Thoughts on a visit to eTreego, one of the top three charging equipment companies in Taiwan

By Jeff Lee 2022-09-19

Since EVs’ appearance on Taiwanese roads several years ago, charging piles have become ubiquitous in our surroundings. The development of Taiwan’s charging equipment industry is faster than that of Taiwanese EVs, boasting exceptional export performance and charging technologies for many vehicles, including electric scooters and buses. Came from the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), eTreego quickly became one of Taiwan’s top three charger providers with ITRI’s assistance. With its young and innovative R&D team, the company will undergo rapid growth under the support of multiple corporate shareholders and flourish in the supply chain of global charging industry.

In the era of EVs, the charging equipment industry is one of the most crucial emerging businesses. As of today, the development of Taiwan’s local charging industry is rather fruitful, making it an essential part of both domestic and international markets. Thus, on the afternoon of September 15th, our Auto Future editor team came to northern Hsinchu to interview Mr. Chien, the chairman and the CEO of eTreego, a new green energy startup, to exchange thoughts on the prospect of the charging equipment industry.

Mr. Chien, the chairman and the CEO of eTreego (Left) had an interview with Jeff Lee, the director of Auto Future (Right)

 

eTreego is a startup supported by the ITRI in 2017, with its core members mainly from the Institute. Despite the company’s young age of only four years, eTreego has over ten years of experience in developing charging techs. With recent investments from large companies such as Hotai Motor and Shihlin Electric, the company has gained many business opportunities and much space for technological improvements in the car-charging operation and charging facility planning of large-scale building projects. Aside from the partnership with Hotai Motor, eTreego began operational collaborations with Nissan, Hyundai, Volvo Taiwan, and CMC on multiple levels, even achieving stellar sales performance in electric scooter fast chargers (fast charging is still the norm in electric scooters globally) and the customization of charging stations for domestic electric bus businesses.

For now, the market share of eTreego charging piles holds over 50% in Taiwan (ranked by cumulative watts). Already planning in the US, Japan, and SE Asia, the company’s next step is to expand to the global market. Of course, in the hyper-competitive market, eTreego must differentiate the product value and customer service from others to stand out and lay the foundation for its future. Below, Mr. Chein precisely pointed out eTreego’s advantages:

  • Modularization and customization. Based on 70% modularized design, eTreego could effectively develop products by customizing the other 30% that fit the customers' and brands’ various requirements. Take electric bus business as an example… charge/discharge efficiencies (each bus manufacturer’s battery type and charging characteristic varies), dispatch center site planning, and the charging patterns (some require intensive, long-period charging for multiple buses and some require individual fast charging during shifts).
  • Diversified product lineup. eTreego provides fast charging equipment with two designs based on site requirements: separated (similar to Tesla Superchargers) or integrated type. With energy conversion efficiency of over 80%, the company’s wireless charging technology is also ready to go when autonomous driving is commercialized to pair up. Additionally, the company has been participating in the 5G Smart Pole Standard Promotion Alliance led by Pegatron, collaborating with ACER ITS on developing smart parking chargers, and developing chargers for mechanical parking spaces. In conclusion, eTreego’s wide range of charging equipment will continually broaden its products’ application possibilities.
  • Collaborations with the TaiPower and carmakers to develop energy-storage technologies. eTreego has been co-developing related techs of energy storage systems and V2G (Vehicle-to-Grid) for both lithium batteries and hydrogen fuel cells. The “V2G power source integration and management” project for EV, collaborated by eTreego, Foxconn MIH, YES energy, Microsoft…etc., unfolded last year. By integrating CPMS (charge point management system), ESS (energy storage system), bi-directional (two-way) DC fast charger, and Microsoft’s Azure cloud service, this project can form a designated regional grid (without power transmission with TPC) for emergency application.
  • Solution provider for EV charging in buildings. eTreego not only develops hardware equipment for charging stations but also advances the holistic planning of charger deployment in buildings in the future era of EVs. The company focuses on new housing collaborations by now and will push for implementations and integrations in old apartment buildings. With TaiPower’s EV–dedicated metering program, EV owners could enjoy convenient and cheap charging services inside the buildings.

Mr. Chien’s looking forward to the deployment of public charging stations; for one, Taiwan’s EV sales market is just getting started, and for another, eTreego’s full-on sales expansion could make good use of EV’s growth in a few years. To achieve an ideal charging-pile-to-EV ratio of 1:10 in the future, eTreego and the charging industry still have much more room to grow.