#165: Unlocking EVs for Everyone
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Welcome back to another episode of The Richer Geek Podcast!
Calling all electric vehicle owners! Are you tired of range anxiety and limited charging options, especially if you live in an apartment? Well, fret no more! Today, we have a game-changer for you. Joining us is Aaron Lieberman, CEO of Buzze, a revolutionary app that's building a community-powered EV charging network!
Buzze is like Airbnb, but for EV charging! In this episode, we'll discuss how Buzze can:
Solve your charging woes: Find convenient stations near you, anytime.
Open EV ownership to all: Live in an apartment? No problem! Buzze empowers everyone to go electric.
Build a greener future: Reduce your carbon footprint and join a sustainable community, one shared charge at a time.
Here's what makes Buzze so exciting:
Buzze Concept: Buzze facilitates the sharing of EV chargers among neighbors, addressing the challenge of home charging for renters and homeowners alike.
Aaron's Inspiration: We'll hear Aaron Lieberman's personal journey of owning an EV and the realization that many face obstacles in installing chargers at home.
Convenience for Hosts: Hosts can earn money by listing their chargers on the Buzze app, requiring minimal effort to set up and manage.
Convenience for Drivers: Drivers can easily locate and reserve nearby chargers through the app, avoiding the complexities of public charging networks.
Safety Measures: Buzze ensures safety and security through verification processes for both hosts and drivers, along with protection against damages or theft.
Community Building: Buzze fosters community engagement by connecting neighbors through EV charging, promoting sustainability and entrepreneurship among hosts.
Resources from Aaron:
Resources from Mike and Nichole:
+ Read the transcript
Mike Stohler
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Richer Geek Podcast, where in the past, we've given you some fantastic podcasts on how you can hack houses, you can hack different spaces. Here's one that you probably haven't heard of. We are welcoming Aaron Lieberman. How're you doing, Aaron?
Aaron Lieberman
I'm doing great.
Mike Stohler
This is going to be a very special episode, because it's like on why hasn't anyone else thought about this ever since he says, but tell us what, I haven't ruined it because I want you to say exactly what you do. Tell us about your company. And the thing that you've discovered that really works.
Aaron Lieberman
Yeah, so the company is called Buzze. And thank you so much for having me on. The company is called Buzze. And it's a really simple idea. If you put out an EV, like I know you do, like I do, you've gone through the hassle of putting in an EV car charger. And it's not easy, you gotta get an electrician, you got to wire it in, it usually costs around 1500 to 2000 bucks, if you've done all of that, and we let you share it with your neighbors and others who want to come over for a charge. And this was a personal thing for me when I first got my first EV a little over a year and a half ago, Mustang Mach-E® and I love that car and I got the whole thing installed. And that first night I plugged it in, and I realized I need to use this thing about one night a week. It is the reality of it, I drive about 10 miles a day to work and back. So maybe 20 all in the car has got a 270 mile range. And I just had this funny feeling of it's like having a gas station in your driveway just for you. And that's what kind of launched me down this whole path.
Mike Stohler
Yeah, and it's amazing. It's the same thing. I have a Level 2 charger at home. And I've had a couple EVs and I'm like, it's the same thing with my new one, it gets 520 mile range just like on winwick ever charging this thing. And this is the perfect situation, everyone where you can house hack, why not make some of that money back, you've put in the investment. And now you can share something that will help the climate help get people if or for people to easily get to a spot because if you don't have a Tesla, Tesla superchargers are everywhere. Most places but electrify America's most of those I think last time I went to one two of them were working out of the 10.
Aaron Lieberman
So outside of Tesla, I call it a walled garden, the Tesla stuff works pretty well. Outside of that it's a disaster. You're sitting there calling a support line. Everyone has their own app or their own, it just is way more complicated than it should be to charge out of home. The reality is if you can charge at home EVs are a dream. You don't even think about it. You never go to a gas station. I don't know Mike, do you miss not going to gas station? I was thrilled right never have to change the oil. I hated changing oil in the car. But the problem is 40% of people rent their house in America right now. And they're no you don't put in a $2,000 new bathroom and your landlord's house, you're not going to put on a $2,000 EV charger either. And to your point, if we're going to get to our climate goals, if we're going to get to where we need to be in terms of the electrification of our transportation system, we need a solution for that 40% of the market to and the reality is even if the out of home charger worked, you still gotta go sit in your car somewhere outside of your house and waste time and I was the type of guy if there were two people ahead of me at the gas station, I'd go to the next gas station. I didn't want to wait 120 seconds to pump gas much less even at a Tesla Supercharger. You're sitting in your car for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and we'll talk to a lot of these folks. They've got a kid in the car. That kid is looking at the TV screen. It's just a frustrating situation. Our goal is to help you find a neighbor who has one of these EV chargers, you can consistently go over there, drop the car off at eight o'clock at night, pick it up the next morning, it's ready to go. You've paid less than you would at a supercharger your neighbors made a few bucks. And you've built that community all at one time. That's what we're really all about.
