S1E02

E-Mobility and Smart Charging in Austria with Korbinian Kasinger - TEB Podcast- S1E2

with Korbinian Kasinger· KW Solutions· 49m

TL;DR

The podcast discusses e-mobility and smart charging innovations in Austria.

Synopsis

Korbinian Kasinger from KW Solutions shares insights on the company's role in the e-mobility sector. He discusses challenges and innovations in charging infrastructure and the importance of collaboration in the energy transition.

Key metrics

by the numbers · 5

2000
operating charging points
4%
electric vehicle share
50%
newly licensed EVs in China
37%
newly licensed EVs in China
10%
newly licensed EVs in the US

Topics

5 tags

e-mobilitycharging infrastructuregreen techdemand responsevehicle-to-grid

Stats

Duration: 49m
Words: 7.6k
Questions: 55

Timeline

5 chapters

Founding KW Solutions
Korbinian discusses the founding of KW Solutions and their focus on green tech.
Current Company Structure
Korbinian describes the growth of KW Solutions and their current team size.
Charlie Backend Overview
Korbinian explains the Charlie backend for optimizing charging transactions.
Charging Points Project
Discussion on the project in Grockna and its significance.
CO2 Pricing Discussion
Korbinian talks about the fluctuating prices of CO2 emissions.

Key insights

4 takeaways

01
Importance of Collaboration
Collaboration across the value chain is crucial for successful energy transition projects.
02
Market Trends Affecting EV Adoption
Current market trends show a decline in the popularity of sustainability topics, impacting investments.
03
Innovative Charging Solutions
KW Solutions' Charlie backend optimizes charging cycles based on dynamic pricing and user behavior.
04
Regulatory Challenges Persist
Regulatory uncertainties hinder the clear direction for electric vehicle adoption in Europe.

