Startup Series: Electrifying Trucking with Flipturn

My Climate Journey

Katie Siegel is CEO and Co-founder at Flipturn. Flipturn is an EV charging management platform for fleets and we're diving into the electrification of trucking.

At the beginning of 2024, the Advanced Clean Fleets law came into effect in California creating a number of mandates for zero emissions vehicle adoption in the trucking space. And the law impacts any fleet doing business in California, so there are nationwide implications.

Cody and Katie dig into this as well as the impacts on various types of trucks and routes. As fleet managers begin to anticipate compliance, they're realizing that understanding and managing charging will need to become a core competency for them. All of a sudden, things like power procurement and efficient energy usage will become a huge part of the equation for running a business that moves goods around. Flipturn raised a seed round in 2023 from Accel and Katie brings hands-on experience into the company after having previously grown her career through IPO at Samsara, a leader in telematics and Internet of Things, connectivity services for trucking and logistics.

In this episode, we cover:

• [01:48]: Flipturn’s mission to electrify trucking and enhance fleet management
• [02:28]: Katie's journey from Samsara to founding Flipturn
• [03:39]: From telematics to EV infrastructure innovation
• [05:14]: Transportation's role in pollution and the shift to electrification
• [07:19]: Focus on electrifying last mile delivery and drayage
• [10:25]: Differences in EV charging needs for delivery vans vs. drayage trucks
• [17:23]: Flipturn’s software for efficient fleet charging
• [19:00]: Strategies for setting up fleet charging stations
• [22:21]: Challenges and solutions in vehicle electrification
• [27:32]: Integrating truck OEMs with charging networks
• [30:06]: How fleets choose charging software
• [33:23]: Hydrogen vehicles in new zero-emissions law
• [35:12]: Evolving challenges in the trucking industry

Episode recorded on Jun 27, 2024 (Published on Aug 15, 2024)

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