Portland-based European EV startup demos its charging tech (Photos)

Rocsys, which was founded in the Netherlands three years ago, makes a robotic system for automated charging that’s targeted at fleet uses.

Sam Gehrke

By Pete Danko - Staff Reporter

June 29, 2022, 03:54pm PDT

There were reasons Rocsys picked Portland as the base for its U.S. operations, and they've been evident this week.

The Netherlands-based startup has been showing off its autonomous electric vehicle charging technology at Electric Island, on Swan Island, the first charging site designed to service heavy-duty trucks.

There, the device has charged a Freightliner eCascadia, the Class 8 truck that is expected to begin rolling off the production line at Portland-based Daimler Truck North America later this year.

And Rocsys has been doing all this during Roadmap, one of the most important advanced mobility conferences in the country, which is taking place this week at the Oregon Convention Center.

“This is the unique ecosystem that drew us to Portland,” CEO Crijn Bouman said. “We looked at other cities, but are really happy to be in Portland.”

Bouman, in town from the Netherlands, noted that several other passengers on his direct Amsterdam-Portland flight were headed to the Roadmap conference. PBJ photographer Sam Gehrke and I caught up with him and Erin Galiger, Rocsys' Portland-based senior business development manager, North America, at Electric Island to get a glimpse of the Rocsys technology. Here's what we saw:

The first thing to know is that Rocsys doesn't make electric vehicle chargers, like these ones at Electric Island. That's a space crowded with manufacturers such as Tesla, ABB, Star Charge, TELD, Siemens, Wallbox, Tritium, Eaton, EVBox, ChargePoint and Webasto.

Sam Gehrke

As a demonstration project, Electric Island has a wide range of chargers.

Sam Gehrke

Here's the Rocsys — actually, the ROC-1.

Sam Gehrke

The charger is attached to the ROC-1. The system does all the work upon receiving a signal to charge. It uses soft robotics, computer vision and artificial intelligence to give it the ability to plug into vehicles under varying conditions. When we saw it in action, it headed slightly left of the target, paused, slid to the right, then moved forward and plugged in seamlessly.

Sam Gehrke

In this instance, the Rocsys system was used to charge a Freightliner eCascadia. Fleets are the likely use case for the device, giving operators reliable and efficient charging at any time and in any conditions, eliminating the human-error element in the equation. The company in March announced a project at the Port of Oakland for major marine terminal operator SSA Marine to use the system to charge electric yard tractors that move containers.

Sam Gehrke

Here's Bouman and Galiger. They said that while the company started in the Netherlands, it's gaining traction in the U.S., which they believe could become a bigger market than Europe. They expect to announce significant deals this year.

Sam Gehrke