Module 8 — Operating split and the Franchisee Training Program

Section 1 · Tier 1 — The 60-second brief

Once a site is live, four parties operate together — Tesla, HiON, the franchisee (Owner + DBM), and the Site Host. Each has a defined lane. The 15-module Franchisee Training Program teaches the franchisee their lane in operator-grade detail. The executive’s job is to know the lanes well enough to route any inbound issue correctly and to brief the curriculum at the right level for any audience.

1. Tesla operates the station. Software, billing, remote monitoring, the driver app (find / approach / arrive / connect / charge / finish), payment processing. Does not appear in the franchisee’s day-to-day — HiON is the single point of contact.
2. HiON operates the system. Partner Portal as authoritative system of record, NOC hotline, on-call maintenance via approved providers, marketing review queue, brand, the FA / MSA / Operations Manual.
3. Franchisee operates the site. DBM as the load-bearing role. Site-area maintenance outside the cabinet (snow, trash, lighting, striping, bollards). Sinking Fund. Vendor management. Customer-interaction logging. Fault escalation through HiON channels — never direct to Tesla, never inside the cabinet.
4. Site Host provides the land. No operational role. Cooperates on site logistics, signage, ICE-ing enforcement, ADA route preservation.
5. Uptime — the split. Public-safe: “designed to support high uptime; actual uptime varies by site and equipment.” Internal target: 98%+. Tesla network-wide: 99.9%.
6. The Franchisee Training Program. 15 mandatory modules in 5 phases (A Foundations / B Site Acquisition & Contracting / C Build Commission Launch / D Operate / E Lifecycle). Total ~29 classroom hours + ~11 pre-work hours + 1 OJT day. Required for every owner and DBM.
7. Critical no-cross lines for the franchisee. No direct Tesla contact. No opening cabinets. No resetting equipment. No independent pricing. No third-party network integration. No “free charging for guests” arrangements. No commitments on HiON’s behalf.
8. The FBC (Franchise Business Consultant). HiON’s relationship person to each franchisee. The first escalation step above Standard Support.

What you must be able to say without notes: the four-party operating split with one-line scope for each; the verbatim uptime hedge; the 15-module / 5-phase Franchisee Training Program structure; the four most consequential no-cross lines; and the FBC’s role.

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Section 2 · Tier 2 — Source map

Canonical documents

Document	Path	When to open
Master context brief §§2, 3, 4	~/HiON Franchise Group Site v2/hion-context.md	Any operating-split question.
Franchisee curriculum — 15 modules	~/HiON Training Module/Curriculum-Rebuild/modules/	When briefing the curriculum or routing an exec to operator-grade detail.
Franchisee curriculum — Outline	~/HiON Training Module/web/_content/01_Outline.md	The summary table of all 15 modules with phase-by-phase outcomes.
HiON Operations Manual	(not in repo) [CONFIRM]	Authoritative source for the operating standards. Owner: Joe Lewis.
Master Services Agreement	(not in repo) [CONFIRM]	Uptime guarantee mechanics, NOC, on-call maintenance scope.
FDD Item 11	(not in repo) [CONFIRM]	Training delivery requirements; “successfully complete the Franchisee Training Program” definition.

Owners

Person	What they own for M08 questions
Joe Lewis	Operations standards. The Franchisee Training Program at the curriculum level. FBC assignments.
Jim Frank	Tesla operational coordination. Strategic uptime conversations with capital partners.
Kevin Hein	FDD Item 11 language on training delivery.
Will Frank	Public-facing operating-split language; uptime hedging compliance.
HiON Engineering	NOC operations, on-call maintenance dispatch [CONFIRM named contact].

Live dashboards / portals

• Partner Portal — authoritative system of record for franchisee operations [CONFIRM URL].
• NOC hotline — 24/7 escalation [CONFIRM number / SLA].
• Pagefind / search index for the franchisee curriculum web app [CONFIRM].

Related curriculum modules

• M01 · What HiON is — the four-party role split origin.
• M03 · The Tesla relationship — what Tesla operates upstream.
• M07 · Site lifecycle — the handoff from build to operate.
• M09 · Legal, compliance, and brand — the uptime hedging language; FDD Item 11 anchor.

