Revel founder Frank Reig a year later on driving EV adoption in big cities

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

Frank Reig, the founder and CEO of Revel, was interviewed almost a year ago when the company was about to expand into multiple business lines. We are taking a second look at the startup to see how far it has come and how far it has to go to help urban cities transition to electric transport.

If you've never heard of the startup, you might not think of it as a moped sharing company. The first SuperHub for electric vehicles was launched in NYC last June.

Along the way, the company also started an e-bike subscription service and launched an all-electric ride-sharing service in NYC.

Reig recently told me the company is aiming to build 200 fast-charging stalls in NYC by the end of this year, and they are shooting for hundreds more in the next few years.

The way we think about stations is large. The one charge at a Walgreens is not something that Revel is interested in. That doesn't do anything for the city, and it doesn't accelerate any transition. The only way to drive EV adoption in cities is with a real network of infrastructure. This EV transition is just a lot of marketing and talk until a company like Revel builds it all.

We sat down with Reig to discuss the company's business, recent funding from Blackrock, and how the company thinks about profitability.

The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

It has been a year since our interview, and the company feels different. moped sharing was your main business back then, but now the focus is on EV charging infrastructure. Do you still want to expand your business?

We have 6,000 mopeds in four markets, so it is a large business that makes a lot of money. We are waiting for COVID to be over officially so that we can begin to think about expanding our micromobility footprint.

Some of the mopeds in our fleet are more than three years old. We want to use the next moped technology. How do we want to invest in our fleets?

A lot of the $126 million Series B round you closed is going into your EV charging hubs. I think you said you were going to build another one in New York.

We are building many more in New York.

Everyone is talking about the EV transition. Everyone is talking about how auto manufacturers will never produce another gas vehicle again. They are falling over themselves to beat one another. No one is talking about where the vehicles are going to charge. The story hasn't changed from last year. It has gotten worse. In some of the big cities, like New York, there is not enough infrastructure.

New York state passed a law that says all vehicles sold after 2035 will have to be electric. There is no charging in sight for millions of vehicles that need to transition to electric, which is where our strategy comes into play.