The following interview is a conversation we had with Ali Javidan, Co-Founder of Range Energy, on our podcast Category Visionaries. You can view the full episode here: $9 Million Raised to Build the Future of Electric Semi-Trucks

Brett
Hey everyone, and thanks for listening. Today I’m speaking with Ali Javadan, CEO and Founder of Range Energy, a new electric vehicle company focused on trailers that’s raised? 8 million in funding. Ali, thanks for chatting with me today. 

Ali Javidan
Thank you. Thanks for having me. 

Brett
No problem. So, kick things off. We just start a quick summary of who you are and a bit more about your background. 

Ali Javidan
Yeah, so I went to school for mechanical Engineering, spent some time in motorsport early in my career, and about 15 years ago, I transitioned my career from racing into decarbonization and electric vehicle development, most notably early days at Tesla, I was responsible for the prototyping programs of Model S, Model X, the Rav four engagement, all the Daimler engagements and so on. From there, I moved to Google. I spent a few years at Google working on new hardware initiatives. And then after Google, I spent about six years at Zook’s, the robotaxi company. And now I’m the Founder and CEO here of Range Energy for the last two years and very excited to be here. 

Brett
Take us back to Tesla in 2008. What was it like working at Tesla back in 2008? 

Ali Javidan
Man, I remember it very vividly. It was crazy, chaotic fun. I mean, just imagine being a relatively fresh engineer with a ton of ambition, getting to work with some of the smartest people in the world in a field that you really love. So all of the incredible hard work, incredible long hours and lack of days off just kind of faded away because of the amazing people that I was working with and the awesome work that were doing. 

Brett
And back then, were you thinking in YOUr HeAd ThAt Tesla was going to become what it became today? Did you believe that? Or when you look at the success of Tesla, did that even surprise you? 

Ali Javidan
Some aspects is completely blows my mind on a regular basis. Things like the stock price and the supercharger network and all of that stuff, the effectiveness of the supercharger network. We thought it was going to be important, but we didn’t realize back then how important it would be today. But I think a lot of us had such a deep belief in what were building and how were building it, that we knew that were going to change the automotive industry, and we knew that were going to be able to go head to head with all of the large oems with a new product, and we did it. 

Brett
And that was, like, the hard times for Tesla, right? Wasn’t 2008, 2009 when the company was really struggling? 

 

Ali Javidan
Very hard times. I survived two rounds of layoffs. There were countless stories of hard times. But a lot of startups have hard times in their early days. I think the reason you don’t hear of too many of those hard times is because a lot of them end up fizzling off and disappearing. And the reason that we hear about Tesla’s hard times so much is because it survived in a very big way. And so I think, yes, 2008, 2009, there were a lot of uncertainties when it came to future funding and product roadmap and partnerships and supply chain and all of that, but that’s also just kind of par for the course there. 

Brett
And I’d have to guess, you’re one of the few people who’s been on the podcast who’s had direct interactions with Elon Musk. So maybe if you can paint a picture and tease all the founders listening in who idolize Elon Musk, what’s he like to work with? 

Ali Javidan
Man, it’s a very tough, long, hard question to answer. It really depends on what you’re working on, what he’s relying on you for, and a bunch of other factors. But the most important piece is that if you maintain a good sense of diligence, honesty, and always work hard and smart, then you will thrive in the types of environments that I worked in back then. 

Brett
And a few other questions that we’d like to ask. And the goal here is really just to better understand what makes you tick as a Founder. So, first one, what Founder or CEO do you admire the most, and what do you admire about them? 

Ali Javidan
The easy answer is Elon. But I think everybody says Elon, even though I work very closely with him. And there are some things that I admire about his ability to kind of see through obstacles that everybody gets stuck at. But I would say kind of most recently, I had the opportunity to work with the Founder at Zooks, Tim Kentley Clay. And I would say, as a visionary, as somebody that builds great teams, Tim is somebody that has inspired me a lot. 

Brett
And what about books and the way we like to frame this? 

Ali Javidan
Know, we took this from Ryan Holiday. 

Brett
But he calls them books. So he defined quake book as a book that rocks you to your core. It influences how you think about the world and really how you just approach life. Do any quickbooks come to mind for you? 

