During my time at CES in Las Vegas, I got the chance to visit the local HQ of Halo.Car – an EV mobility solutions provider that specializes in rental cars that are dropped off and picked up using remote pilots. Company founder and CEO Anand Nandakumar personally showed me around and explained how Halo.Car’s remote piloted technology looks to bridge the gap between car sharing, autonomous driving, and quicker EV adoption.
Halo.Car is a relatively young startup focused on much of the same segments or nascent technologies that others are, but is approaching them with a different solution. Rather than develop yet another carshare program that requires designated parking areas or customers to pick up and return their rented vehicle somewhere, Halo.Car will drop off and pick up the vehicle wherever you are.
Since viable autonomous driving technology continues to perpetually feel two years away (10 if you ask the Halo.Car team), the company has adopted a different strategy that uses remote drivers at its HQ who are authorized to operate the vehicles using video and sensor data streamed from proprietary software and hardware retrofitted onto the company’s fleet of Kia Niro EVs.
This process will eventually enable a remote pilot to drive your rental car to you in Las Vegas and unlock it allowing you to enter, take over control, and drive away. You can then rent the EV for an hour, a day, or weeks at a time. Simply decide when you’re done, exit the vehicle and it will drive off.
This process is partially underway in the streets of Vegas, but with several failsafes in place to ensure the safety of everyone inside and outside of a given Halo.Car EV. Nandakumar walked me through Halo.Car’s four phases to reach the future of mobility, then we went out for a ride of our own as you’ll see below:
We see the four-step process being important to launching the first city while gaining considerable learnings from it. It’s an act of balancing risk management with speed and revenue.
Watch a Halo.Car EV pick us up and pilot us back to HQ
As previously mentioned, Halo.Car fully intends to one day deliver remotely piloted EVs to customers, but in order to remain safe to start, there were a couple failsafes in place. For instance, we had a chase car behind us with a human driver, and a passenger in their front seat holding a kill switch for our EV in case anything went wrong (it didn’t).
Secondly, we had a human in the driver’s seat of our remotely operated Kia Niro, who was simply there to step in if needed. As you’ll see in the videos below, that was not the case for our visit, but Halo.Car hasn’t been operating on roads in Las Vegas too long, so it’s understandable that they are making passenger and pedestrian safety the number-one priority.
To begin, we rode in the chase car and watched a separate EV depart from Halo.Car HQ without anyone present in the vehicle. I’m sure one day we will all become accustomed to this sight, but it’s still pretty surreal to not see a driver, at least for myself.
After driving a few blocks, both EVs pulled over so Nandakumar and I could hop into the “dropped-off” Kia Niro. In a typical Halo.Car exchange, this would be when the customer takes over and drives the EV like a normal rental, but to experience Halo.Car’s sensory technology and remote piloting up-close, we sat in the car and watched while the remote driver took over, simulating the end of a rental, and return to HQ. Here’s some footage of that drive back.
After our trip, Nandakumar walked me through the back shop of Halo.Car HQ to show me the next EVs being retrofitted with the company’s technology. I couldn’t take any photos, but was quite impressed at how small of a footprint Halo.Car’s tech took up in the trunk. Better still, Nandakumar told me the next generation of technology will be even smaller.
Another interesting fact I learned was how simple it can be to restore the original EV back to stock by removing Halo.Car’s technology. The CEO explained that it can remove any evidence of piloting driving tech and resell the EV used without issue. That could come in handy as the company looks to eventually swap out EVs and implement additional models into its fleet – some smaller, some larger.
The current Halo.Car fleet is about 15 Kia Niro EVs, but the company is already planning to ramp up, dspecially now that its carshare service is up and running in Las Vegas. If you happen to be in Las Vegas, you can test out Halo.Car yourself by booking your appointment here.
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Executives from TravelCenters America (TA) and BP were joined by local elected officials at a ribbon cutting for the two companies’ first DC fast charging hub on I-95 in Jacksonville, Florida – the first of several such EV charging stations to come online.
