Japan’s plan to phase out gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 is central to its 2050 carbon-neutral goal. But adoption of electric vehicles has lagged, especially in urban apartments and condominiums where shared charging stations are rare.
Without home charging access, EV owners often rely on public stations or dealerships, facing long charging times and added inconvenience. Today, 90% of Japanese EV owners live in single-family homes, leaving a huge untapped market in multi-unit housing.
“Ideally, people who live in condominiums should be able to fully charge their cars at home,” said Nobuyuki Ura, Founder of YourStand.
Founded in 2018, YourStand developed a proprietary IoT system that allows users to reserve, operate, and pay for EV charging stations directly from their smartphones.
The YourStand App enables:
The company also installs chargers in condominiums and office buildings, handling end-to-end services from site surveys and subsidy applications to proposals for property managers.
After several prototypes, YourStand settled on a Raspberry Pi–based design with Soracom connectivity built in, making it scalable and easy to manage.
“There was an atmosphere that if it was IoT, it was Soracom,” said Yuta Mochizuki, Technical Development Lead at YourStand.
YourStand relies on Soracom Air for secure, reliable device-to-cloud communication, and Soracom Napter for on-demand remote access, enabling updates, firmware upgrades, and troubleshooting without visiting each site.
Previously, maintenance required in-person visits to every condominium. Now, with Napter, YourStand’s specialists can resolve issues from their office or home. Electricians performing on-site work can even plug in a Soracom USB dongle to allow remote specialists to repair devices in real time.
By the end of 2021, YourStand’s system was installed in 150 condominiums across the Tokyo metro area, with expansion planned for Osaka, Nagoya, Hokkaido, and beyond. The company has also seen a surge in customer interest following Japan’s carbon neutrality policies.
“We have even heard from people who bought EVs after the chargers were installed in their condominiums,” said Denise Chia, PR Manager at YourStand.
Looking ahead, YourStand aims to integrate chargers into new condo construction, office buildings, and commercial facilities — using Soracom’s secure connectivity to keep operations streamlined as they scale.
The future of electric vehicles wasn’t always assured. In 2008, with automaker investment still uncertain and charging networks scarce, Portland-based OpConnect set out to build the infrastructure that EV adoption would require.
Their turnkey charging systems can be installed at apartments, offices, hotels, dealerships, parking garages, and more, giving property owners an easy way to offer EV charging as a service. Today, OpConnect stations can be found nationwide, from Hawaii to New York.
With EVs projected to grow to nearly 30 million on US roads by 2030, charging infrastructure must scale rapidly. OpConnect makes that possible by combining simple installation with remote management, integrated payment, and advanced energy optimization.
OpConnect’s latest plug-and-play charging stations can be installed by any licensed electrician, avoiding costly manufacturer commissioning. Once installed, every station is fully connected to the cloud, enabling:
These connected features give property owners a seamless way to deploy charging stations and ensure EV drivers have access to reliable infrastructure wherever they go.
As OpConnect prepared to roll out its next generation of OCPP-enabled chargers, connectivity became a critical focus. Stations needed to work reliably everywhere, with minimal service cost.
In early testing, Soracom proved ideal. With pooled billing and automatic volume discounts, OpConnect cut its monthly data costs by 60–70% without any reduction in performance.
Soracom also enhanced security. Using Soracom Napter, the team can enable secure, on-demand access to any charger without requiring fixed IPs or VPNs. Chargers remain invisible to the wider internet but available when needed.
With major automakers like Ford and VW now rolling out electric models across every vehicle category, EV adoption is accelerating. By 2025, nearly 10% of US vehicles could be electric or hybrid electric.
To meet this demand, OpConnect will continue expanding its nationwide charging network, offering stations that are technically advanced, easy to deploy, affordable to maintain, and built with cost recovery from day one.