Ali Javidan
Yeah, the two books that, you know, just popped to the top of my mind, the most recent one that I read was by Adam Grant. Think again. I think it’s super important for anybody that’s developing new products to have the ability to constantly change their perspective of thought and place themselves in the kind of mindset and thought process of other folks. So I think again gives a lot of really great tools to do that. And then the other book that I really love and I read on a regular basis, actually, is. It’s called organizing genius by Warren Bennett. I think it is. And essentially, it profiles a lot of the highest performing teams in modern history. So this is the original Disney team, this is the original Mac team, lockheed Martin Skunk works team. And what are the parallels? 

Ali Javidan
And there are a few other teams as well. But what are the parallels across all of those teams? And why were such small, high performing teams able to have an outsized impact in society? 

Brett
I’ve read the first book. I haven’t read the second book, but that sounds fascinating. So adding to cart right after this interview. Yep. Now let’s switch gears and let’s talk about the company. So I briefly mentioned it there in the intro, but I’m sure that the. 

Ali Javidan
Audience would love to have it expanded on. 

Brett
So what does Range Energy do? 

Ali Javidan
So Range Energy is a electrified trailer company, and essentially what we’re doing is we’re taking trailers. In this case, our first product on the road will be a class eight big rig trailer. And we take that trailer and we add intelligence, sensing, and a full electric powertrain. So the net result of how it works is that the tractor is pulling on the trailer with a certain amount of effort. We sense that effort in real time, and then we provide propulsion in the trailer so that it makes the trailer feel weightless. This works on an rv being towed by a rivian to extend the Range Energy. But most importantly, and most notably for us today, is that these trailers, hooked up behind existing diesel tractors, these are the large 18 wheelers, result in as much as 40% reduced fuel consumption by those tractors. 

Ali Javidan
And if you hook it up to one of the new electric tractors that are coming out, we can extend the Range quite dramatically and get you almost double the Range Energy of what you would have with an electric tractor. 

Brett
And how far out is this from being fully ready to be commercialized? 

Ali Javidan
First production customer deliveries will be in 2025. We already have a few trailers on the road in customer pilots, and we will be continuing to develop the product and mature it between now and 2025. But first customer deliveries are 2025. 

Brett
And who are going to be like those typical customers? 

Ali Javidan
We have a very broad range of customers right now, but the first customers will likely be these large fleet operators and fleet owners. So if you can imagine the, let’s say, Walmart’s and Amazons of the world and the big beverage companies like the Pepsi’s and the Cokes of the world, they will be similar to. That will be our kind of first customers. 

Brett
And what you’re building here, as the listeners can gather, it’s not like a cybersecurity software or a little e commerce widget. This is some serious technology, some heavy technology. And I’m sure there’s been a lot of challenges so far. What’s the greatest challenge that you faced so far, would you say? 

Ali Javidan
So, technically, I think this categorizes as both deep and hard tech, or maybe they’re both the same thing. But yeah, I think right now our biggest challenge is being able to meet customer demand, and that manifests itself in our ability to set up the supply chain, build manufacturing pipeline and hiring, and then obviously all of the fundraising that needs to go along with enabling all of those bits and pieces. So typical types of challenges, but these are all challenges that my team and I have gone through several times before. 

Brett
And what’s the competitive landscape look like? Who else is trying to do something similar, or is there no one else doing something similar? 

Ali Javidan
Right now, we are the only ones in North America, and pretty much we are the only ones in the world with a power trailer on the roads. In North America, we do not have any competitors. There is one other small competitor in Europe, but they are, I think, taking a dramatically different approach than what we’re doing. And we have a very customer empathetic approach, and we believe that this is going to continue to leverage our unique solution with the customers. But right now, there are no competitors on the roads. 

Brett
How far out do you think we are until all vehicles on the road are electric? 

Ali Javidan
Man, that’s a very tough one. So I would probably say all vehicles is one of those things that’s kind of impossible to answer because there will always be specialized vehicles for commercial applications, military applications, all of that stuff that maybe run off of turbines or whatever. But if we’re talking about purely electric vehicles on the road, and when do we get to that inflection point where the majority of the vehicles are electric on the road and electric is the standard. We have a robust charging infrastructure and all of that. I really think it is somewhere around ten years out. I still think that we as technologists in the automotive industry still have a lot to learn about how to efficiently charge these things and build charging networks. 

Ali Javidan
And I still think that there’s another several cycles of technology improvements to be had before we really get to a nominal electric vehicle that anybody will be comfortable buying. 