Mike Stohler
Alright, so let's talk about the process. Again, everyone's Aaron Lieberman, buzze.biz is the website. Talk us through how this works on both sides. So let's say I have an EV charger. And I'd like to go to buzze.biz and host people on how that site works?
Aaron Lieberman
So that buzze.biz is just our website, you can go to the App Store or Google Play Store, if you just put in Buzze you can download the app right to your phone. And honestly for a host it takes less than five minutes to download it . The first screen is where all the other hosts are listed. I tell people there is one catch the first time you go through you make a choice. Do you want to be a driver primarily? Or do you want to be a host primarily. And you get one time to choose that. So if you want to be a host, you choose the bottom part of that screen. You can actually still use the network and there's a way to do that if you've listed as a host, but if you list your charger you just say is it a Tesla or not a Tesla? Do you have the converter or not? We asked you not to do this . We ask that you put up a picture of what your house looks like from the street where you want people to park and what the charger looks like people and then you're good to go. Eventually we ask once we get a payment for you to connect your banking details, but you don't have to do that at first, you can wait until we get the money for you. And that actually all happens via stripe anyway. So we're not holding any of that information. That's a third party integration. Even if you were to take the pictures, integrate with your banking, all of that stuff, five minutes, and you're good to go. It doesn't cost anything to list as a host on the app as well. And right now we have over 160, all the way from the Phoenix area, if you're familiar with this geography, from Anthem to Casa Grande and everywhere in between, but we're starting to get hosts all across the country, as people get excited about this idea. We've had a pop up in 30 different states, flip it around as a driver. When you come through as a driver, you want to place to charge your EV you choose driver, that first thing is a list of the hosts that are near you, you can choose a map view, you can also choose a list view where you'll just see from wherever you are right now, who are the closest hosts. The cool thing is I say to people, if you've taken an Uber, you can schedule a charge with Buzze, it is that easy to do, you hit the host that you want to charge at the host. By the way, you could block out a schedule, if you don't want people at your house at night, you don't want anyone there on Saturday, whatever your schedule is. But when they find a host, it's available, it takes again probably 60 seconds or less. When do you want to drop off your car? And then when do you want to pick it up and we'll show you the miles of range you will likely get during that time. So if you figure out I need 200 miles, that might be a six hour charge, whatever it is, you'll put it in there. Only when you book a charge and we actually pay for it. It's like a credit card hold like Uber does, then you get the actual address of the host before then you've known where the host is generally but you can't get to the exact house location. And then when it's time for you charge, you can get driving directions in the app, you go there you have the picture, you see what the house looks like, as you pull up, you see where to park, you plug in off and you give away then you go back to your house or get on with your day while your car is charged. And this thing is so easy. That's what makes it so great.
Mike Stohler
And again, everyone's buzze.biz, it's how they spell Buzze. How often if I'm a host when and how do they get paid? So someone comes charges up? Is it something every two weeks? Is it immediately?
Aaron Lieberman
It's a great question. We pay our hosts one day a month. Usually it's the second day of the month for all the charges that happened in that previous month. And again, if you haven't connected your account, we'll send you a note saying hey, you got some dollars sitting there. As soon as you connect, it'll go through, we pay 25 cents per kilowatt and most states including Arizona back 30 states, we pay 20 cents per kilowatt to the host and we charge 25 cents per kilowatt to the driver. Most people are paying a third to a half of that for their own power at home. So you should be making money as a host on absolutely every single charge.
Mike Stohler
Yeah, and you should because I don't even see a difference with my level to my electric bill. I don't even notice it really?
