Lightning eMotors amasses terabytes of data on its vehicle usage

LOVELAND — Lightning eMotors Inc. (OTC: ZEVY), has amassed more than 10 terabytes of data on the performance of its vehicles.

That’s because the company operates a subscription service called Lightning Insights in which it tracks in real time the performance of the vehicles it sells, including battery life, mechanical systems and more so that it can notify the vehicle owner of potential issues. 

The system can determine, for example, whether a user will run out of battery power before it can return to the depot for recharging.

Lightning Insights uses a telematics system with Tessell DBaaS (database-as-a-service) running on Amazon Web Services.

Lightning Insights tracks up to 156 data points every second, including vehicle location, driver habits, state of charge, energy usage, efficiency and more.

“Having this quantity of data on how commercial electric vehicles operate in the real world provides us with a great opportunity to not only help customers make better decisions for their fleets, but educate the market as well,” said Nick Bettis, Lightning eMotors’ vice president of marketing and sales operations, in a written statement. “Providing honest information that counters some of the unrealistic claims in the market today is something we are passionate about.” 

The database is growing at a rate of about a half terabyte per month, the company said.

“When we evaluated the Tessell solution, we were extremely impressed with the resiliency and scalability it offered,” said Tim Reeser, co-founder and CEO of Lightning eMotors. “Along with Tessell’s vision, which aligns with our own commitment to relentless innovation, the robust solution has allowed us to scale and support our telematics capabilities quickly and affordably to meet the information needs of our growing customer base.”

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