Pull quotes

1 quote

We need to protect our environment.
Korbinian Kasinger

Transcript1072 cuesClick a timestamp to jump

Okay. So, welcome to this new episode of
the bridge podcast. We are very happy to
having you here, Corby, if I can of
course call you that. And we were here
one month ago. we talk about what
KW solution is doing and we were very
impressed and especially you as a leader
of this amazing team being Austrian
entrepreneurial
so we are very happy to know more
about you and having you today we are on
a journey to understand about what
innovators are doing in this region and
one of the first innovators that we are
talking to are you we are very excited
to have you that's a very big pleasure.
So Rahul Daniel, thanks a lot for
visiting us and thanks a lot for
bringing up this initiative. and I'm
highly impressed about what you're
doing with the energy bridge because I
can imagine that it is quite challenging
to ramp such a project up and especially
if you're doing it in such a
professional way. So it's great to have
you here. We really appreciate you.
Thank you. So to start a bit and to
let the community know you are well
entrepreneurial spirit right and I was
impressed that you studied
international business but you went into
the energy field and you studied in
inbrook.. So how was it to study
there? so it was not so much planned
to study in Insburg because I was
born in Upper Austria. and I could
have gone to Salzburg or as well to
Vienna to study there but somehow I
ended up in Insburg at the
University of Insburg. So it was quite
nice to study there. I did quite quickly
understand that I like the way of
studying at the university in Austria at
the public university because you're
pretty much selfdetermined and it is
quite liberal, right? So you can choose
also free. It's it's quite what do
you say? The tuition are waved.
you don't have to pay for the education.
You don't have to pay. That's amazing.
At least in the beginning you don't have
to pay. yeah and I like to study
there. Inpuk is a beautiful city. So it
was a big joy. And then we knew that
you studied also in Thailand in Bangkok.
So what's the two different worlds
completely? How was the study there? So
first of all it was I was studying one
year in Thailand at Chula Longan
University in Bangkok and it was
mandatory for me because I was studying
international economics and business
and I have had to go one year abroad and
I chose Thailand because I did not go to
a further or a second western
university.. and I think it was
super exciting for me because it was
something like a synthesis of being
western but as well being eastern. We
have had many colleagues from from China
or from other Southeast Asian countries.
So many many new perspectives and it was
interesting. Wow. And did you take any
special course there or it was general
international business? How was it? So I
took overall speaking I took 12
courses in one year in 12 months. So
each month one course
so it was like because many people are
saying you're going abroad for
doing your your studies and that's
quite comfortable and easy and in my
case it was quite challenging and
demanding. So as said 12 courses with
exams midterm exams a lot of exercises
that we have to do and good and all this
experience influenced you to be
entrepreneurial or it was just in
yourself natural born is I don't know if
this can be naturally born basically not
so to be very honest on that I was not
so secure about what to do in my
career path so I was studying business
and economics And that's many other
people are doing that as well. Right.
And then I was starting my career in
consulting. So I started at EY
Pathanon and this was quite linear as
well considering that I have been
studying economics and business,
right? Yes. but I guess this
entrepreneurial spirit comes from my
early childhood because I was grown up
at the farm and this has I would say
quite a lot to do with about how you
think about work and about work
ethics as well because it was like when
you have a farm you have animals
right and you have a land which need
to be somehow managed
And you do not consider working hours in
a static way but that there is
a certain amount of work which needs to
be done. It's hard work and you are I
know many people are not considering
this as being self-employed but by
running a farm it's purely
self-employment and so from the
entrepreneurial spirit how you move
forward to energy why did you choose
energy as your main business
that's quite interesting as well so
because we were two when we founded the
company so Benjamin and I founded the
company and it was like that so we did
already know each other from our time in
Insburg. So we were both studying at
University of Hinsburg and we met again
in Vienna so to say and we said
like okay it would be really cool to be
self-employed but it was not like the
moment that we have had this super no
the dream just to have the intention at
the beginning we did have the intention
that we would like to be
self-employed
and based on that we thought like and we
brainstormed what could we do what are
we good at and what can we ramp up and
build And then we ended quite quickly
in doing something with tech green
tech because we thought like the
world is somehow in danger and it is
good when some one is doing something
against that right reducing emissions
etc. very interesting period as well
when you started in 2021 just after
corona or we were in middle of corona I
would say and so corona was quite
challenging because to jump into
that topic with KW solutions we
quickly went the direction of
