September 2020 Virtual Power Lunch Guest Speaker David Jankowsky, President of Francis Renewable Energy. With origins in the solar-power industry, David Jankowsky saw a problem in the electric vehicle market. With billions going into EV technology, Jankowsky noticed little of that funding was going towards infrastructure. While Tesla Motors may have popularized the electric car and built their superchargers, they’re all closed source.

“We know there’s literally going to be hundreds of car manufacturers in the next five, ten years coming out with electric vehicles, and they would not be able to use the Tesla superchargers, so we solved that problem,” said Jankowsky.“We developed and installed universal chargers, so any car in the world can use them, including Tesla drivers. We solved the range-anxiety issue, meaning no one’s going to buy a car if there’s no infrastructure to fuel them if they’re away from their home.”

The Francis EV Charging Network solved range anxiety in Oklahoma by having a charging station every 50 miles. One could travel from Broken Bow to Guymon in their electric car. Jankowsky notes that one may have to drive 10 to 20 miles out of the way to access a charger because they currently don’t have enough in Oklahoma. The first phase of the network features 225 fast-charging stations across 109 strategically located sites in Oklahoma, including small towns.

The Oklahoma Venture Forum offers a combination of peer-to-peer conversation, Pitch Presentations of viable business scenarios (not just potential) and Success Stories. OVF promotes the economic development of Oklahoma. OVF.org