Franchisee curriculum overlap

• All 15 modules. This is the module of the exec curriculum with the deepest overlap with the franchisee curriculum, because §3.6 summarizes the entire franchisee program. An executive who wants depth on any specific operational domain opens the corresponding franchisee module.

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Section 3 · Tier 3 — Deep dive

3.1 — The four-party operating split (full reference)

The operating split is HiON’s most-referenced single fact and the answer to nearly every “who handles X” question once a site is live (hion-context.md §§2, 4).

Tesla operates:

• The EV Charging Equipment (manufacturer, software owner).
• The Tesla Supercharger network as a whole.
• Station software on each cabinet.
• Remote monitoring and diagnostics.
• The Tesla driver app — entire driver-facing experience.
• Payment processing and billing.
• Driver support for app-and-payment issues.

HiON operates:

• The franchise system — FDD, FA, DA, MSA, Operations Manual.
• The brand.
• The Partner Portal as authoritative system of record for franchisee operations.
• The NOC hotline (24/7) for franchisee escalations.
• On-call maintenance via approved providers.
• The marketing review queue (10-business-day response).
• The FBC (Franchise Business Consultant) relationship model.
• The Canvas Program relationship with Tesla.

Franchisee (Owner + DBM) operates:

• Designated Business Manager role — full-time-and-best-efforts under the FA.
• Day-to-day site presence (0–1 employees + DBM supervision).
• Site-area maintenance outside the cabinet:
  • Snow / ice — 2-hour clearing trigger, corrosion-safe chemicals only.
  • Trash and spills.
  • Bollards — 24-hour assessment, 5-business-day remediation.
  • Pavement and striping.
  • Lighting — 5-business-day repair.
• Sinking Fund — dedicated account at federally insured depository, monthly funding by the 5th, running-balance target, written approval for withdrawals.
• Vendor register and ongoing vendor management.
• Customer-interaction logging.
• Fault escalation through HiON’s Partner Portal or NOC hotline — never direct to Tesla.
• Compliance Register; 1-business-day notification on compliance events.
• Insurance certificates current on Partner Portal.
• Local marketing inside HiON’s compliance rails.

Site Host:

• Land under long-term lease or license.
• 24/7/365 driver access.
• Cooperation on site logistics, signage placement, ICE-ing enforcement, ADA route preservation.
• No operational role on the charging facility itself.

3.2 — Uptime: the operating reality and the compliance split

The uptime topic crosses operations and compliance. From hion-context.md §§3, 7:

• Tesla network-wide uptime. 99.9% (publicly disclosed by Tesla).
• HiON internal site-level target. 98%+.
• Public-safe HiON descriptor. “On-call maintenance designed to support high uptime; actual uptime varies by site and equipment.”

The gap between Tesla’s 99.9% network figure and HiON’s 98%+ site-level target reflects what each metric captures. Tesla’s number is network-side cabinet uptime (equipment running, network reachable). HiON’s site-level target captures the driver-experience uptime — including conditions outside the cabinet that affect whether a driver can successfully charge: power events at the host’s meter, weather-driven outages, contractor or vendor delays in response, ADA-route obstruction.

The franchisee’s role in uptime:

• Excuse Events documentation in real time. When a site goes out of service for reasons covered as an Excuse Event under the MSA, the franchisee documents it as it happens. After-the-fact documentation does not protect the Uptime Guarantee.
• Out-of-service designation discipline. Only when HiON directs. Franchisee does not designate sites OOS unilaterally.
• Fault escalation discipline. Visual observation only — no diagnostic steps beyond looking. Correct severity classification (operator depth in franchisee curriculum M02 + M10).

The executive’s M08 working knowledge: uptime is a shared metric with a publicly hedged descriptor and an internal-only target. Never quote the 98%+ figure publicly. The Tesla 99.9% is publicly cited because Tesla disclosed it; HiON’s site-level number is not for public attribution.

3.3 — The Partner Portal and the NOC: HiON’s operational surfaces

Two surfaces govern almost every operational interaction (operator depth in franchisee curriculum M02 + M10):

• Partner Portal — the authoritative system of record for franchisee operations. Where pipeline tickets are opened, where exception requests are submitted, where Compliance Register entries are filed, where insurance certificates are uploaded, where the Sinking Fund quarterly statements are filed, where Site Authorization Submittals are routed. Single-system-of-record discipline: no parallel ticketing, no parallel vendor register, no third-party integrations. The Partner Portal is the system; alternatives violate FA discipline.
• NOC hotline — 24/7 channel for SEV 1 and SEV 2 events (severity model in franchisee curriculum M02). The clock starts when the ticket opens; correct severity classification governs response time. The franchisee dispatches no diagnostic steps; visual observation only.