Aaron Lieberman
Yeah,
Usually it's around 50 bucks a month. If you're charging at home, if you drive around 14,000 miles a year, that would be over 200 in gas. And that's one of the things people just do not realize is that these cars are way cheaper to operate than gas cars going forward. Even if you're charging out of home with Buzze, you should be saving 50% off of what you'd be otherwise paying for gas. And that's one of the reasons these cars are such a great deal.
Mike Stohler
Who is the customer that you're looking for isn't like the renters the apartment dwellers?
Aaron Lieberman
Yeah,
That's exactly it. Even if it's a condo owner who doesn't have the ability to charge at home, someone who's renting and often that's right in your same neighborhood, they're just renting their house instead of buying it. And frankly right now that calculation has never been more favorable to renters that the home prices have gone up so much every single one of our neighbors, our neighborhoods has record numbers of renters right now, this is how they can get an EV which is they can just come right down the street and charge it at their neighbor's house. That's really what we're focused on. We got a few people who are in town with a rental car or something like that. That's okay, too. But we're really trying to get the people who we see consistently to charge them to find a place. They like it, they consistently charge at that neighbor's house. And that's when the magic really happens.
Mike Stohler
It makes sense. No question. It kind of pops into my mind what keeps other than maybe breaking the law then for coming in the next night? Or it's like, "Hey, Mike's not home and his charger is sitting out. I'll just plug in."
Aaron Lieberman
Yeah, like this is the number one question that we get. So I'm glad that you asked. The short answer is exactly what you said they would be breaking the law. Someone on our team heard her when somebody was asking this question. She said normally criminals choose crimes to do that they can do quickly is that normally charging up your EV is like a four to six hour affair where you're leaving it in someone's house. I like to and we have not had a single problem with this. I actually like to use the example of a water hose. If you pulled into your driveway and someone was filling up a 2000 gallon jug of water and they were about halfway up. You're gonna call the police, are they what the hell are you doing? You know what I mean? It's the same situation where your water is sitting there usually in the front of your house and I'm gonna come turn it on and even could sneak on there but it takes a long time to get what they want. We do have some safeguards in the app in the app drivers sign in with their car's credentials. So if you have a Tesla, you sign in with your Tesla credentials, if you have a Ford, your FordPass credentials, whatever that is. And that's how we meter the charge. So we know that we're using it, we also know your location when you're at that charger as well. So we actually disable the ability for cars to charge at that location if they don't have a scheduled appointment. But again, it feels like a pressing issue for people because it's a new world. But in actual fact, we haven't had any challenges with it.
Mike Stohler
Yeah. I think it's natural intuition to think that someone who hates someone might be able to do it. And that brings me to the second question, are you seeing that people are like my Level 2's in my garage? Yeah. How are you dealing with our people just sticking the hose, the cable out the garage door?
Aaron Lieberman
Yeah. Great, great question. In most cases, people are letting the cable go underneath the garage door, it's still closed, we actually give you a canvas bag and a hook that says Buzze on it. If you look on our website and use some of those news reports, you can see a great host who had it all set up. So you pull up to the house and you see this Buzze canvas bag, you can fish in there, almost all of our hosts have a converter. So if you have a Tesla charger, they have a converter to charge J1772. And vice versa. So they can charge in either direction. And in some cases, you might have to snap on the converter, you plug in and you hit start charging in the app, and you are good to go. But we've had a few people that let people come into the garage, it really depends on the placement, if it's on the back wall of the garage, these are usually about 25 foot cables, we do have a cable extension that you can snap onto the end of yours if you really want to, if it's a long run, and you really want to have people out on the driveway. And actually we sell those for our hosts at a little over $100. It's about half price where you can get them anywhere else. We have a set of things that we're trying to help our hosts get if they need hooks and other stuff like that can make this work just about anywhere.
Mike Stohler
Yeah, that makes sense. And I didn't even know they have extensions of cables. That might be nice. Because when I had a Tesla, it was on the back, right? Yeah, very easy. My Lucid is on the front left.
Aaron Lieberman
Yeah. I know exactly what you mean, you're either we've got a couple of TVs in my house and usually turned one around to get in, you're bringing it around the long way on the other, but become a Buzze house, you'll get the cheapest extension table around.
Mike Stohler
Very good. That'll do that.
Aaron Lieberman
Now you can pay for it by getting others to come charge.
