Dynamic Duo

Nikola’s Tre BEV

When trying to gauge where the focus of the technology community is these days, the Arizona Technology Council needs only to look at the makeup of its membership — and toward the White House.

The Council is seeing a great deal of interest among members in the fields of electric vehicles — more commonly known as e-mobility — and clean energy. New types of companies whose profiles likely would have been considered low-key at best a decade ago are setting up shop in Arizona. 

Helping these two sectors of Arizona’s technology ecosystem quickly move from infancy to the fast lane was actually the stroke of a pen. Make that two strokes: when President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in November 2021 followed nine months later with his endorsement of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August 2022.

The IIJA gave life to an electric vehicle charging program in the U.S. with funding of up to $5 billion over five years, as well as making various EV charging and refueling competitive grants available at a value of up to $2.5 billion over five years.

One e-mobility member that has made a lot of news in recent years has been Lucid, which has put Casa Grande on the map as it works to meet its mission of inspiring the adoption of sustainable transportation through its line of electric vehicles. 

Lucid Air

Whether the source of vehicle power is battery electric or hydrogen-electric, Nikola is making its own news as an integrated truck and energy company. At its Coolidge facility, the company is changing commercial transportation with Class 8 models carrying the Tre brand and the energy brand HYLA created to support a hydrogen refueling ecosystem.

Other e-mobility members are Tempe-based BreatheEV, which is working to bring EV chargers to multifamily housing and office sites. Also, Cruise of San Francisco is spreading here its message of creating self-driving cars with safety and lifestyle in mind.

Clean energy is a target of the IRA. In that sector, member KORE Power is planting roots in Buckeye with a planned 1.3-million-square-foot battery manufacturing facility. Its products will be at the heart of e-mobility systems and energy storage beyond our state.

In Southern Arizona, Utah-based American Battery Factory is building a 2-million-square-foot lithium-ion phosphate gigafactory — the nation’s largest. The significance of this type of battery is it can store energy from sources such as solar and wind while reducing strain on existing power grids. 

Tucson-based Sundial Energy is a solar development company focused on resiliency of critical network infrastructure support. Also headquartered in Tucson, Carbon Utility is partnering with commercial customers to lower their carbon footprint while meeting carbon reduction goals by capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to create low-carbon consumer products.

Also showing interest in Arizona with its membership is XNRGY Climate Systems US of Washington, D.C., which creates sustainable innovative solutions to reduce carbon footprint and energy consumption. And our state is a destination for California-based Avantus, a developer and operator of the nation’s largest solar power plants and storage facilities.

These members and others were the impetus behind the Council adding to its roster of events the annual E-mobility and Clean Energy Summit. The inaugural version in 2023 was a sell-out and was followed recently by the second Summit, with both organized by the Council’s Arizona E-Mobility & Energy Ecosystem Committee.

Collectively, the efforts so far are making a clean sweep of new innovations in Arizona.