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Crijn Bouman and the dream of self-driving mobility

It’s 2017, and Crijn Bouman is standing inside a massive warehouse in San Francisco. For the first time, he’s watching self-driving cars move effortlessly across the streets. He’s impressed – but one detail catches his eye. After hours of operation, the vehicles quietly roll into a corner and stop. A person walks over and plugs them in – manually.

Rocsys - a company dedicated to automating the charging of autonomous vehicles
Rocsys is a company dedicated to automating the charging of autonomous vehicles.

“Why isn’t the charging automated?” Bouman asks.

The answer is simple: focus on one thing at a time – getting the vehicles road-ready. Yet, that small inefficiency plants a seed – a seed that would eventually grow into Rocsys, a company dedicated to automating the charging of autonomous vehicles.

But turning ideas into reality is nothing new to Bouman. As a child, he was full of ideas and projects. “I wouldn’t call myself an entrepreneur back then,” he says, “but my mother always said I was constantly starting things and finding creative solutions.”

At six, he and a friend opened a small flower shop, gathering flowers and plants from their own gardens – and, admittedly, from neighbors’ gardens as well – to sell on the street. When his mother found out, she made him buy replacement flowers from a florist. “An early lesson in responsibility and sustainability. That’s when I realized you can’t build something lasting by stealing from others.”

Bouman studied Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University, a program combining technical knowledge with product design and marketing. Even then, he wasn’t dreaming of working at a big corporation. “It was always about what I could start, what I could create with friends,” he explains.

Crijn Bouman, CEO & Co-founder at Rocsys
Crijn Bouman, engaged CEO & Co-founder at Rocsys.


From Epyon to Rocsys

Rocsys is Bouman’s second company. His first, Epyon, grew from the same passion. For a final elective in university, he wrote a business plan for fast-charging electric vehicle batteries – and Epyon was born. Founded in 2005, it initially focused on small electric vehicles at airports before shifting to passenger cars, just as Tesla launched its first model. Epyon quickly gained traction and was eventually acquired by ABB.

Bouman stayed for six years, managing ABB’s EV charging product portfolio. While the experience was exhilarating – revenues surpassed $100 million and the EV industry boomed – corporate life didn’t fuel his entrepreneurial drive. “I missed building something new”.

The idea for Rocsys took shape in that San Francisco warehouse. Seeing fully autonomous vehicles, yet manual charging, highlighted a gap in the system. Two years later, in 2019, Bouman met Joost van der Weijde and Kanter van Deurzen, both with strong backgrounds in robotics. Bouman himself knew little about robotics, but together they started discussing how to solve the problem of automatic charging using robotic arms combined with computer vision and artificial intelligence. Could it be cost-effective? Could it scale? And how would they bring it to market, given that autonomous vehicles were still confined to labs?

In the beginning, the team also explored a wide range of potential use cases – from mining to electric buses. But the bus market proved overly complex, tied up with government tenders and city-specific requirements. Mining, meanwhile, was too small and fragmented, with each site requiring its own solution. 
Step by step, they worked through the questions and identified logistics and ports as the most logical first markets, since autonomous vehicles were already operating there. Warehouses and port terminals became the first proving grounds.

The big dream is to move more people and goods with fewer resources – making cities more livable, reducing congestion, and accelerating the next great transformation in mobility.
Crijn Bouman - CEO & Co-founder at Rocsys

A unique technology

Rocsys’ product is a robotic arm that automatically connects a charging plug to an electric vehicle. Using computer vision and artificial intelligence, the system identifies the position of the charging port and plugs it in without human involvement. 

Rocsys headquarter in Rijswijk, The Netherlands
Rocsys headquarter in Rijswijk, The Netherlands.

Their technology works with any vehicle and charger brand, which means that no modifications are needed. Ports like Rotterdam already operate fully automated terminals using Rocsys systems, minimizing human intervention while keeping vehicles charged and ready 24/7.

In 2023, SEB Greentech Venture Capital invested in Rocsys and led a USD 36 million funding round in the company. “The investment not only boosted our credibility but also gave access to strategic support, investor networks and recruitment help. The SEB team has been outstanding – their impact goes well beyond capital,” says Bouman. 

Today, Rocsys has about 50 employees, including a team in Portland, Oregon. Its mission is clear: enable autonomous, zero-emission mobility at scale. But the ambition is not just to support a few niche use cases, but to transform the fundamentals of transportation.

“Personal vehicles sit idle about 95% of the time – an extraordinary inefficiency given the cost, raw materials, and energy tied up in producing them. Even when in use, cars are often stuck in traffic, especially in cities. The current model simply isn’t sustainable, which is why shared autonomous mobility offers a way forward.”

Instead of every household owning multiple cars that spend most of their lives parked, fleets of shared autonomous vehicles could serve many users around the clock. Parking lots could be reclaimed as green spaces, and cargo fleets could be used more efficiently across several companies.

“The big dream,” Bouman concludes, “is to move more people and goods with fewer resources – making cities more livable, reducing congestion, and accelerating the next great transformation in mobility.”

Read more about Rocsys at rocsys.com


Article published 7 October 2025

Text: Malin Edwards
Photo: Louise Nylund

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