Severity model (top-level summary; full mechanics in franchisee curriculum M02):

• SEV 1 — site fully down or safety-impacting. Fastest response.
• SEV 2 — partial outage or major degradation.
• SEV 3 — moderate impairment.
• SEV 4 — minor.
• SEV 5 — cosmetic / non-impacting.

Misclassification has two costs: undercaiming (SEV 2 logged as SEV 3) results in slower response than the site needs; overclaiming (cosmetic logged as SEV 1) triggers False Call-Out risk.

3.4 — The Franchise Business Consultant (FBC)

The FBC is HiON’s relationship person assigned to each franchisee. Operationally, the FBC is:

• The first escalation step above Standard Support — when a franchisee needs more than the Portal or NOC, the FBC is the contact.
• The monthly performance commentary recipient — franchisees file a monthly site-performance commentary with the FBC (franchisee curriculum M11).
• The exception request reviewer — the 5-day acknowledgment / 20-day decision workflow runs through the FBC.
• The renewal and lifecycle event conversation owner — refresh, expansion, transfer, renewal conversations begin with the FBC (franchisee curriculum M15).
• The audit-readiness coach — preparing the franchisee for scheduled, unannounced, incident-triggered, and transfer/renewal audits.

Executives interacting with franchisees should route operational and relationship conversations through the FBC rather than going directly. Doing so respects the franchisee’s chain of communication and avoids short-circuiting the support model.

3.5 — Critical no-cross lines for the franchisee

The executive’s working memory list of the most consequential franchisee prohibitions (hion-context.md §§2, 4; franchisee curriculum M11, M12):

1. No direct Tesla contact. All operational issues route through HiON’s Partner Portal or NOC. HiON escalates to Tesla.
2. No opening cabinets. No resetting equipment. The equipment is Tesla’s. Physical intervention is a safety risk and a False Call-Out risk.
3. No independent pricing. Pricing is a network function. No franchisee surcharges, discounts, or promo codes.
4. No third-party network integration. Sites run on Tesla. No OCPP/OCPI integration. No enrollment in EVgo, ChargePoint, or Electrify America. No incompatible grants requiring non-Tesla operation.
5. No “free charging for guests” arrangements with Site Hosts.
6. No commitments on HiON’s behalf — no uptime guarantees, no revenue guarantees, no exclusivity offers.
7. No driver payment data collection. Ever. Payments are network-side.
8. No parallel ticketing or vendor systems. Partner Portal is the system of record.

When an executive becomes aware of a franchisee violating any of these, the response is to route to the FBC and to document — not to address it informally. Each item connects to FA discipline and may trigger formal corrective action.

3.6 — The Franchisee Training Program — top-down summary

The 15-module Franchisee Training Program is mandatory for every owner and DBM (FDD Item 11 [CONFIRM]). The program is structured in 5 phases, organized by the operator’s actual sequence of decisions and execution (rather than by Operations Manual table of contents).

Phase A · Foundations — pre-acquisition operating context.

• M01 · The HiON System and the Role Split — the system, the role split, the support cast, the authorized channels.
• M02 · Governance, the Manual, Support, and Escalation — Manual labels and conflicts, exception request workflow, SEV 1–5 severity, audit posture, escalation ladder.
• M03 · The Brand Promise and Brand Execution — customer promise, Marks and Brand Asset Library, co-branding hierarchy, 15-day remediation window.

Phase B · Site Acquisition & Contracting — 180-day window post-signature.

• M04 · Site Acquisition and Feasibility — Territory and Search Area, 7-stage pipeline, Ideal Host Profile, Site Walk, Site Authorization Submittal.
• M05 · Lease, Site Host Relationship, and the Lease Addendum — Site Host responsibilities, prohibited commitments, lease and contracting standards, Lease Addendum + Collateral Assignment.

Phase C · Build, Commission, Launch — 9–18 months authorization to ribbon-cutting.

