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How can curbside electric vehicle chargers be powered in cities where utility infrastructure is insufficient?

September 9, 2026 The Pitch · Tia Gordon

It's Electric powers curbside chargers from accessible electrical capacity already present in building basements rather than connecting directly to distant utility infrastructure. The solution runs shallow conduit from basement panels to the curb, eliminating the need for expensive 10-foot trenches and sidestepping 18-month inter-utility connection procurement delays that can cost $180,000 per charger in cities like New York.

From Utility Bottleneck to Building-Powered Networks

Cities deploying EV charging infrastructure face a critical infrastructure constraint: connecting to central utility power requires deep trenching to high-voltage lines, environmental permits, and coordination between multiple utility companies. As Tia Gordon explains in the episode, conventional charger installation in New York City costs $180,000 per unit, with roughly half the timeline consumed simply waiting for utility approval.

It's Electric inverted this problem by recognizing that most urban buildings already have far more electrical capacity available than they consume. The company identifies electrical panels in building basements and taps into spare capacity that would otherwise sit idle. Running shallow PVC conduit 2–4 feet below sidewalk level—instead of trenching down 10 feet for utility connections—reduces both installation complexity and cost.

The Economics of Decentralized Curbside Power

This architectural shift unlocks immediate financial improvements. It's Electric's charger costs approximately $2,000 to fabricate and $9,000 to install, totaling $11,000—substantially less than the $180,000 utility-powered alternative. Even accounting for subsidies, the all-in cost lands at $10,300 per unit, with an 18-month payback period at 40% utilization.

The model also sidesteps a critical urban mobility problem: rideshare drivers lose 20–30% of weekly revenue searching for and waiting at chargers. A point detailed in this podcast episode highlights how New York City's 80,000 rideshare vehicles must be all electric by 2030—yet the city has only approximately 500 public chargers, compared to London's 10,000 for a similar population. Building-powered, curbside infrastructure accelerates deployment timelines.

"We like to say that we're the disco and sunshine of EV charging, and we're trying to make things just better and not shitty."

Tia Gordon — Co-founder of It's Electric. Gordon's background includes technology work on the 9-11 Memorial and Museum of the World Trade Center, where she built approximately 200 layers of embedded systems. She founded It's Electric during the pandemic with a cardboard-and-rubber prototype that won $300,000 from Hyundai's Open EV Innovation Challenge, and has since scaled the company to $7 million in total non-dilutive funding and a $6.5 million seed round co-led by Uber.

For a concrete sense of deployment velocity, It's Electric has installed 54 chargers across six cities in just 10 months. Each charger generates approximately $1,000 in monthly revenue at San Francisco's rates, and the company projects lifetime value per unit at around $70,000. The faster installation unlocked by building-powered infrastructure is the mechanism enabling this scale.

For more context on It's Electric's fundraising strategy and operational challenges in winning city contracts, listen to the full pitch where founders detail their path from cardboard prototypes to $13.5 million in total funding.

Key takeaways

Building-powered chargers eliminate the need for utility trenching and inter-utility agreements that typically take 18 months to secure.
Shallow conduit installation reduces per-unit costs to $10,300 (after subsidies), one-eighteenth the cost of utility-connected alternatives.
The 18-month payback period at 40% utilization makes the model economically viable even in slower-adoption cities.
Rapid deployment—54 chargers in six cities within 10 months—scales availability to address critical charging gaps in dense urban markets.