Frequent road-trippers are no doubt familiar with TA’s red, white, and blue logo and probably think of the sites as safe, convenient stops in otherwise unfamiliar surroundings. The company hopes those positive associations will carry over as its customers continue to switch from gas to electric at a record pace in 2025 and beyond.
“Today marks a significant milestone in our journey to bring new forms of energy to our customers as we support their changing mobility needs, while leveraging the best of bp and TA,” explains Debi Boffa, CEO of TravelCenters of America. Boffa, however, was quick to – but TA is quick to point out that TA isn’ no’t leaving its ICE customers behind. “While this is significant, to our loyal customers and guests, rest assured TA will continue to provide the same safe and reliable fueling options it has offered for over 50 years, regardless of the type of fuel.”
The charging hub along the I-95 offers 12 DC fast charging ports offering up to 400kW of power for lickety-quick charging. While they’re at the TA, EV drivers can visit restrooms, shop at TA’s convenience store, or eat at fast food chains like Popeyes and Subway. Other TA centers offer wifi and pet-friendly amenities as well – making them ideal partners for BP as the two companies builds out their charging networks.
“As we expand our EV charging network in the US, I am thrilled to unveil our first of many hubs at TA locations,” offers Sujay Sharma, CEO of BP Pulse Americas. “These sites are strategically located across key highway corridors that provide our customers with en route charging when and where they need it most, while offering convenient amenities, like restaurants and restrooms.”
The new e2500-THL and TS electric Ultra Buggies from Toro offer construction and demo crews a carrying capacity of 2500 lbs. (on the TS model), six-and-a-half foot dump height (on the THL), nearly 13 cubic ft. of capacity, and hours of quiet, fume-free operation.
For their open-mindedness, those crews will be rewarded with machines powered by 7 kWh’s worth of Toro HyperCell lithium-ion battery. That’s good enough for up to eight hours of continuous operation, according to Toro – enough for two typical working shifts.
And, thanks to the Toro Ultra Buggies’ narrow, 31.5″ width, they can easily navigate man doors on inside jobs, as well, making them ideal for indoor demolition and construction jobs. A zero-turn radius and auto-return dump mechanism that ensures the tub automatically returns to the proper resting position make things easy for the operator, too.
Toro says that each of its small (for Toro) e2500 Ultra Buggy units can replace as many as five wheelbarrows on a given job site. Pricing is expected to start at about $32,000.
GM has deployed three of its HYDROTEC hydrogen gensets to the Los Angeles area as a way to help generate power for EV drivers and emergency vehicles recovering from the devastating effects of the recent wildfires.
“GM is extending targeted local support to our customers and employees who have been impacted by the California wildfires,” said Duncan Aldred, vice president global commercial growth strategies and operations. “We’re finding ways to help get people back on the road and using our resources to make a difference in the recovery in the weeks and months to come.”
The mobile charging station rollout is part of a broader response to the fires from GM that includes “planned” philanthropic contributions to nonprofits serving affected communities, employee giving campaigns to benefit the American Red Cross Los Angeles region and the California Fire Foundation, and a complimentary subscription to Crisis Assist Services, which enables customers with OnStar-equipped vehicles to get information about the fires, receive routing guidance, and access immediate emergency assistance from an OnStar advisor.
GM also says it’s providing customers with damaged or destroyed GM vehicles assistance toward the purchase or lease of a new GM vehicle, subject to certain terms and conditions, which may include certain qualifications and restrictions. The company will also help cover collision repair deductible costs for damage to GM vehicles incurred from the wildfires – again, subject to certain qualifications and restrictions.
Electrek’s Take
While it’s certainly commendable for GM to take steps in an effort to support wildfire victims, it feels like a company that made more than $19 billion in gross profits in 2023 (and over $20 billion in 2022; 2024 numbers aren’t out yet – but the company did well enough to spend more than $6 billion buying back its own stock) could have done better than announcing “planned” donations and asking its employees to pony up. By my math, GM shareholders could have given each of the 163,000 global employees the company had in 2023 a $36,000 one-time bonus in lieu of those stock buybacks.
That said, how many companies are doing nothing at all? Good on GM for trying, then – here’s hoping others step up, too.