With the growing awareness of environmental protection and energy conservation, more and more people are replacing gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles (EVs). A report released by JP Morgan Chase shows that battery EVs (BEVs) and hybrid vehicles together will command 40% of total global automobile sales volumes by 2025. Along with the increasing popularity of EVs, the market for EV charging stations will also grow with significant momentum. As a startup established with the assistance of Taiwan's government-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), eTreego has developed into a leading provider of EV charging systems in Taiwan, leveraging its three major advantages of high product safety, pluralistic integration, and flexible customization capability to best serve customers.
eTreego president Gin-pin Chien, before founding the startup, had led an ITRI team researching EV control systems for 15 years. His team took part in formulating the charging standards for electric cars and scooters in Taiwan, and also built the country's first electric car charging pile before transferring the technology to a local automaker. Having amassed abundant experiences in the EV sector, eTreego has become Taiwan's startup most versed in electric car and scooter charging.
Chien said that in case of an EV suffering charging failure, it may be attributed to the charging pile malfunctioning or EV batteries going bad. He added that eTrrego, long engaged in researching EV control systems, is quite familiar with both situations and can accurately identify and address problems. This has enabled eTreego to command a high share of the EV charging market and prompted many firms including YES Energy Service, China Motor, Nissan Motor, Tesla Hong Kong and Sanyang Motor to contract eTreego to produce charging piles.
Good reputations
Good reputations built among auto clients have also helped eTreego smoothly develop sales of electric car charging piles, with parking lot operators, retail shops and community buildings all willing to cooperate with the company to set up EV charging stations, according to Chien.
He reasoned that orders from carmakers are virtually like a product safety certificate for eTreego's offerings. This, coupled with the firm's accumulated experiences in the EV sector and consequent system integration and flexible customization capabilities, has enabled eTreego to design styles and functions of charging piles in accordance different car models and application scenarios to fully satisfy customers' requirements.
For instance, charging equipment provided by automakers along with their delivered cars must be light in weight and meet automotive safety standards. But for operators of parking lots, charging piles they need must be easy to use and sound after-sales service support must be available. As to community buildings managers, they may hope that the charging piles can be connected with door access cards for residents to facilitate charging fee calculation and collection. All these different requirements can be fulfilled by eTreego, compared to general charging equipment suppliers able to offer products with only fixed designs and functions.
It has been only two years since eTreego's inception in 2017, but the company is already on track for stable business expansion, with its revenues rising year by year. But not complacent with the performance, Chien has entertained the hope of rolling out a kind of charging equipment applicable to diverse types of vehicles and different scenarios while also boasting safe operation, cheap pricing and network connectivity.
But materialization of startup dreams requires the support of resources, which are what startups lack the most. In this regard, however, eTreego has been fortunate enough to obtain the assistance of the government-funded TTA X Prototyping Program, making Chien able to realize his dream of leading the world in launching cutting-edge fast charging equipment for electric motorcycles.
TTA X Prototyping Program
As part of the Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) flagship innovation project supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the TTA X Prototyping Program mainly provides TTA teams with resources needed to support trial run of their innovations, aiming to help startup teams boasting great market potentials for their products survive their early difficult development stage of limited resources. Then, abundant resources from major accelerators as well as mentors from enterprises will be available to shorten time-to-market process for creative ideas by startup teams. Under the assistance of the program, eTreego has had its products pass relevant auto safety and specs validations. The company has also completed several rounds of negotiations with Japanese automakers, and hopes to venture its products into Southeast Asia as the next target market.
Chien stressed that the TTA X Prototyping Program has provided eTreego with funding support and helped the company work out the prototype of fast e-scooter charging station and get related validations. The program has also offered personnel connections and corporate mentors helping eTreego to access Japan's top-100 enterprises such as Hitachi and NGK within three days, well paving the way for its foray into the Japan market.
Looking to the future, Chien said his company will move at full throttles to develop overseas markets. In 2020, eTreego will cooperate with agents to develop electric car charging markets in the US and Europe, and it will also venture its fast e-scooter charging equipment first into the Southeast Asia market. Chien is confident that eTreego can well harness business opportunities arising from the next-generation EVs by leveraging its high product safety, ample experiences and strong customization capability.
eTreego president Gin-pin Chien
Photo: Company
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