Utah company addresses safety vulnerability at electric vehicle charging stations

DRAPER — Sometimes, with emerging technologies, problems also emerge. A Utah company began addressing safety at electric vehicle charging stations when the founders worried drivers could be sitting ducks.

Kreg Peeler said EV drivers are often stuck in parking lots for 15 to 30 minutes at a time when charging vehicles while on the road — a situation that can be particularly problematic after dark and in troubled areas.

Further, he added that an electric vehicle like a Tesla currently cannot drive away in an emergency situation when the car is connected at a charging point like a 'supercharger' location.

"If someone were to walk up to them and started knocking on their glass or keying their car, they have no option other than to get out and unplug before they can move," Peeler said.

Taking that into consideration, Peeler created EVject, a "breakaway" charging connector that sidesteps that potential hazard.

"It gives me an option to drive away without exiting my car," said Amanda Richards, who assisted with a demonstration of how the product works during an interview on Thursday.

Richards said she had her own unnerving encounter at a charging station late at night in April.

"A Honda Civic with two young men in it — dressed in a way that would lead me to believe they were up to no good — screeched up to my car, pounded on the windows, wanted to see inside my car," Richards said. "My husband sat up, and as soon as they saw him they left. All I could think of was, 'What if he hadn't been there?' or 'What if they hadn't decided to leave?'"

Peeler said encounters like these have been an ongoing concern.

"Forty-three percent of women have said that they feel exposed and vulnerable at a supercharger," Peeler said.

According to Peeler, he and his engineers first started paying attention to the vulnerability issue after it came up last year on the YouTube channel Now You Know.

"When they plugged in, they realized they were a sitting duck — they couldn't drive away," Peeler explained. "So Zac and Jesse, who are the hosts of the show, called on the community and said, 'Somebody needs to solve this problem.' We were in the process of working on an autonomous EV charger, and so we knew the Tesla charging system very well. We thought, 'We know how to solve this.' We knew how to basically disconnect the communication pin so you could drive away, and we introduced it to Zac and Jesse. They loved it, they put it on their show and we got a bunch of preorders."

Peeler said he and his engineers formed an American Fork-based company under the EVject name, and they started filling the thousands of preorders beginning in January.

The device is reusable until it is spent during an emergency pull-away, Peeler said.

He said it does not result in electrical arcing, and the device avoids damage to the charging station.

"Every time you introduce a new, major step change in technology, there are always going to be a lot of ancillary technologies that need to be developed," Peeler said. "It's been exciting to kind of figure out where the market is going and what gaps are left open and figure out how we can fill those gaps."

Peeler said the base EVject model currently comes at a $299 price point and the company has developed models that fit a range of electronic vehicles.

Richards said her experience has increased her level of awareness and caution at charging stations and she believed EVject offers a good safety option for EV owners.

"If it's darker or more remote or more lonely, I've got my head up now," Richards said. "I don't want to be a sitting duck. I want as many options as possible to maintain my own safety."

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