• M06 · Design, Permitting, and Utility Coordination — design package, permits, utility service order, franchisee as GC of record.
• M07 · Construction Management and Commissioning — contractor qualification, safety baseline, milestone inspection log, commissioning readiness, False Call-Out, the no-opening-before-approval rule.
• M08 · Launch and Local Marketing — 5-day ribbon-cutting window, launch toolkit, Start-Up Advertising, marketing role split.

Phase D · Operate — Day-1 onward.

• M09 · Staffing, the DBM Role, Personnel, and Contractor Conduct — DBM approval and obligations, staffing roster, training-completion requirements.
• M10 · Site-Area Maintenance, Monitoring, and Fault Escalation — division of maintenance, no-opening-cabinets rule, daily and weekly monitoring, Excuse Events, seasonal readiness.
• M11 · Customer Experience, Payments, and Driver Support — the six driver-journey moments, payments architecture, escalate-never-resolve principle, parking and congestion enforcement.
• M12 · Vendors, Technology, and Network Boundaries — vendor categories, the HiON technology stack as system of record, third-party integration prohibition, network boundaries.
• M13 · Finance, the Sinking Fund, and Reporting — books and records standards, recurring fees, Sinking Fund discipline, Gross Sales reporting, performance metrics review.
• M14 · Compliance, Safety, Insurance, and Risk — regulatory framework, Compliance Register, safety program, incident response, ADA, insurance, environmental compliance.

Phase E · Lifecycle — episodic.

• M15 · Lifecycle Events — Refresh, Expansion, Transfer, Renewal, Closure — every lifecycle event with its submittal, approval, and documentation sequence.

Program duration. ~29 classroom hours + ~11 pre-work hours + 1 OJT day. The FDD Item 11 commits HiON to “up to one and a half business days featuring a minimum of 12 hours of classroom training” — there is an active design decision under review on how to reconcile the rebuilt curriculum with the Item 11 commitment (operator-grade Item 11 Decision Memo in the franchisee curriculum’s _content/Item-11-Decision-Memo.md).

Audience. Owner + DBM both required attendees. Up to two attendees without training fee per FDD Item 11 [CONFIRM]; +$1,000 per additional person.

Outcome. “Successfully complete the Franchisee Training Program” = pass every module’s knowledge check and application demonstration. This is the language in FDD Item 11 that establishes the compliance baseline for what training counts as completed.

3.7 — Where the exec curriculum and franchisee curriculum overlap

The exec curriculum and the franchisee curriculum are designed for different audiences with different scopes, but several topics appear in both. The mapping:

Exec curriculum module	Franchisee curriculum overlap
M01 · What HiON is	Franchisee M01 (Role Split — operator-grade)
M03 · The Tesla relationship	Franchisee M01 (Role Split); Franchisee M12 (Network Boundaries)
M04 · The Franchise product	Franchisee M04 (Site Acquisition); Franchisee M05 (Lease); Franchisee M09 (DBM); Franchisee M13 (Sinking Fund)
M05 · The Host product	Franchisee M05 (Lease, Site Host Relationship)
M07 · Site lifecycle	Franchisee M04–M08 (heaviest overlap zone)
M08 · Operating split	All 15 franchisee modules (this module is the bridge)
M09 · Legal, compliance, and brand	Franchisee M02 (Governance); Franchisee M03 (Brand); Franchisee M14 (Compliance)

For an exec who wants to know how a specific topic is taught to franchisees in classroom, open the franchisee module. For the executive-grade view, the exec module is the right level of abstraction.