Brett
As I mentioned there in the intro, you’ve raised $8 million to date, and I think we wanted to add a bit more context to that. And then also, I just want to ask you, what lessons have you learned about fundraising so far? 

 

Ali Javidan
Yeah, so throughout my career, one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned about fundraising is just be honest. Never ever try to oversell and make sure that you are always available for dialogues, whether they’re questions or just curiosities. And a lot of times you end up educating the investor about the space, letting them run off and make their own hypothesis, and then they’ll come back with questions. So making sure that whoever you are talking to, whether it’s an individual or an entity, you manage your level of excitement and your desire to sell to them and just be honest and have a good, straightforward conversation. You end up getting really good responses that way. As far as fundraising for us, like you said, we raised $8 million back in December of 2021 to found the company. 

Ali Javidan
Since then, we’ve raised a little bit more money from our current investors, and right now we are out raising our a round. 

Brett
And I know you started January 2022. You mentioned that’s going to be commercial ready in 2025. That can’t be normal, right? That’s a very short period of time to have a commercial product in the market when we’re talking about heavy, deep tech like this, right? 

Ali Javidan
Yeah, it is. And one of the benefits of looking at the trailer and not the tractor itself is that the trailer is not considered a motor vehicle. And so the homologation and regulatory environment is relatively barren for trailers. We will be self regulating, and we will be delivering the safest trailer the world has ever seen. However, because of the lack of regulations, we can actually short circuit a couple of years out of our development cycle for the trailer. 

Brett
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Ali Javidan
Now back today’s episode. 

Brett
Now, let’s just imagine you were starting again today from scratch. What would be the number one piece of advice you’d give to yourself? 

Ali Javidan
Man, what a good question. That is a tough question. I don’t know if I’m able to answer it, but I would say I think there’s a bunch of little tactical things, but I feel like we did a pretty good job so far up until where we are now. I think maybe a few things about signing a contract with somebody or maybe making a capex purchase that maybe we don’t use in a piece of equipment or something like that. But up until now, we’ve been very careful with how we spend money and who we partner with. So I would say the advice that I would give is continue to push, no matter how hard or tiring you think things are going to get, because there are definitely moments that I step back and I think to myself like, holy crap, there’s a lot going on. 

Ali Javidan
But I’m so excited about what we’re building that I don’t hesitate for a second to dive in headfirst. 

Brett
And given your background, given your experience, I’m sure that there were a lot of different paths you could have chosen as you were considering this. What was it about the trailer specifically that made you say, yep, that’s it. Let’s use that as that starting point. 

 

Ali Javidan
There were two aspects. The first aspect was, as we started to run through a bunch of the energy and physics models, we realized the benefit that an electrified trailer could have to a system. You start thinking about regen energy and a whole bunch of other stuff. And so that was the kind of the second piece of like, yes, this could actually turn into a real business, but the first piece is part of my personality. If I see a bunch of people headed to a fire, I step back and I say, what are they missing? What is not being looked at? What is not being paid attention to? 

Ali Javidan
And so five or six years ago, when Tesla and a couple of others started to push electric semis the tractor side, and you start to see so much noise around the electrification and the autonomy of tractors, I stepped back and I thought to myself, well, what are people missing here? And what I found that people are missing are, number one, nobody is obsessed about the driver. We are obsessed about the driver. Our product needs to yield a better experience and a safer experience for the driver. Every single day they’re in that tractor. And number two, we need to be moving that load as efficiently as possible. And to do that, we need to upgrade the main tool that moves the load, which is the trailer. 

Ali Javidan
And nobody had innovated upon on that trailer architecture for the last 70 years, and it was ripe for innovation. There’s plenty of geometry or volume there to make the innovation happen. And like I said, because of the lack of regulations, we could get the product to the road quickly. And so for me, a trailer solution was a slammed up decision. 

BBrettrett
Why was it just so static for 70 years? That’s crazy. That there was no innovation there and no one. You’re trying to do any new work there. Why do you think that was? 

 

Ali Javidan
Well, the trailer companies, you have to remember, are like 100 years old and they are making trailers and there’s no shortage of orders for them. So if you are an old school company that has a really good business that’s selling a lot of trailers on a regular basis, typically these are the wrong types of companies to bring new, innovative products to the market. And so they are generally not equipped to disrupt their own business pipeline, and they don’t want to do that. And it really takes an outsider to come and do that disruption to make a real marked impact. And so I believe it’s the same exact reason that even though General Motors tried electric vehicles, they never sold electric vehicles until Model S’s were all over the road. 