offering B2B charging products right
so our target groups is industry is
retail but as well hospitality
right So we were selling or we still
sell fullyfledged packages of
of hardware of operations of management
of doing all the services all the
billing all the maintenance etc. But we
wereum selling this quite strongly to
hospitality as well. Okay. And you can
imagine that this is not so
convenient when you are jumping from one
lockdown to the other lockdown because
no one of these people were
investing in charging infrastructure.
They were shut down. It was like it was
super challenging in the beginning. You
started in 2020 or we started in 2021.
In the initial part you were telling
us about how you come across from
consulting to you had the idea and you
ideated and then you got into founding
KW solutions right. So and just how
would it challenging because now that we
have been living in Austria for a while
we understand that people are very smart
here but entrepreneurship is
something it takes a lot of I think a
lot of grit to start a lot of courage of
course then because when when you're
already living in a very social secure
place and you were working for EY
it's a very reputed company how was the
journey to move forming your own
thing so quite difficult on multiple
levels because on an emotional level
it's it's it's quite interesting in the
beginning. so you have this idea and
you start to build structures around
this idea, right? So you start to
build this this corporate or this
company. and then you start telling
people what what are you doing, right?
And the first thing that people are
telling you is oh isn't it similar to
ABC, right? Yeah. Yeah. How how how can
you compete there? So why are you doing
this? So this is challenging. So in the
beginning no one takes you seriously.
Yeah. No one at all. People are
saying, "Oh, that's a nice idea and we
wish you all the best." But in the end,
no one takes you seriously. Right.
That's as the first thing. And on a
second level it was quite challenging
because coming from consulting you
have not somehow measuring it as high or
low but you have a certain amount of
salary right and then certainty and a
certainty of status of salary of
career path right it's quite strongly
determined and then you start then you
say you start at zero with no
salary but on the other hand with many
many expenses and everything is
difficult because founding a company
is like so I guess when you do it the
first time you're not so prepared for
that it's like being a father it's like
having a baby growing right I wouldn't
know but it's it's like having a baby
and you consider your company as a baby
sometimes as well the evolutional
aspects around it and it's it's so hard
because when you come out of corporate
you it is so much substantiated your
salary, the administration, all the
hierarchy. So everything is determined
and then you start from zero. You do not
have an office. If you have your your
first client meetings, you always
propose that you have these meetings
at your client side because you do not
really want to admit that at my
officeite does not exist, right? My
office side is my living room. I'm fully
remote. And after forming the
company, how long it took you to get
your first office? I guess nearly a
year. No, a half year or between a half
and a and a year. Yes. Wow. But amazing.
So what challenges do you have now?
Would you say? so maybe going from
then to now is 3 and 1/2 years later. So
I would say that we have built and
formed a good company a well
structured company which is starting
to get
substantiated as well which is important
because I think it's it's very important
to have a logic in everything what
you're doing and this logic needs to be
built up in many aspects
and what are the challenges now is
so we are still growing growing. So we
are increasing our amount of people
who are working in our team who are
working for KW solutions. Right now we
are 16 or 70 people working here. and
we are facing of course some challenges
which are mainly driven by the market
which we are acting at because electric
vehicles and all the sustainability
topics are not so trendy right now. It
was a bit more trendy a few years ago.
Right now sustainability and reducing
CO2 emissions are important but not
super super important right also given
the political context that's why it
leads to the passion for energy
transition and passion for energy what
drives you there like to have
the grit in the evolving market it gets
very challenging and the passion that
you have for it if you can go about that
I think it's interesting to somehow
closing the loop because When we
started, it was like we were rather
driven by the idea of getting
self-employed, of doing cooperative, of
doing some some business on our own.
Right now, I'm I'm 110%
convinced of what we are doing. It's
so important that people are working for
mobility and energy transition.
That's so important. We need to protect
what is around of us. We need to
protect our environment. And this is so
in interesting and exciting for me. We
found a way where we somehow were
crossing all these sustainability
aspects with a certain kind of I would
not say capitalism but a certain kind of
doing business with that. So this green
tech area, green tech business is super
exciting because we are working in that
way that we say we would like to make
green technologies beneficial for the
end customer. Yeah. Not only on an sust
sustainability level but as well on an
economic level as well. Actually what
one of the favorite
sustainability meanings that I have
