EV charging station manufacturer begins sales

LOVELAND — Jayson Lopez began thinking about making charging stations for electric cars more available when he and his wife had to park his Chevy Volt at a Hy-Vee in Iowa and rent a gas-guzzling car to make it to a wedding. 

Years later, his new company, Cargador Co., should open a Loveland storefront by Halloween and, as of late September, he planned to be open for online booking by Oct. 1. His company designs, installs and services EV charging stations as well as manufactures its own. He has some inventory already waiting for a business or a residential home to purchase a station. 

Lopez decided to build his own stations a little more than a year ago after getting the idea for his installation and service business for EV stations during COVID-19. 

“We don’t want to lose the installation side, but there’s a massive gap in the market right now,” Lopez said. “We are ready to fill it.”

He got a boost in energy and expertise from the manufacturing side through The Warehouse accelerator program located at the Forge in Loveland. He needed to learn about manufacturing and running a business and raves about the year he spent there. He’s learned a lot since his first startup, which has since shut down. 

“My first company grew really fast, and I didn’t know how to get rid of my ego,” Lopez said. “I thought I could do it all on my own. With this company I learned to release my ego. Now I’m begging for help.” 

It may seem daunting, but Lopez is used to challenges: He worked as an electrician in the U.S. Army, where he had to find ways to provide power to soldiers stationed in Afghanistan with limited (or, more commonly, non-existent) infrastructure. 

He has experience both with startups and as an electrician and mechanic for things like air-conditioning units. He also worked in research and development for an electric company and helped design an air conditioner that uses 85% less energy than a typical unit, he said. 

Lopez calls the charging station landscape a “massive gap” because big-box stores are snapping them up as fast as companies can make them, and, partly as a result, manufacturing costs are too prohibitive for small businesses to buy them. He believes he can keep manufacturing costs down and make his stations more affordable, so much so that he believes homeowners can purchase one as well. 

He calls himself a “grid protector.” Another reason he got into EV charging stations, he said, is they have the potential to overload the grid. He believes in utilizing portable batteries to use the grid during off-peak hours, such as late evening, could help. Batteries, he said, could also make it more convenient for drivers: That would have solved his problem in Iowa had they been available years ago. 

“That’s the way to solve the grid problem,” he said. 

Lopez would like to see more young people go into the field and is working on easing regulations so mechanical contractors could work on EV chargers and other jobs that would require electricians to work. 

“There aren’t enough electricians to support the boom,” he said. “We need them.” 

In the meantime, Lopez is readying his store to take customers. A glass wall allows him to peer out to Lincoln Avenue, one of Loveland’s busiest streets, and the nearby Tesla dealership. There are 10,000 travelers on Lincoln every day, he said. They need power. He hopes to be one of the many to provide it. 

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