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Section 4 · The numbers

Metric	Value	Source
Tesla network uptime (public)	99.9%	hion-context.md §3 [CONFIRM]
HiON internal site-level uptime target	98%+	hion-context.md §3 (internal-only)
Public-safe uptime descriptor	”designed to support high uptime; actual uptime varies by site and equipment”	hion-context.md §7
Franchisee Training Program modules	15	franchisee curriculum M01–M15
Franchisee Training Program phases	5 (A Foundations, B Site Acquisition & Contracting, C Build Commission Launch, D Operate, E Lifecycle)	franchisee curriculum 01_Outline.md
Total classroom hours (rebuilt curriculum)	~29	franchisee curriculum 01_Outline.md
Total pre-work hours	~11	franchisee curriculum 01_Outline.md
OJT days	1	franchisee curriculum 01_Outline.md
FDD Item 11 classroom commitment	12 hours minimum (1.5 business days)	franchisee curriculum Item-11-Decision-Memo [CONFIRM]
Training attendees included	2 (owner + DBM)	franchisee curriculum [CONFIRM FDD Item 11]
Additional attendee fee	$1,000/person	franchisee curriculum [CONFIRM]
Severity model	5 tiers (SEV 1–5)	franchisee curriculum M02 [CONFIRM Ops Manual]
Snow clearing trigger	2 hours	franchisee curriculum M10 [CONFIRM]
Lighting repair window	5 business days	franchisee curriculum M10 [CONFIRM]
Bollard remediation window	5 business days; 24-hour assessment	franchisee curriculum M10 [CONFIRM]
Brand-element remediation window	15 days	franchisee curriculum M03 [CONFIRM]
Marketing creative review queue	10 business days	franchisee curriculum M08 [CONFIRM]
Exception request — acknowledgment	5 business days	franchisee curriculum M02 [CONFIRM]
Exception request — decision	20 business days	franchisee curriculum M02 [CONFIRM]

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Section 5 · Why this matters

M08 is the bridge between “what HiON sells” and “what the franchisees actually do every day.” Executives who lack a working grasp of the operating split end up either (a) over-promising on HiON’s role to a host or franchisee prospect, or (b) under-explaining the franchisee’s accountability, which sets the wrong expectation that the FA will not honor. Both errors are easier to prevent than to remediate.

The Acknowledged Elephant: an executive may assume “operations is Joe Lewis’s lane.” It is — and Joe Lewis is the right escalation for any operational specifics. The executive’s M08 working memory is not a substitute for Joe Lewis; it is the floor that allows the executive to brief a counterparty correctly between calls with Joe and to know when to bring Joe in.

The Franchisee Training Program specifically is the artifact most often misrepresented in pitches. “We have a training program” undersells; “we train them for six months” overstates; “they’re certified by HiON” implies a credential outside the program. The right level is the structural account: 15 mandatory modules in 5 phases, FDD Item 11-governed, with knowledge checks and application demonstrations per module.

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Section 6 · Decision scenarios

Scenario 1 — The capital partner asking “what’s your uptime guarantee?”

A capital partner in diligence asks Bill: “What’s HiON’s uptime guarantee at the site level? What do you commit to franchisees and to hosts?”

What does the executive say?

“Two layers. Tesla’s network uptime is publicly disclosed at 99.9% — that’s the network HiON’s sites run on. At the site level, HiON operates against a high internal uptime target. We don’t put a contractual uptime guarantee in the host agreement or in customer-facing material — the public phrasing is ‘designed to support high uptime; actual uptime varies by site and equipment.’ The reason for the hedge is operational: site-level uptime captures factors outside the cabinet — host-side power events, weather, ADA-route obstruction — that the cabinet uptime number doesn’t capture. In our investor materials we walk the internal target on request; happy to do that if it’s useful.”

Cited basis: hion-context.md §§3, 7; M06 §3.5; M08 §3.2.

Scenario 2 — The franchisee who asks “why can’t I just call Tesla?”

A franchisee in week two of operations emails Joe Lewis: “My east-side post is dark. Can I just call Tesla directly — it’d be faster than going through the Portal.”

What does the executive say?

“No direct Tesla contact — all operational issues route through the Partner Portal or the NOC hotline, depending on severity. The Canvas Program structures HiON as the single point of contact to Tesla, and the operations apparatus is built around that. Direct contact erodes the operating model and creates False Call-Out risk if Tesla rolls a service team to a site that didn’t originate from HiON’s NOC. On your specific post: open a SEV 2 ticket in the Portal — the response clock starts when you open it. Don’t open the cabinet or reset anything. The franchisee curriculum’s Module 10 covers fault escalation in detail; this is week-two territory we cover in classroom.”

Cited basis: hion-context.md §§2, 4; franchisee curriculum M02 (severity), M10 (fault escalation); M03 §3.6; M08 §3.5.

Scenario 3 — The journalist asking about the training program

A trade journalist drafts a piece and writes: “HiON certifies its franchisees through a six-month operational training program.”

What does the executive ask for in the correction?

