SAN FRANCISCO & LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 10, 2025--
Leap, the leading platform for building and scaling virtual power plants (VPPs), and Xos, Inc., (NASDAQ:XOS), a leading electric truck manufacturer and fleet services provider, today announced a new partnership to unlock grid revenue opportunities for electrified fleets. By connecting Xos Hub charging technology to energy markets through Leap’s automated platform, the companies will create new value for fleet owners and deliver crucial support for the grid during energy emergencies.
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Xos manufactures electric stepvan vehicles used by some of the country’s most recognizable logistics companies, including FedEx and UPS. The company’s Xos Hub is a mobile, battery-integrated charger designed to speed up fleet electrification without the delays or costs of traditional infrastructure. It provides a versatile, scalable solution for stopgap charging, remote deployments, semi-permanent charging, and backup power.
Now, by using Leap’s software-only VPP platform, Xos can enroll its customers in California’s Demand Side Grid Support (DSGS) grid services program. During emergency grid events, participating fleets will automatically shift charging from the grid to their Xos Hub battery-integrating chargers, relieving grid strain while generating revenue.
Last summer, with major contributions from Leap, DSGS helped California avoid blackouts during prolonged heatwaves. With the addition of Xos’s rapidly growing portfolio, Leap and its partners are poised to scale their impact and deliver even greater support to the grid.
“Leveraging our complementary technologies, Leap and Xos are tapping new value streams for commercial truck fleets, the transportation services that power our economy,” said Jason Michaels, CEO of Leap. “Together, we’re making these fleets cleaner, smarter, and more cost effective, while contributing to a more resilient energy landscape.”
Leap’s universal API suite automates energy market operations, enabling Xos to quickly deploy and scale its own VPP offering without additional hardware or significant additional operational overhead. This means that Xos can immediately start generating new grid revenue, reducing the total product cost for customers and driving ongoing energy savings.
“Our VPP offering gives fleet customers advanced energy capabilities without compromising control or convenience,” said Dakota Semler, CEO of Xos, Inc. “It’s a powerful way to lower the cost of infrastructure ownership even further, maximize the value of our products, and support customers in meeting their electrification goals.”
About Leap
Leap is the leading platform for launching and scaling virtual power plants (VPPs). Through its software-only solution, Leap facilitates fast, easy and automated access to demand response and other grid services revenue streams for the providers of battery storage systems, EV chargers, smart building technologies, and other distributed energy resources (DERs). Managing over 200,000 energy sites and devices across U.S. energy markets, Leap empowers more than 90 technology partners and their customers to unlock new value and help create a more flexible, resilient grid powered by renewable resources. Visit leap.energy to learn more.
About Xos, Inc.
Xos is a leading technology company, electric truck manufacturer, and fleet services provider for battery-electric fleets. Xos vehicles and fleet management software are purpose-built for medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles that travel on last-mile, back-to-base routes. The company leverages its proprietary technologies to provide commercial fleets with battery-electric vehicles that are easier to maintain and more cost-efficient on a total cost of ownership (TCO) basis than their internal combustion engine counterparts. For more information, visit www.xostrucks.com.
Leap partners with Xos
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Donald Trump is set to meet Thursday at the White House with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, whose political party is widely considered to have won 2024 elections rejected by then-President Nicolás Maduro before the United States captured him in an audacious military raid this month.
Less than two weeks after U.S. forces seized Maduro and his wife at a heavily guarded compound in Caracas and brought them to New York to stand trial on drug trafficking charges, Trump will host the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Machado, having already dismissed her credibility to run Venezuela and raised doubts about his stated commitment to backing democratic rule in the country.
“She’s a very nice woman,” Trump told Reuters in an interview about Machado. “I’ve seen her on television. I think we’re just going to talk basics.”
The meeting comes as Trump and his top advisers have signaled their willingness to work with acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president and along with others in the deposed leader's inner circle remain in charge of day-to-day governmental operations.
Rodríguez herself has adopted a less strident position toward Trump and his “America First” policies toward the Western Hemisphere, saying she plans to continue releasing prisoners detained under Maduro — a move reportedly made at the behest of the Trump administration. Venezuela released several Americans this week.
Trump, a Republican, said Wednesday that he had a “great conversation” with Rodríguez, their first since Maduro was ousted.
“We had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things,” Trump told reporters. “And I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela.”
In endorsing Rodríguez, Trump has sidelined Machado, who has long been a face of resistance in Venezuela. She had sought to cultivate relationships with Trump and key advisers like Secretary of State Marco Rubio among the American right wing in a political gamble to ally herself with the U.S. government. She also intends to have a meeting in the Senate on Thursday afternoon.
Despite her alliance with Republicans, Trump was quick to snub her following Maduro’s capture. Just hours afterward, Trump said of Machado that “it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.”
Machado has steered a careful course to avoid offending Trump, notably after winning last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, which Trump coveted. She has since thanked Trump and offered to share the prize with him, a move that has been rejected by the Nobel Institute.
Machado’s whereabouts have been largely unknown since she went into hiding early last year after being briefly detained in Caracas. She briefly reappeared in Oslo, Norway, in December after her daughter received the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf.
The industrial engineer and daughter of a steel magnate began challenging the ruling party in 2004, when the nongovernmental organization she co-founded, Súmate, promoted a referendum to recall then-President Hugo Chávez. The initiative failed, and Machado and other Súmate executives were charged with conspiracy.
A year later, she drew the anger of Chávez and his allies again for traveling to Washington to meet President George W. Bush. A photo showing her shaking hands with Bush in the Oval Office lives in the collective memory. Chávez considered Bush an adversary.
Almost two decades later, she marshaled millions of Venezuelans to reject Chávez’s successor, Maduro, for another term in the 2024 election. But ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared him the winner despite ample credible evidence to the contrary. Ensuing anti-government protests ended in a brutal crackdown by state security forces.
Janetsky reported from Mexico City. AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
FILE - U.S. President George Bush, right, meets with Maria Corina Machado, executive director of Sumate, a non-governmental organization that defends Venezuelan citizens' political rights, in the Oval Office of the White House, Washington, May 31, 2005. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
FILE - Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gestures to supporters during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, file)
