The problem with a fixed EV charger is that it’s, well, fixed. For a hotel with 500 parking spaces or a sprawling office garage, the economics of wiring up every stall are daunting, and the ones you do install are often in the wrong place. EV Safe Charge, a Los Angeles company founded in 2016, has spent the better part of a decade noodling on a more flexible answer. Its current proposal is a rolling one: a squat, autonomous robot named ZiGGY that is meant to trundle out and meet your car, plugging in where the pavement is bare [Business Wire, June 2022].
It’s a charmingly literal solution to the infrastructure deployment lag. Instead of pouring concrete and pulling permits for hundreds of stations, a property could, in theory, lease a few robots. The company’s twist is an interactive screen on ZiGGY’s side, intended to turn charging time into an advertising opportunity, creating a second revenue stream to offset costs [Business Wire, June 2022]. Founder Caradoc Ehrenhalt, who started the company after his own experience buying an EV, is the robot’s inventor and the company’s sole founder [EV Safe Charge, Jan 2019].
From mobile rentals to a rolling robot
The company didn’t start with robotics. Its early business was a service operation, installing chargers and providing mobile charging solutions for automakers and events. It created a rental program for the launch of the Jaguar I-PACE, a classic use case for temporary, on-demand power where permanent installs wouldn’t make sense [EV Safe Charge, Jan 2018]. That hands-on work seems to have informed the ZiGGY concept,a product that embodies the service model, automating the “bring the charger to the car” premise.
The stated vision is for ZiGGY to serve parking facilities, shopping centers, hotels, and fleet depots [evcandi.com, retrieved 2026]. Properties would lease the robots rather than buy them, with customers reserving a charge via an app. The company says it has initial customers lined up, including the Holiday Inn Express in Redwood City, California, and Opera Plaza in San Francisco [Charged EVs, retrieved 2026]. In late 2025, it announced new pilot projects in partnership with the Warner Center Association [EV Safe Charge, Dec 2025].
The team and its angel backing
Ehrenhalt has built a small team around the concept. Public records show a vice president of operations, a VP of business development, and an interim CFO, along with several advisors [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, retrieved 2024]. The company has attracted angel investment, most notably from Sand Hill Angels, whose board member Drue Freeman joined EV Safe Charge’s board [Business Wire, June 2022]. It has also gone through two notable accelerators: the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) program and the Techstars Alabama EnergyTech Accelerator [EV Safe Charge, June 2023][EV Safe Charge, Nov 2023].
Total funding is unclear from secondary sources, with databases disagreeing; CB Insights lists an estimated $120,000 raised, while PitchBook lists $20,000 [CB Insights, retrieved 2026][PitchBook, Unknown]. The company has not publicly disclosed a definitive Series A round. The current leadership and investor structure is summarized below.
| Name | Role | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Caradoc Ehrenhalt | Founder & CEO | Inventor of ZiGGY [EV Safe Charge, Jan 2019] |
| Daniel Beavis | Vice President of Operations | [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, retrieved 2024] |
| Katie Martin | Vice President of Business Development | [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, retrieved 2024] |
| Sand Hill Angels | Investor | Board participant [Business Wire, June 2022] |
| Techstars Alabama EnergyTech | Accelerator/Investor | Program participant [EV Safe Charge, Nov 2023] |
Where the wheels could come off
The ambition is clear, but the path is littered with the hard realities of hardware, robotics, and infrastructure sales. The company’s timeline has slipped; ZiGGY was initially scheduled to enter production in 2023, a milestone that public updates still reference as forthcoming [EV Safe Charge, retrieved 2024][Charged EVs, retrieved 2026]. For a capital-intensive hardware startup, delays are expensive, and the conflicting funding estimates suggest the war chest is modest.
The business model also asks a lot of its customers and the robot itself. Success requires:
- Technical reliability. A robot operating in public parking areas must work flawlessly in all weather, navigate unpredictable environments, and interface with dozens of EV models. Any maintenance downtime directly destroys revenue.