heard they have three pillars. They have
to be environmental friendly with social
impact but also have to be a business.
We cannot be naive. It's it's amazing
what you're doing that you could merge
these three pillars. So you can say that
you are not greenwashing at the end.
It's a certain it's a proper business
with greenage and contributing to
tackle climate change that we are in the
same route too. This is what it drive
us. So it's amazing and on that note
if you can go about KW solutions and if
you could tell us about what you do at
the company. So basically we
have basically two segments where we are
operating at. We have a segment
which is called CPO. So charge point
operating I already mentioned it in
the beginning. What we are doing there
is we are operating charging
infrastructure for others so to say for
our customers. Our customers are owners
of hotels so hospitality sector
industry leaders retail companies
because what is the requirement that
they have? They have the requirement of
somehow rolling out multiple charging
stations and all these charging stations
need to be operated.. They need to
have the data. They need to have a
possibility of balance the loads.
they need to have the possibility of
doing billing because if they have a
third party credit card should be
possible, roaming cards should be
possible and all these stuff needs to be
somehow bundled and needs to be
somehow dealt with by ideally an
external party which are we right. So
that's the first business part. and
the second business part goes a bit more
in a specified direction because we were
building quite quickly our own back end
which is called Charlie. And what the
Charlie environment is doing is
basically we try to fully optimize
optimize charging transactions for our
end customers. And here we have two
customer segments. Customer segment one
is real estate industry and customer
segment two is transport transportation
industry. So heavy transportation
industry and just to give you an example
of real estate industry. So when we are
building a project for one multif family
house that means that the whole multif
family house is in our Charlie
environment. If let's suppose you would
live in such a multif family house then
you would buy a charging station and you
would be connected to Charlie and
Charlie would help you to fully optimize
your charging cycle every day. That
means we're working with dynamic prices.
So dynamic spot prices which are
changing from hour to hour. So we ensure
that you have the cheapest price..
First layer. Second layer is net cost
structure because we always need to
be careful about how we increase the
the net requirement because net
requirement needs to be paid that's very
expensive we need to reduce it and we
need to make it somehow continuously low
in the end that's in real time second
parameter and third parameter is your
individual charging behavior so we would
ask you Rahul when do you need your car
on Monday and Tuesday on Wednesday and
you give us this information and based
on this information from you and from
all the others in a multi family house
as well we can consolidate everything
and we can fully optimize. Wow. So it's
personalized to in every behavior in a
multif family environment. Yes. Amazing.
Very cool. And that's you are
making it on house. It's a KW solution
innovation. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Super.
and Corby just I want to just go
out a bit to understand the value chain
where Charlie comes in and so for
example somebody I have a EV I buy a
electric ch car I live in a multi-
housing society and I need charging
infrastructure so as a B2C customer can
also have a charging infrastructure of
course if my housing society allows but
you are going to deal with the housing
society idea, right? Yes. Because that
there is a I need to just introduce
one one legal frame here. there is
you can have an individual charging
station.. But you are somehow
incentivized by the law to have a
collective charging infrastructure
because individual charging stations are
not somehow limited when it comes to the
net operation requirement and they
are not connected with the others. That
means the requirement from time to time
is not consolidated and not somehow
limited. It's always one peak to the
other and this is not good and that's
why it goes more and more in the
direction of somehow connecting all the
charging station in one family house in
one lively family house., and that's
basically what what Charlie is doing.
And you as an end customer, it's not so
easy because it's always required that
if you have a multif family house with
different owners, they need to take a
decision on that. We are investing in
such an infrastructure and then it's
possible., so which makes our lead
cycle or our sales cycle most efficient
in when multif family houses are built.
the newly constructed design is much
better because then you have top down,
right? They say the construction
company says yes, we going to go with
this and that's basically
straightforward. When multif family
houses are already existing then it gets
a bit more complicated because you
always need to have consolidated
decision and still there are many people
out there who say electric vehicles I
don't like it. So in this chart
environment, do you have also a chat?
The multif families can talk each other
to organize themselves or it's more
individual input from each family in
one. So the platform of chatting is
basically the property management
company because they are setting all the
products and all the logic and the
