how did it get its start?
When we started Yoshi in 2015, the idea was simple: create a service so people never have to go to the gas station again. The traditional gas station model has been the same for more than 100 years, and nobody likes pumping gas. We wondered if we could change the customer experience by offering a convenient alternative. With virtually everyone having a cell phone, mobile devices were the key enabler. I built the first fuel truck, one of our other co-founders designed the app, and the third co-founder (and now our CEO) was our first fuel technician. Initially, our customers were friends and family, but it wasn’t long before word of mouth spread and our routes began filling up with people that we didn’t know!
that can charge at 240kW and deliver multiple charges to a fleet of vehicles in one trip.
What was the journey to becoming a multi-service provider? And when did you start EV charging?
Just like no one likes going to the gas station, no one enjoys having to drive to a brick-and-mortar location for vehicle service either. Not long after we started delivering gas, our customers began asking us: Can you wash my car? Can you change my oil? Can you rotate my tires? We were already dispatching a technician to their car every week, and our staff members were getting to know our customers’ vehicles better than the owners did! It was a no-brainer to provide more comprehensive service. In response we dramatically expanded our menu of services. Today that includes car washes, details, inspections, and preventative maintenance, just to name a few. Our ultimate goal has always been to create a customer experience that makes car ownership as frictionless as possible. We offer car care for both ICE and EV vehicles. Our EV charging product offering was introduced in mid-2023. One of our autonomous vehicle partners had a large fleet (200+ vehicles) requiring 24-hour charging. We deployed three of our mobile power generator trailers with integrated 120kW DC fast chargers. These systems provided a reliable charging solution far superior to the other systems that had been on-site before we arrived.
You recently launched a supercharger on wheels. Can you tell us about that technology?
It’s an exciting time to be working in the EV space. The current state of charging infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired. To bring mobile options to the market, we started with the customer experience and worked our way back to the technology we built. Installing Level 2 and Level 3 chargers in a parking lot is capital-intensive and ties up resources. Yet, a customer needs to be able to have charging available. Drawing on our experience servicing millions of vehicles over the past decade, we designed our EV mobile charging solution to electrify every parking space in a lot. It is a high-power mobile charging unit on wheels. It discharges electrons at 240kW and can deliver multiple charges in a single trip. It can also be fully recharged in less than one hour. The technology currently uses a GM Bright Drop Zero 600 but can be deployed on any BEV or battery platform, converting any EV or battery into a charger.
How are your EV services meeting the needs of your customers?
Our mobile EV charging solutions have the ability to electrify an entire parking lot, whether it’s at a large fleet yard or a corporate campus with thousands of vehicles. This technology originated when we recognized a demand among our customers for convenient daily charging, reliable private charging networks, and proper charging infrastructure to support their fleet vehicles as they transition to electric. They face a multitude of frustrating challenges including limited grid capacity, costly utility upgrades, long-lead times for hardware installations, and a lack of reliability with the available public infrastructure. Think of our technology like a pain-killer – it enables our customers to overcome these obstacles so they can run their EV operations efficiently.
charging option for EV fleet operators who do not have a way to connect to the utility grid or
need to scale faster than they can build infrastructure.
Where do you see the biggest opportunities in the mobile EV charging space?
Already this year, we’ve deployed our EV charging solutions to service major OEMs, autonomous vehicle companies, and rideshare operators across the country. Our customers are large EV operators managing hundreds of light-duty vehicles requiring up to one megawatt of energy per day. We’ve seen a pressing need for our charging solutions within the automotive supply chain. As automakers produce more EVs, they’re still figuring out the needed logistics to seamlessly get them to their customers and end users. So, along the way, in between the manufacturing facility and the market, EVs are susceptible to getting stuck without sufficient charge, meaning they get stranded in railyards and shipyards. Every day that these vehicles sit is lost revenue and depreciated value. We’ve stepped in and mobilized our charging units to these remote areas with no grid access to charge these vehicles and eliminate the hiccup in the supply chain.
Can you discuss your plans for scaling up this technology and the potential impact it could have on the broader adoption of electric vehicles?
Our mission at Yoshi Mobility is to continue to make vehicle ownership and management as frictionless as possible. When it comes to electric vehicle ownership, there are a lot of charging specific-challenges – such as limited charge stations and time spent charging. We are significantly scaling up our mobile power generator products, which deliver immediate power for customers while they wait to build out their grid connectivity. Or we can support their off-grid operations, so that they can electrify more parts of their fleet faster. Our mobile charger product also helps to increase the efficiency of level 3 DC fast chargers for fleets and corporate lots. It can pull power from in-the-ground infrastructure and then distribute it to vehicles around the parking lot so that the vehicles don’t need to be moved or parked in a specific spot.
We expect there to be a growing need for robust EV charging options. For EV adoption to increase, the solutions for our nation’s charging infrastructure will be crucial to instilling consumer confidence needed to make the change. Partnerships have incredible potential to shape the landscape. And by that I mean, public-private partnerships, partnerships between automakers, and partnerships between large companies and start-ups. All of the above will be required to achieve the scale that is needed to accelerate the shift to EVs. The bottom line is this: other than artificial intelligence, the energy transformation that we are seeing in the automotive industry is the biggest change of our generation.
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