Ali Javidan
There’s a bunch of different little reasons why the trailer industry has not moved in the last many years. 

Brett
Are there any critics of your approach or established players in the space? You don’t want to see this type of change and disruption? 

Ali Javidan
Fortunately, no. And the reason for that is very purposeful. As were developing this product and all of the kind of adjoining bits and pieces to this product, we made sure to respect all of the current procedures and processes that this industry uses and relies on every single day. And so as a result, for example, we spent a few days one of our customers sites. We actually do that several times now. And the mission there, the goal there is to learn how they work so that as we start to present our technology into these operations and into these yards, we minimize the switching costs. And so the cool thing is that, yes, at the very beginning, when we say we’re building an electric trailer, there may be some old school yard manager or some union rep that’s like, yeah, that’s cool. 

Ali Javidan
We don’t want it here. But the moment they learn more about it and the moment they see how we’re actually doing it, they realize that this is done with the utmost respect for the current operations, the drivers, the mechanics, all of those folks. And then they become open to it. And then once they experience it, then they’re hooked. 

Brett
Super interesting. Now, final couple of questions for you. What excites you most about the work you get to do every day? 

Ali Javidan
My team. I have the most incredible team in the world. And to do this specifically, and I would argue that we probably have the highest performing powertrain and battery team in the world outside of an entity like Tesla. And so when I come to work, I’m excited to see every single person that works here and I’m excited to be in the trenches with them. 

Brett
And I’m guessing it was pretty tough or all startups struggle with it in the early days, right, of recruiting talent, how did you manage to recruit talent from. I’m guessing they were working at these big companies or they had opportunities to work at these big companies. 

Ali Javidan
I would say it’s a combination of my personal reputation and the idea. I have led a lot of different teams at a lot of different big companies and small companies, all of them successful. Knock on wood. And so I have a pretty good track record in the industry and also I work really hard on a regular basis to be the best leader I possibly can. So I read a lot of leadership books, I do a lot of studying. I have independent coaches giving 360s on my performance. I never become complacent when it comes to that area. And as a result, the teams see that and they love to work in this environment because it’s somewhere that they truly feel that they can exercise their creativity. And then the other aspect of this is that this trailer idea is frankly a great idea. 

Ali Javidan
And we have so much amazing interest from industry and from customers that a lot of these really high performers that have been stuck in these big companies, struggling to make traction on their projects, can come here and execute in a major way and have fun doing it. 

Brett
Amazing. And final question for you. Let’s zoom out three to five years into the future. What’s that big picture vision that you’re building? 

Ali Javidan
Our goal is to be the new standard for class eight trailers. So essentially, anytime you think of a class eight trailer, let’s fast forward five years from now. I want our trailers to be all over the place. Just like if you walk into an office building and you look at everybody’s laptop, a majority of them have intel chips inside those laptops, and I want to have a similar type of relationship. 

Brett
I love it. 

Ali Javidan
All right, we are up on time. 

Brett
So we’ll have to wrap here. Before we do, if any founders listening in want to follow along with your journey as you build, execute on this vision and tackle this massive problem, where should they go? 

Ali Javidan
I would say so. We have an Instagram feed that’s pretty active range energy. We also have, obviously, a LinkedIn feed that’s relatively active as well. Our website, I would say once, at least two or three times a month, there’s a new media impression made. So whether it’s a podcast or article written, and so there’s a lot to be learned from. And honestly, if you just follow me one of the medias, I usually post what’s happening. 

Brett
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk about what you’re building and share some of the lessons that you learned along the way, along with some fun stories from those early days at Tesla. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation and I know the audience is going to love it as well. So thanks so much for taking the time. 

Ali Javidan
Thank you so much for your time. 

Brett
All right, keep in touch. 

Brett
This episode of Category Visionaries is brought to you by Front Lines Media, Silicon Valley’s leading podcast production studio. If you’re a B2B Founder looking for help launching and growing your own podcast, visit frontlines.io podcast. And for the latest episode, search for Category Visionaries on your podcast platform of choice. Thanks for listening, and we’ll catch you on the next episode.