information up and then they're sending
it out. Then you have a certain time
frame of I don't know four to 6 weeks
where everyone can input on that. Oh,
that's amazing. So why did you come up
with this Charlie idea? What was the
need that you saw? The need it was like
so right now if if you have a look at
the competitors landscape, it feels like
that they have the understanding of one
size fits it all, right? They have a
certain back end comes strongly from a
direction of billing only. backend
providers focused pretty much on how to
build but they did not focus on how to
optimize. Okay. And we said that if we
want to compete in this market
substantially
we need a certain selling point on the
one hand and on the other hand the
selling point is always the economics.
Yeah. So we convince customers if we
say we help you saving money on the one
hand and on the other hand by somehow
getting incentivized of using cheap
price windows we help the
net infrastructure getting a bit more
relaxed that's win-win. That's
something related also with a big topic
that we have seen in different
conferences which is demand response
because we have variability in
generation with renewables but we also
should turns also in demanding response
and to make it flexible. So vehicles
I think they are going to have a big
role into this demand response and
how to optimize it. So it's it's very
impressive what you are doing with
Charlie and it's a onhouse innovation.
So it's it's amazing. So how do you see
the KW role in this new for saying
in the CPO market? How do you see
yourself in the sector? It's you mean
based on multif family houses charity?
No just in general about the charge
point operator how the activities that
you have been doing in and maybe if you
can explain a bit some of the projects
that you're doing right currently. So I
I see us in general as company which
is driving innovation and obviously many
companies are saying that from
themselves but in the end I believe that
because I know that there is no other
product at the market which is doing
similar or which is capable of doing
similar things.. many
competitors, especially publiclyowned
energy suppliers, they have external
backends and they're using external back
ends in the sense of one size fits it
all for each and every requirement. You
go to the customer and you personalize.
So in this example of the grow hack,
if you can tell us a bit about this
project to explain the process.
So is stands
for quite a long name right? No but what
they are doing basically they are
owning as well as maintaining all the
streets which are going in the
Koskna. So Koskna is the highest
mountain in Austria.. Okay. Where
you went this week or Yeah. Yeah. We
we have been there this week., is it
the highest highest mountain? It's the
highest. What was the altitude? How high
it is? Well, that's a tricky question. I
think it's 3, 000 800 and a bit more.
Wow. Okay. Yeah. So, it's the highest
mountain., and it's quite impressive
and it of obviously the area and the
environment has certain particularities
as well as streets, right? There is
infrastructure and the grow is
responsible for the infrastructure and
what what they are doing is and this is
quite impressive they are not doing
nothing in the sense that the electric
vehicles are nice but not of our
business right they're saying we are
trying to set up a very explicit and a
very active role in all these
transitional things and that's why they
are building charging infrastructure and
we the operator of this charging
infrastructure and right now we
operate around about 50 charging points
there. So on the streets of Grockna
and it will be ramped up up to I
don't know 200 charging points in the
next one or two years. That's a huge
project for us and it is very very
substantial responsibility in that
region for us and we are super
happy about having this customer and
being responsible for these charging
points. Amazing. Just in numbers you
mentioned this project and in total
how many charging points right now we
are operating around about 2, 000
charging points. Wow. Wow. And I would
say this makes us to one of the biggest
charge point operators in Austria.
I'm I'm quite proud of that because
our our team and we were super active
and we are super motivated and ambitious
on the market and by getting so many
charging points in addition to
building our own software and
environment. I think quite a good thing.
Yeah, super good. And we can see that
you are a young entrepreneurial with a
great team, young team too, very
innovative. So you also are making
research with the academia with our
university too, the TV, the technical
university of Vienna and you are
exploring with B2G, right? So how is
this project going and what outcomes
are you expecting of this research?
so what what you just
mentioned it a bit earlier you said
all the electric vehicles and
all the vehicles that we have in
Austria. Right. So in speaking in
numbers it's around about 5 million
vehicles.. Oh. And right now we have
electric vehicle shares. I think it's
round about three or 4%. I think
rather 4% sure or 5 million. Ju just
about the stats I think Austria has the
the biggest number of vehicle per
person, right? It's about two I think if
if you go into No, it can't be because
we have around about 9 million people as
far as I'm informed. Yeah. And we have 5
million vehicles. So at a whole also and
how much you think it will be the EV?
It's around about 4%. 4%. Wow. So at the
very bloody beginning
matter of fact but what is the
perspective of the idea of vehicle
to grid is it at some point of time we
