Making Climate Software Tangible: Smartcar and…. Uber!

Energize led the $24M Series B into Smartcar in January 2022. We had performed extensive research on how innovation in the mobility landscape could enable the electrification of mobility. Ultimately we wanted to identify and invest in a software company that served as many stakeholders in the mobility space as possible. We felt there would be several bespoke solutions and believed that the software that connected all parties would be valuable.

What is Smartcar? As they define it… Smartcar is leading the way to open up access to those APIs, powering a new community of innovators in the mobility space.

When you read that sentence, the energy / electrification / sustainability movement does not immediately jump out. And yet, we saw the roadmap to those solutions. This week, one of the applications we knew was on the horizon was finally revealed! Uber intends for their entire fleet to be electric. About 5% of rides today are electric and those used to be planned irregardless of the state of battery charge for the EV driver. The announcement this week is that Uber now connects with the driver’s electric vehicles to match trip length with battery charge & availability… and that communications protocol is all done through Smartcar.

In addition to that type of announcement the company has built the communications and control layer for several EV charging applications that utilities, building owners, and fleet managers leverage to integrate, manage, and optimize EV charging.

In addition to the charging management applications, the company is also the communications layer for several of the emerging EV charging networks themselves. Network use cases include helping customers make reservations, understanding state of charge, and proximity to charger are all shared (with customer approval) through Smartcar.

Smartcar is truly the digital communication highways for the EV movement. This is how an API company is accelerating sustainability.