Charging technology: Juice spins off R&D into Juice Engineering

Juice Technology AG, manufacturer of charging stations and software, encompasses, in addition to the parent company, Juice Services AG and Juice Europe GmbH, which is responsible for European business. Now the research and development department is being spun off as Juice Engineering to be able to handle more third-party orders and generate new freedoms for research and development (R&D), which will also increasingly deal with basic research and component testing in the future. The engineering team has doubled in personnel over the last twelve months. This enables Juice Technology AG to serve more and more major customers worldwide. The services range from adjustments in hardware and software of Juice products for sales as white-label devices to fundamental consulting and new developments for forward-looking charging solutions. Against this background, it is a logical step to further expand the Juice Technology AG group and spin off the development and research department as Juice Engineering.

CEO Christoph Erni explains:

“Customers and partners from Europe, Asia, and North America welcome this step because it gives them easier access to our technologies. Necessary adjustments, further developments, and new solutions can thus be implemented even faster, under the best conditions, and in a market-oriented manner, and major customers such as car manufacturers can be optimally served. With this, Juice achieves another milestone in the company's history and officially expands the company portfolio with the establishment of the Juice Engineering competence center to include the entire development and consulting around forward-looking e-charging technology.”

The Swiss company is pursuing ambitious goals:

“This way we are making the important step from being a charging station manufacturer to becoming a technology leader.”

As part of the spin-off, a “Juice Academy” is also planned, where young engineers working in research and development at Juice can receive the best possible training and further education. Norman Steck, Chief Engineer of Juice Engineering, justifies the Academy as follows:

“This secures us a rapidly growing and sustainable pool of top-notch EV specialists like no other provider in the market.”

In addition to the parent company, Juice Technology AG, the Juice group also includes Juice Europe GmbH with a branch in Munich and Juice Services AG, which provides charging infrastructure via leasing and rental models. Currently, 86 people work for the group at five locations in Switzerland, Germany, and China, with a continuing upward trend. In the first quarter alone, despite the Corona pandemic, Juice Technology AG was reportedly able to achieve sales equivalent to those of the entire previous year. The rapid expansion to five production lines operating around the clock made it possible to meet the exponentially increasing demand without any problems. According to its own statements, the company currently triples its revenue annually. Juice is still completely self-financed to this day and stands on a solid basis. We wanted to know more about the background and spoke with Christoph Erni. In the interview, he gave us some insightful insights.

Juice Technology AG is restructuring its business areas and separating the Research and Development center. We spoke with Juice founder and CEO Christoph Erni about the background.

Mr. Erni, despite the Corona crisis, you are continuing to expand and are now outsourcing research and development. So, it seems business is going well?

Erni: Yes, indeed they are going very well. Of course, we also had a slight dip, but only in the end customer business and it was less severe than feared. What lets us look positively into the future, as we expect a sharp increase in demand after the crisis and have already ramped up our production to fill the warehouses.

Seriously? During these times – isn’t that risky?

Erni: Here, I align myself with the racing legend Nino Farina, the first Formula 1 world champion, who once said: When an accident happens, everyone automatically slows down, but I hit the gas because I want to win. We are currently acting similarly: Because the “accident” of the Corona virus does not change the long-term demand and market challenges. They are immense. That's why we established our Research and Development department as an autonomous business unit.

What advantage does this provide in your opinion?

Erni: It has several advantages. First, the unit feels its responsibility independently from the other areas. The employees there are highly motivated and are the heart of the company in expanding our technical lead. Second, Juice Engineering with its versatile research and development services also becomes more visible and tangible to our customers.

That would be more of a psychological aspect?

Erni: Correct, because with the outsourcing, the employees gain more freedoms with growing responsibility, including handling external orders. And these are also increasing.

Can you provide concrete examples?

Erni: Sure, currently it’s mainly about customization work for external customers and OEMs. This includes special adapters, optical or other detailed changes. Increasingly, larger orders are also coming in, involving adjustments to the load management system for large customers. And since these orders have all gone very well so far, it also inspires the team. The restructuring shows the engineers that they are important and seen. We are still conducting daily job interviews and hiring new employees in this area every month. This gives the R&D area a completely different self-understanding since they no longer just "work for" our sales department.

Are you then also planning to expand the facilities and other locations?

Erni: Both! In the first step, we will stay in Switzerland, where we are currently expanding our R&D facilities to over 1,000 square meters and have added a lot of new testing and research equipment. In the next step, we will certainly expand our R&D activities in Germany to Juice GmbH Europe. And in the future, I can also imagine this for Asia and North America, but we are very pragmatic here and will continue to push business in these areas first. Because before we outsource, we prefer the shortest possible and direct communication channels.

What advantage would that have?

Erni: It’s a bit like the whispering game. There are fewer communicative losses. A small example. When I left the office around 11 PM last night, four engineers were still working. They explained to me regarding a specific project: It will be a work marathon, but we are ready for it. That shows me: The people are highly motivated and deeply involved in their material. Nevertheless, such working hours must remain project-based exceptions and in the future we will also need regional capacities in the respective markets on site. To enable short communication lines there as well. That’s why we are continuing to expand.

Isn’t charging technology at a developmental “end”? We can now charge in compliance with calibration law and are increasingly mastering load management – where is the journey heading?

Erni: We are far from the end! The situation actually reminds me of my time in IT, where we had extremely powerful mainframe computers. Nevertheless, development always continued, sometimes with tasks that we could not even imagine at that time. To be more specific: Especially with municipalities and energy suppliers, there are still many ideas to better utilize and control the grid. The topic of inductive charging is also a current topic and on the software side, there are still many open possibilities. I also see possibilities in the hardware.

Can you be more specific?

Erni: We need to make our high-quality technology even cheaper. Currently, the inexpensive charging options can do almost “nothing”, sometimes the devices are not even compliant with the German Low Voltage Installation Regulation AR-N 4100. There is a lot of room to offer well-networked high-quality technology at low prices. For example, we are working on such solutions that can also find their way into devices from other charging station manufacturers as components and modules.

Really? How exactly can one imagine that?

Erni: I can give a very simple example. Take a simple relay. It is a standard supplier part that is exposed to completely new challenges in the vehicle charging technology sector and has to work worldwide under extreme, different electrical conditions. Therefore, we are researching how to make such parts even better. Especially since many usage scenarios are also new territory for suppliers because certain applications of the components have never existed before. It is crucial that we think "out of the box" in every area, rather than walking in well-trodden paths. I am very happy that at Juice we live this proverbial Californian groove, where everyone is 200 percent involved.

What does that mean?

Juice continues to expand and now also takes a very big step in research and development.