will have battery and that means
potential stoages everywhere and if they
connected to a system then they can
somehow create a virtual power plant
puffering and storing energy and
storing it if we have too much in the
grid and getting it out of the batteries
if if the grid grid needs some support.
Amazing. Okay, that's amazing. And this
is somehow the idea of vehicle
to grid. and in this ecosystem you
you need to somehow fulfill or you need
to settle certain items because you
have hardware and software from the
vehicles.. Which is quite complex
and quite diversified I would say.
then you have charging stations,
hardware and software. Then you have the
grid operator. You have an energy
supplier which is somehow involved as
well. And at the top layer you should
have some company which is KW solutions
in that integrate to integrate to
aggregate and that's right and
that's somehow the idea of this
project and of our research and
development and we were building a
consatium containing out of to so
technical university of Vienna for
shungland so it's it's it's derived
Bland and the company KA
which are producing AC and DC charging
infrastructure. and together we
try to shed some light on how it can
work in the future and what needs to be
done in terms of
interoperabilities that we are getting
this topic into reality in Austria.
So it's like a moderation and
investigation process of vehicle to
grit, we are doing hardware testing
as well. So not only in theory but as
well in practice. and we're super
excited. It's it's it's highly
interesting. Sure. And do you see in the
future that this service can be sold? I
mean to provide this at the end to
the grid from the
vehicles
aggregating storage to supply to the
grid. Do you see in the future that that
could be a paid service for the car
electrical car owners? My view yes
absolutely because I would think it is
quite sad if we cannot start managing
and operating all the batteries in the
vehicles. I don't know why why why is it
so difficult because of warranty reasons
right now I don't know it seems to be a
bit strange for me because we have a
lot of storage conventional storage
batteries they have these warranty
issues not so I guess it can be sold
and what is the business case behind
that it's it's rather it's more or less
going about arbitrage so you have two
channels of selling electricity or two
channels of addressing this business
case. On the one hand, you have the
normal energy market. That means so
coming from the spot market, you can buy
electricity from the from your energy
supplier when it's cheap. Yeah. For
example, during the summer, during the
afternoon hours where sun is burning.
Yeah. So energy is cheap. In some cases,
it is even negative. That means you get
paid when you consume energy. Yeah. So,
you can use making your battery full
and then when it's more expensive out
there, for example, in the evening or at
lunchtime or at the very in the in the
morning, you can sell it. Okay. It
provides you with the possibility of
arbitrage.. And then you have a
second option which is the grid market
where you could potentially participate.
which is basically
following an equivalent
logic. but all these business cases
need to be moderated. They need to be
conceptualized and they need to so
someone needs to start trying to getting
these business cases in reality. Yeah.
And I see there's a lot of we
emphasize at the energy bridge about
praising all the different value chain
in the energy industry and having
collaboration together and you have a
very successful case and also with the
nature of your business you talk to a
lot of different clients and you have to
collaborate. What you what do you think
about collaboration in this industry?
how what are the challenges and
we are successfully bridging it but
it must with some challenges. Yeah. So
to I'm I'm quite open about these things
because we are trying hard to somehow
building bridges as well because we
cannot do it on our own. That's for
sure. We're not going to make it on
our own. We need collaborations. Yeah.
And what we see is that it is very very
hard to getting into contact with car
manufacturers. Yeah. because I feel that
they cannot earn money with that and
though they are not interested in it.
For example, are you interested in
somehow getting into this project doing
this or that? No response or just no.
It's well they are business as usual.
They want to sell cars. Yes, we want to
sell cars. We want to make margins on
on based on selling but no innovation.
It's why way too far away from east. So
car manufacturers difficult. we see a
good progress with manufacturers of
of the hardware of the charging
stations, but this is quite is working.
And what I want to say and emphasis
emphasize as well is many people are
always blaming or not speaking so
well about net operating companies, but
I need to say that we are getting
great support of net operation
companies. They're super interested in
all these things.. And they're super
collaborative and they are going into
piloting these things with us as well.
So that's very positive. Yeah, that's
wonderful. I think more and
more value chain needs to come together,
collaborate more so that more successful
projects and the case studies could
come. And now that we started talking
about challenges of the industry also
going a bit more about the regulatory
hurdles that you have to overcome and
that you are still overcoming that you
see in the industry which could be ease
out a bit. Yeah. So the I think the
regulatory framework it is as it is
right I think it's a framework where