Mike Stohler
Exactly. Absolutely. No, I think you were saying I wanted to clarify. As a host in the app, I can block out times. Yeah, I don't want to get
Aaron Lieberman
Locked out points where they don't want people to schedule so they could say hey, you know what I want to charge every Friday night and I want it whatever it is, or I don't want people here early mornings, the dogs are broken, what whatever that issue is, they can also choose it to they can select to not be on auto books. So each request gets approved individually. That's another option that hosts have as well. We encourage people to try to block out coupons and leave it on auto book because sometimes people are looking right now and if they see available that gives you the most likelihood of getting someone to book but it will show them that it's not available right then if it's going into a window that you have blocked out as a host. Yeah.
Mike Stohler
Perfect. Now, typical week, typical month, or you can tell me whichever thing, whatever parameter within an urban setting or neighborhood Scottsdale or Phoenix, how many drivers do you think that they can expect to charge? What are you seeing?
Aaron Lieberman
It totally depends on your location. We have a host in Tempe right near several apartment buildings, he's often getting a couple people a week at one point, he had a guy who was coming every you know, second or third day, basically. And we've had other people who are further out there getting hardly anybody what we say to hosts. It's not like your house becomes a gas station and people are back to back. There's just not that much density around at this time. And it's gotta be really close. Unless they're getting a ride or getting dropped off. We had one guy who would bring a bike and bike back about a mile aways from his house, it's gotta be somebody right in your neighborhood. So the volume on an individual host basis has not been crazy at all, at one or two folks a week are coming in. We've seen a variety of charges where they drop it off at night. Today, we had somebody come at nine in the morning and pick it up at two. You know what I mean? We've seen both of those use cases. Usually they're staying for at least two plus hours. Because this is level two charging, you're getting around 30 miles of range per hour. It's not like someone's coming for 20 minutes, they're gonna come for a good block of time, but then they're going to be charged up and good to go after that.
Mike Stohler
And within the app, do you know how long the person signed up for a particular time period?
Aaron Lieberman
Yeah, they can reserve their spot up to seven days ahead of time. But if it's if today is Wednesday, they could reserve till next Tuesday. They say when they want to pick up and when they want to drop off and the host gets immediately notified. Okay, great. "Aaron's coming over to my house." "Oh, On Tuesday at 9pm, he's picking it up at 8am." We say to our drivers, this is not there's no idle fees, we're not you're coming in and someone else is leaving right after you in most cases, this is, the whole goal is to make this a way more relaxed, more customer focused experience. If you're a little bit late, no problem. When you get there, plug it in, you're good to go. We ask people to make sure they pick it up before the end of their window. But if you want to pick it up early, nope, no problem there, either, you're gonna be able to go at that point. But the nice thing about it is the host gets notified, somebody's charging your house charges complete, the driver gets paid, hey, it's time to pick it up. Everybody's getting notified through the app. So they know exactly what's going on at each stage of the charge. And for hosts at when a charge is complete, what the average charge was, you see all your charges for the month, and then you see all your charges for the year consolidated on kind of a monthly basis, exactly what's going on and what to expect when it's Buzze pay day on the second of every pay day.
Mike Stohler
I love that. That's that. Now, what if it's like it went, "Hey, you got to park here, this is where I want you to park", you get some bonehead comes in, takes up another spot. And now I can't get out of my garage and I don't have that person's phone number. Yeah, if that's ever happened, what is the resolution process? What can I do?
Aaron Lieberman
Yeah, we have 24/7 tech support, if you message us we message the driver, call the driver and say something's gonna have to happen. We haven't had that issue, we've had the issue a couple of times, or someone gets there, they don't have a ton of charge left and the driver stuff is now and they're like, "Hey, what's going on, the charger isn't out." And we say to the driver, we say to the host Hey, can you put the thing out, we haven't added we haven't had any problem the other way. And we really work with our hosts to say, look, if you have an auto book on you got to be ready. Sometimes people are charging or looking and saying we're gonna I'm gonna come right over, I'll be there in 10 minutes. That means you have to have your stuff ready to go. Or you can have that pre approval process where you know, with a little bit of advance notice is common and you say yep, I'm good with it. And then they come on over.
Mike Stohler
And take a little peace of mind, you're verifying both the hosts and the drivers. I know. It's like the Uber driver they're supposed to be but there is some type of verification process within that.
