Irvine-based electric vehicle services provider Qmerit has a new investor and landed a major contract with Rivian Automotive LLC, the first reported deal between an Orange County company and the Amazon-backed electric automaker.
Qmerit, which is focused on helping automakers’ customers with at-home vehicle charger installations, will be touted on the Rivian website for preorder customers to sign up for an installation.
Rivian Executive Vice President of Energy and Charging Solutions Matt Horton called the process a “seamless experience,” continuing the digital ecosystem the Irvine automaker has built out for its customers online, beginning with vehicle research to ordering, vehicle diagnostics software for remote service and, now, the at-home charging element.
The Rivian business is a major win for Qmerit, which made the decision in late 2020 to spin off its electric vehicle business from its more established supply chain management division in a bid to capitalize on the growing EV market.
The supply chain business was renamed to Raiven, with Qmerit backed by an undisclosed sum from Lime Rock New Energy and Schneider Electric.
Last week, the company got another investor, GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. GIC’s amount of funding was undisclosed.
IPO Watch
Qmerit is partnering with one of the most closely watched upstart companies in the country.
Irvine-based Rivian has been the subject of speculation of an impending IPO later this year that could value the company upwards of $70 billion, which would make it OC’s largest public company.
The automaker, which launches its first set of R1T and R1S trucks and SUVs later this year, also has a deal with Amazon on fleet delivery vans already rolled out to some markets.
The automaker also counts the e-commerce giant as an investor in addition to big-name backers such as Ford Motor Co. and Cox Automotive, with a total raised to date of about $8 billion.
“I think Rivian is just a fantastic brand,” said Qmerit Senior Vice President of Business Development Ken Sapp. “They’ve done a really great job captivating the adventurist with a really high-end truck. Obviously, we’re honored to be chosen by them as their partner.”
In addition to at-home charging, Rivian customers will be able to plug in at some 3,500 chargers at 600+ sites in the U.S. by next year, the company said. These chargers will be “capable of adding up to 140 miles of range in 20 minutes,” it says.
EV competitor Tesla, by comparison, has more than 25,000 chargers at over 2,500 Supercharger locations.
Letter to Customers
The timing for the Rivian IPO could be in flux, as the EV maker earlier this month pushed back the release of its initial consumer vehicles from July to September, on account of supply chain issues facing the auto industry, in particular a shortage in semiconductors.
Execs also said they wanted to continue testing the vehicles in a variety of environments before handing over its first EVs to customers.
“We have built hundreds of vehicles as part of our validation process,” company founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said in a July 16 letter to prospective customers, sent from the company’s production base in Normal, Ill.
The company has chosen to continue to test its vehicles, rather than begin delivering them to customers, as it is “crucial to both our long-term success and your ultimate satisfaction,” he told customers. “It will be worth the wait!”
The Business Journal estimates Scaringe’s wealth to be in the $5 billion range.
The Qmerit Process
Rivian owners will fill out the online questionnaire on the automaker’s site for charger installs, which Qmerit brands Charging@ Home. The questionnaire will help to quickly assess where a charger might be installed and generate a price estimate before scheduling an installation. A permit and licensed electrician are also required.
Qmerit helps customers through that entire process with a service area that covers the U.S. and Canada.
Rivian offers owners a few options: a charging cord or a mounted wall box charging station placed on a wall.
A standard installation, one that does not require an upgrade or subpanel, ranges from $750 to $1,750 and takes about half a day, a price roughly in line with the cost of installing an at-home Tesla charger.
The permit required before work begins can take several weeks to obtain depending on the city and varies significantly in price and also process, Sapp said.
Qmerit expects there to be thousands of installs for Rivian owners over the next couple years, according to Sapp, who declined to get into specific forecasts citing the company’s non-disclosure agreement with Rivian.
The automaker already said it sold out on the Launch editions of its vehicles, set for release this year, but didn’t disclose how many had been produced. Reports have estimated production is in the thousands.
The Trend
The deal struck between Qmerit and Rivian highlights another dimension to the electrification of vehicles for consumers and fleets nationally—how consumers handle charging.
The approach for many EV drivers has been to charge “in the wild,” as the industry calls it, taking advantage of public infrastructure or charging stations at the office parks they work at.
The push more and more is to charge at home, typically in the late hours when the electric grid is not at full capacity, making it cost effective and also giving drivers peace of mind that their vehicle is charged and ready for the day when they wake up.
“When you go electric and you depend completely on public charging or workplace charging, it’s good, but it can be stressful,” said Qmerit’s Sapp.
“When you take the step to get level two charging at your house, it is exponentially an improvement in satisfaction and the EV ownership is drastically improved.”
Qmerit’s business offers a good barometer on where the market’s moving with work for the company up.
California, with some of the most stringent greenhouse gas emissions legislation in the nation, has historically made up about 50% of Qmerit’s business, but work’s ramping elsewhere.
“You see activity based on incentives,” Sapp said.
The executive said states such as New Jersey, New York, Texas, Florida, Maryland, Colorado, Washington and Oregon have seen heavy activity around charger installations.
Rivian, for Qmerit, is another feather in the cap of the electrification services company. It already works with some of the largest auto manufacturers, which point drivers to Qmerit to handle their home charger installations. The company also does some commercial installs in addition to a more recent uptick in fleet sales that began last year from pharmaceutical and biotech firms that are now electrifying their salesforce’s vehicle fleets.
Qmerit’s customer base includes Jaguar, Land Rover, Chevrolet, Audi, Volvo, Volkswagen, Lucid Motors, Nissan, Ford, Dodge, Chrysler and additional names set to be announced shortly, according to Sapp.