we can work in so where we can work
within it quite properly right now. So
of course there are things added like we
have had this afia regulation then we
have had this gaf for where CO2
becomes a price right like we are able
to sell CO2 emission certificates now
which is positive I would say it's a
bureaucracy monster that's for sure yeah
it's but in the end we get a couple of
cents for each and every kilowatt hour
which is nice how much is the CO2 tone
in price. So it's it's it's a and
if you ask 10 people of for the price
you get 10 different prices. In the
beginning it started in 2023. It was
around about 20 to 30 cents per kilowatt
hour. So it was tremendously high
tremendously high. Every thought
everyone thought like okay I'm getting
more money as I'm paying for the
electricity. So that's weird right?.
but it was somehow going down
strongly and now it's yeah a high on one
digit number. Okay. So 5 6 7 8 10 cents
something about that. That's the
regulatory aspects. But what what what I
see as a huge topic right now is we have
in Europe and in specific in
Austria very very very substantial
uncertainties. I feel like that on
the one hand the car manufacturers but
on the other hand politicians and the
people do not have a real
understanding of where to go right is
our future based on electrification
so is it based on electric vehicles or
are we still
moving forward with combustion
engines right so with fossil fuels I
don't know I think this is not a good
situation
because it leads to the fact that
neither our car manufacturers in Europe
nor the surrounding companies are
competing well and if you if you compare
this situation with Chinese companies
so they have a very very clear way
forward and I know it has so each
system has disadvantages
but in terms of
technology in terms of driving this
industry they get getting more and more
advantage the rest of the world
aligned all the industries with one goal
and yeah in western world maybe we are
just in this critical point of choosing
which way will be developed so we are
going for electrification too so and
just just on that point on
competitiveness of European
industries and the ecosystem and
competing Chinese manufacturers. You
think what could be more to be done here
to make sure that have the healthy
competition? You still have a lot of
Chinese manufacturers. They have
research happening in Europe and they
are selling here coming from Europe.
What how can they compete with that?
Because as you said they have a
tunnel focus and they have been
progressing really well but still you
said the government has to make a choice
but what more from the industry itself
that that can be done to still remain
competitive. so I guess it is a
strongly topdown driven topic.. So
at the top you should have politicians
who say that we are committed to
mobility and energy transition and from
that you can derive that fossil fuse or
fossil
driven vehicles
should come to an end as soon as
possible. There are some manufacturer
Renault maybe or others they Volvo they
said or we are not going to make more
internal combustion engines in 2030 24
there are some goals around but it's not
political it's for the industry there
are these goals but what happens is then
you have so I feel like that so you
you have in Europe you have a
certain amount of far right
political parties, right?. And they
are very strongly pro- fossil fuels, pro
combustion engine, etc. Not talking
about that now, but and that
leads to the circumstance that the more
moderate parties try to go a bit
into this direction as well. And this
leads to the mixture that we have in our
political landscape. And this mixture or
these uncertainties lead to the fact
that the companies do not really
know for sure where to go. Are we going
left or are we going right? And this of
course indicates two strings of
development, two strings of
manufacturing, two strings of sales and
and this is a totally two different
ecosystems.. And this is very
demanding to maintain. Yeah, this is
something that we are trying to bridge
also with the policy makers because in
in these fields as energy and
electrification and all these decisions
are long-term investment. So you need
certainty and a long-term plan. So
what we are trying to do also is to
bring this knowledge and this data to
the policy makers too to make them
understand why do we have to move
forward in this direction like
so it's very very impressive what
they're doing and are there any just
on that note what Neil was saying are
there any particular frameworks which is
going on in European Union which are
which are good which making like for
example we were looking at couple of
acts driven by European Union and
there are couple of funds which are for
EV and making sure that the EV is going
in the right direction. are you able
to take advantage of that somehow?
I think we were used to have these
things a couple of years ago in the
course of the green deal.. But in my
subjective perception these things
so for example giving CO2 a price
certain price or going into I don't
know 20 35 clear strategy of incentives
some incentives these things are getting
more and more delayed right yeah yeah
you mentioned how you see the
policies here in Europe how do you see
that is being developed in Asia for
example China or in the states how do
you see the like comparison these three
markets that's a difficult question so
I feel like that for example in China
that they have the feeling that
the big chance was coming now right
because they what what they perceive is
a western world which is not clear about