Aaron Lieberman
For sure. This is a really important look for the hosts, we know it's their house, it's their address, we got their bank info, these are real people. Same thing for the drivers. We know their VIN, we know their credit card information, they log in, they use a real cell phone number to do that and we know their location. So these are real two known groups of people interacting. And we give everybody a peace of mind with that. And this is completely safe and secure on both sides.
Mike Stohler
Good. Excellent. And to expand on that a little bit. What if someone steals my adapter? What if someone rips, something happens? And where is my property damaged? What kind of guarantee?
Aaron Lieberman
It's a great question, I'm happy to report we haven't had any of those issues. But we do offer a $10,000 protection guarantee to the host to say "Hey, look, if somebody pulls out something, something happens, you're going to be covered." And you won't have to worry about it on the driver's side. They've got car insurance, and frankly, the house as homeowners insurance too. But if there's a deductible or stuff that they have to cover work there to back up our hosts, and make sure you know, they don't have to come out of pocket for anything that might have happened at their home.
Mike Stohler
Yeah. And that's just good business. That's right
Aaron Lieberman
I bet Mike, if someone told you 15 years ago, you'd get in a stranger's car every time you wanted to go to the airport and let him drive you. You know what I mean? You'd be like this crazy. I don't know that person. But these two sided networks and the sharing economy, it works because you can actually get really good information on both sides. And then that makes us more comfortable. In the beginning, people have all these same questions. What are they going to charge? How do I know? That's what happens when you join something new people gotta wrap their brain around it as a new approach and get comfortable with it. And then we see that they fall in love and are like, this is great. They give a wave. The person plugs in and everybody's happy.
Mike Stohler
Yeah, it's just such a great concept. Again, everybody. It is Aaron Lieberman, Buzze, buzze.biz. Aaron, how can people find you outside of the website? If they have any questions?
Aaron Lieberman
Yeah, you can always, I do pretty good on email and aaron@buzze.biz. I'm getting a lot of stuff on LinkedIn. But you can always jump in there and find me as well. We're here to be helpful. You know, we have a number up on our website that we answer live pretty close to 24/7. We've got a dedicated group of people, you know, we really believe in this thing and are excited to connect with our hosts on an individual basis where your partner and helping make this whole thing happen. And for folks who are considering buying an EV and you might not have a place to charge you have no fear. That's what we're here for. And we can really help you out. And our goal is to try to get a million EVs on the road that otherwise might not be there by people who are this charging challenge to you who just can't get access to home charging, we want to be their solution, and that's what this is really all about.
Mike Stohler
Absolutely. Aaron, thank you so much for coming on. Is there anything, any parting words, something that I've missed that you want to make sure that our listeners get? I
Aaron Lieberman
I think the only thing I would say is this is really about unleashing the entrepreneurship of our hosts wherever they're at, right? Like all of these things. It's tapping into you, those folks as leaders. So I encourage people to go to the App Store, look up Buzze, b-u-z-z-e, and download the thing. And then we're finding all the time innovative ways that people are figuring it out where we'll mail you a few cards, you can put EVs in the neighborhood, people are posting on next door and sharing. We have a little yard sign if people want it that says "Hey, you can charge your EV right here" that are popping up in neighborhoods, all over the place. And ultimately, this is about building community. In my neighborhood. The dog walkers tend to know each other because we're out there on the street with our dog as the sun's getting ready to set. This is about helping the EV community get together and get to know each other and help each other get those EVs on the road and also make a few bucks in the process. I think it's a win win all the way around for sure.
Mike Stohler
Absolutely. That's so funny. You said that. Yes. I know more dog names on our walks than I do the actual people that are walking them. It's funny, but Aaron, thank you so much for coming on. Again everyone. Aaron Lieberman, Buzze.
Aaron Lieberman
Now you'll be the Lucid guy and warmer the Mach-E keeper.
Mike Stohler
That's right. Take care. Aaron, thank you so much for coming up.
ABOUT AARON LIEBERMAN
With over 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur and social impact leader, Aaron Lieberman has dedicated his career to building and scaling organizations and initiatives that have positively impacted nearly one million low-income children and families. His passion lies in creating innovative solutions to tackle some of the most pressing challenges of our time, including education, climate change, and economic opportunity. As the Chief Executive Officer of Buzze Inc, he is on a mission to facilitate the adoption of one million new EVs by connecting EV drivers with a convenient network of shared charging hosts.