- Unit economics. The combined revenue from charging fees and ad sales must cover the robot’s lease cost, electricity, and any operational overhead for the property manager. If the math is even slightly negative, it’s easier to just install a few fixed stalls.
- Sales motion. Selling to property owners and managers is a slow, relationship-driven enterprise sale. The company’s earlier service business provides some domain experience, but scaling a nationwide robot-leasing operation is a different beast.
The most plausible answer is that the early pilots are the only viable path. By proving the model at a handful of hotels and garages, EV Safe Charge can generate the case studies and operational data needed to secure the larger funding round required for production.
The next twelve months
All eyes should be on those first deployments. The announced pilots with the Holiday Inn Express and the Warner Center Association need to transition from press releases to operational robots actually charging cars. Measurable outcomes,uptime, customer utilization, ad revenue per session,will be the only currency that matters for raising a Series A.
The company will also need to lock in a manufacturing partner and a firm production schedule. Another year of “scheduled to enter production” updates will test investor patience. The upside is that the fundamental bottleneck ZiGGY aims to address is real and growing. The U.S. needs millions more charging ports, and the installation backlog is years long.
Do the unit economics work? A back-of-the-envelope sketch: if a ZiGGY robot replaces the need for four installed Level 2 chargers (at roughly $5,000 each for hardware and install), that’s a $20,000 capital deferral for the property. If the robot lease is $500 a month and it delivers 200 charging sessions in that time at $15 each, that’s $3,000 in revenue. Split that with the property and add perhaps $500 in ad revenue, and the model starts to pencil. The robot must be reliable enough to hit those session numbers, and the sales team must convince managers that this math is better than the simplicity of a fixed post.
EV Safe Charge’s bet is that flexibility and a second revenue stream can beat the incumbent’s approach: the slow, expensive, but proven method of pouring concrete and bolting down a ChargePoint station. For now, it’s a robot against a wall.
Sources
- [Business Wire, June 2022] EV Safe Charge Previews ZiGGY™, First and Only Mobile EV Charging Robot with Interactive Advertising Platform | https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220614005357/en/EV-Safe-Charge-Previews-ZiGGY-First-and-Only-Mobile-EV-Charging-Robot-with-Interactive-Advertising-Platform
- [EV Safe Charge, Jan 2018] EV Safe Charge installation service connects the dots for EV buyers | https://evsafecharge.com/ev-safe-charge-installation-service-connects-dots-ev-buyers/
- [EV Safe Charge, Jan 2019] Interview With Caradoc Ehrenhalt, EV Safe Charge | https://evsafecharge.com/interview-with-caradoc-ehrenhalt-ev-safe-charge/
- [EV Safe Charge, June 2023] EV Safe Charge Joins Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator Latest Cohort | https://evsafecharge.com/ev-safe-charge-joins-los-angeles-cleantech-incubator-latest-cohort/
- [EV Safe Charge, Nov 2023] EV Safe Charge Chosen for Techstars Alabama EnergyTech Accelerator | https://evsafecharge.com/category/news-releases/
- [EV Safe Charge, Dec 2025] EV Safe Charge is launching two new innovative pilot projects in partnership with the Warner Center Association | https://evsafecharge.com/category/news-releases/
- [EV Safe Charge, retrieved 2024] EV Safe Charge | Electric Vehicle Charging Stations for Sale or Rent | https://evsafecharge.com/home-ev-safe-charge-electric-vehicle-charging/
- [Charged EVs, retrieved 2026] Coverage of EV Safe Charge and ZiGGY | https://chargedevs.com/
- [evcandi.com, retrieved 2026] Information on ZiGGY's target markets | https://evcandi.com/
- [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, retrieved 2024] Company profile and team details | (Source from research snippets)
- [CB Insights, retrieved 2026] EV Safe Charge funding data | https://www.cbinsights.com/
- [PitchBook, Unknown] EV Safe Charge funding data | https://pitchbook.com/