the strategy. And that means that they
have a huge chance about going only
into one field of technology. Yeah. And
this is electric vehicles. Yeah. and
they already have so many tech
companies, very substantiated, very
well-known tech companies over there.
and this can be extended but only by
going into one technology. And this is a
huge chance. Of course, this is
incentivized strongly by policy makers
with subsidies and whatever, but this
leads to very strong numbers in I
think they have right now
37% of all newly licensed
vehicles are full electric vehicles.
Wow. So, and then you have a certain
amount of hybrid vehicles as well. So I
guess you're already more at more than
50% of electrified vehicles which are
getting newly licensed. These are very
strong numbers.
Yeah. And in the states, how do you say
it? I think in the states, so we were
having a look at the numbers just
before that podcast. you have around
about 10% of newly licensed cars which
are fully electric and in Europe around
about 20 or 15 to 20%. Okay. So
that's significant gap. Yeah. And also
apart from regulatory barriers, are
there any other barriers that you're
facing that can be overcome somehow?
what what are the challenges that you're
facing in the market? The challenges
that we're facing in the market. So I
think the other challenges are pretty
much operational challenges and they can
be overcome by by by good and innovative
and ambitious companies. For
example, it's it's like when when we're
building infrastructure, then we always
have the topic of do we get
sufficient net operation infrastructure
or net operation
capacities because you need to have
cables beneath the earth, right? So
that's that's a quite physical topic,
right? It's not like that you say, oh,
you would like to have a 300 kW charger
over there and just do it. No, you need
to have the power for that and that
means it needs alignment with flat
operating companies., but this is in
my view very very operational and can
be overcome with or by ambitious
companies. Yeah. Yeah. And young
companies too. something that we
want to address that is a big challenge
but it's to reach these small
companies we which are making innovation
and to showcase them to energy
transition is also with new companies
young companies that can are more agile
they are with this with all tools with
AI with all innovation so yeah this is
something that we share this vision
that they have to be showcased somehow.
Yeah, they have to but they are small
and hidden around so and spread so we
want to that's why your initiative is so
great.
Hey Corby, before we get into the
clothing arguments, I want to tell
everyone at well that I've been an
ambassador of KW Solutions for already
for one and a half years. I have a
t-shirt of KW Solutions which which is
which is super and fits me very well and
I hope you're going to give me more.
Yeah. Can we bring this into the
video as well?
You can see it's it's fantastic. So
yeah, it I think we covered a lot of the
industry. We really admire your vision
and ambition with this. It's a
climate change is a huge huge battle. So
it's necessary to be together and to
work together and collaborate. So
maybe you can what is your that how this
inter industry will evolve in
Austria? That's a I would say but a very
interesting question. So deriving it
from my personal perception and from my
personal understanding I would say so
for me personally this is the
absolute sweet to work at. Why?
because it is as we said it in the
beginning right it is somehow a
intersection of doing something good for
the world helping in somehow
accelerating the mobility and energy
transition which is absolutely necessary
on the one hand and on the other hand
you have all these business related
topics like how to ramp up the
company properly how to somehow make it
profitable right these are very very
business and related topics, which is
super exciting. And with doing green
tech, these two components can be
somehow combined. And this makes it
for me as a somehow liberal person
who who likes the environment a lot.
makes it super exciting and
interesting. Amazing. And what are your
goals for KW solutions in the next
years? So we want to keep on the
track where we are currently at. So we
want to get more and more charging
stations into our systems. We want to
build more and more multif family houses
and we want to help our end customers
for especially in the in the multif
family houses by understanding energy
markets in a better way on the one hand
and on the other hand saving money with
each and every charging transaction. So
I guess this is the big
goal. We want to help our customers
by saving money in each and every
charging transaction because this is the
best fundament for making the
mobility
transition unreal. That's amazing. And
on that note I want to thank you
Corby for doing this interview and we
see the vision of KW solution. And it's
pretty much that should be vision within
of everyone to have the energy
transition and accelerate it as much as
we can. Thank you and it's been an
honor. Thank you.
Thank you for joining us. Thank you for
having for having us in this
in your office and we invite the
community to stay tuned for the next
interviews with amazing people as
Corby and his team. So keep keep an eye
on these guys. Okay. So see you in the
next episode. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.

E-Mobility and Smart Charging in Austria with Korbinian Kasinger - TEB Podcast- S1E2

Importance of Collaboration

Market Trends Affecting EV Adoption

Innovative Charging Solutions

Regulatory Challenges Persist