{"id":83809,"date":"2025-09-23T07:49:53","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=83809"},"modified":"2025-09-23T07:49:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:49:53","slug":"orange-ev-revives-freewire-tech-gives-it-the-best-name-in-the-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=83809","title":{"rendered":"Orange EV revives Freewire tech, gives it the best name in the business"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\"Orange<\/figure>\n

When innovative EV charging startup FreeWire shut its doors last year<\/a>, it looked like its clever, infrastructure-light EVSE concept might vanish along with it. Now, Orange EV has taken up the cause, and it\u2019s bringing the battery-based charging tech back with an all-new name. Meet the Orange Juicer. (!)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The FreeWire concept was, if you\u2019ll forgive the effusiveness, fantastic<\/a><\/em>. Basically, they integrated a li-ion battery back into a vertical cabinet that could be effectively \u201ctrickle charged\u201d with a standard 110 or 220 AC connection, then \u201cdump\u201d that charge into an EV very quickly \u2013\u00a0enabling up to 200 kW of DC fast charging without the need for expensive utility and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

But, while most people the FreeWire concept might have great for rural gas stations that rarely saw EVs and didn\u2019t need constant access to hundreds of kW of power, the engineers at Orange EV saw something different. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs more customers accelerate adoption of Orange EV trucks and electrify other site equipment<\/a>, we\u2019ve seen infrastructure upgrades cause serious holdups,\u201d Orange EV founder and president, Kurt Neutgens, told Charged<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThe Orange Juicer solves that challenge, giving fleets a fast, scalable and cost-effective charging platform that utilizes existing on-site power.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cFast\u201d is the key word here. As the lower TCO and improved uptime promises of Orange EV\u2019s electric terminal tractors get proven out again and again by customers like DHL<\/a> and YMX<\/a>, more companies are turning to Orange to help electrify their operations \u2013\u00a0but getting adequate charging to their truck depots has slowed that growth. <\/p>\n

\u201cLimits on grid capacity are the most significant source of delay, especially when installing DC fast chargers,\u201d writes Esther Conrad<\/a>, Research Manager for the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University.\u00a0\u201cMultiple jurisdictions, both large and small, reported long delays on the part of the utility to provide adequate electricity to a site. Timeframes can be on the order of months or even multiple years for large installations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Months or years is more<\/em> than enough time for a skittish customer to second-guess an expensive vehicle fleet purchase, so Kurt Neutgens did what he apparently does best: found an engineering solution that was laser-focused on the problem, and acted.<\/p>\n

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Orange EV formed a new division called Optigrid, bought FreeWire\u2019s battery-backed DC fast charging back from the brink, and repackaged it as the Orange Juicer to specifically address the problems facing fleets struggling to get adequate grid power to their sites.<\/p>\n

The result is an EV charging solution that\u2019s perfect for the way terminal trucks operate, and one that can be up and running in a matter of weeks instead of months or years.<\/p>\n

\u201cFleet operators are tired of waiting on infrastructure that doesn\u2019t match their electrification schedule,\u201d said Tyler Phillipi, CEO of OptiGrid<\/a>. \u201cThe Orange Juicer gives them the power to deploy today, with charging performance that rivals high-capacity systems but requires just a fraction of the grid input.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first Orange Juicers are expected to reach customer sites in Q4 of this year.<\/p>\n

Electrek\u2019s Take<\/h2>\n\n
\"No
e-Triever terminal tractor; via Orange EV.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite the progress made in recent years, there are still some wacky assumptions being made out there \u2013\u00a0from the idea that you must have on-site DC fast charging to successfully deploy an EV fleet to the even wackier notion that you need a dedicated charger for each EV. Orange, on the hand, doesn\u2019t make such sweeping statements. Instead, they\u2019re listening to customers\u2019 needs, understanding what really needs to happen in order to successfully deploy their products, and delivering a better TCO with lower costs \u2026 even without<\/em> government incentives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a two-shift operation over a 10-year period, our customers are experiencing a $500,000 benefit per truck,\u201d Neutgens told <\/a>Freight Waves<\/a><\/em>. \u201cThat\u2019s full price, no incentives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over at\u00a0The Heavy Equipment Podcast<\/a>, we had a chance to talk to\u00a0Kurt<\/a>\u00a0ahead of last year\u2019s ACT Expo for clean trucking. On the show (available here<\/a>), Kurt explained how his experience at Ford helped inform his design ideology, and that the Orange EV was designed to be cost competitive with diesel options,\u00a0even without subsidies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Give it a listen, then let us know what you think of Orange EV\u2019s holistic electrification solution for logistics fleets in the comments.<\/p>\n

SOURCE | IMAGES<\/strong>:\u00a0OptiGrid<\/a>, via Charged EV<\/a>, FreightWaves<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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When innovative EV charging startup FreeWire shut its doors last year, it looked like its clever, infrastructure-light EVSE concept might vanish along with it. Now, Orange EV has taken up the cause, and it\u2019s bringing the battery-based charging tech back with an all-new name. Meet the Orange Juicer. (!) The FreeWire concept was, if you\u2019ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}