“Two small precision edits. We don’t use ‘certify’ — the FDD language is that the franchisee ‘successfully completes’ the Franchisee Training Program, which means passing every module’s knowledge check and application demonstration. And ‘six-month’ isn’t quite right — the rebuilt curriculum is 15 modules in 5 phases (Foundations, Site Acquisition & Contracting, Build/Commission/Launch, Operate, Lifecycle), with classroom hours, structured pre-work, and one OJT day at a HiON EV Facility. The duration is structured around competency outcomes; the calendar wrapper depends on each franchisee’s pace. Happy to walk the curriculum at the right level for the piece.”

Cited basis: franchisee curriculum 01_Outline.md; M08 §3.6.

Scenario 4 — The host complaining about the parking enforcement

A Site Host emails Will: “Your drivers are parking in our restaurant’s customer spots. Can your team start ticketing or towing?”

What does the executive say?

This is a parking and congestion enforcement question that lives in franchisee curriculum M11. The franchisee runs site-area discipline on this, not HiON directly, and the response is structural.

“Parking discipline at the site lives with the franchisee operating the location — I’ll route this to the franchisee directly and copy the FBC. Three things to set expectation. First, the franchisee can’t physically disconnect a charging session or directly enforce against drivers — congestion is managed network-side by Tesla through idle fees. Second, the franchisee does run site-area ICE-ing signage and can add wayfinding or signage to direct customer parking — that’s the right intervention. Third, if the spillover is sustained, that’s a site-layout issue worth a working session with HiON Engineering. Sending the routing now.”

Cited basis: franchisee curriculum M11 (customer experience, parking enforcement); M08 §3.5 (no manual disconnect).

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Section 7 · Common executive blind spots

1. Quoting the 98%+ internal uptime target publicly. Consequence: implied contractual uptime guarantee; redline violation. Prevention: public phrasing is the Akerman hedge. 98%+ is internal-only.

2. Saying “HiON handles all operations” to a host or franchisee prospect. Consequence: misstates the franchisee’s operational accountability; sets wrong expectations that the FA will not support. Prevention: HiON operates the system, the franchisee operates the site. Both are true. Both should be said.

3. Routing around the FBC on franchisee relationship issues. Consequence: short-circuits HiON’s relationship model; the FBC loses context; the franchisee learns the FBC isn’t load-bearing. Prevention: FBC first, then exec involvement if needed.

4. Calling the Franchisee Training Program a “certification.” Consequence: implies a credential outside the program; creates external-expectation drift; risks FDD Item 11 misalignment. Prevention: the FDD language is “successfully complete the Franchisee Training Program.” Use it.

5. Treating the franchisee’s prohibited list as a HiON preference rather than structural requirement. Consequence: a friendly exec who tells a franchisee “just open the cabinet quickly, no one’s watching” creates a safety, FA, and MSA exposure simultaneously. Prevention: the no-cross lines are structural. The exec’s posture on every one of them is the same as Joe Lewis’s.

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Section 8 · Self-check

Pass threshold: 80%.

1. List the four parties in the live-site operating split, with one-line scope each. (§3.1)
2. State the verbatim public-safe uptime descriptor, and the internal uptime target. (§3.2)
3. What is the Partner Portal’s role, and what does single-system-of-record discipline mean? (§3.3)
4. Name the FBC and list three things the FBC owns operationally. (§3.4)
5. List five of the eight critical no-cross lines for the franchisee. (§3.5)
6. State the Franchisee Training Program’s number of modules and phases, and name the five phases. (§3.6)
7. What is the FDD Item 11 phrase for what franchisees must do to satisfy the training requirement? (§3.6)
8. Identify the redlined or imprecise phrasing error: “HiON guarantees 98%+ uptime to franchisees, runs all the day-to-day operations through Tesla, and certifies franchisees after a six-month training.” (§§3.1, 3.2, 3.6; blind spots 1, 2, 4)
9. Scenario. A franchisee at month 14 of operations emails Will saying they want to enroll their site in a state grant program that requires the site to be operable on both NACS and OCPP-based networks. Walk the response — what’s the structural answer, what’s the routing, and what’s the safe phrasing?
10. Scenario. A prospective host’s CFO asks during a final-stage call: “Once we sign, what’s the operational support look like? Who do we call?” Walk the answer — what does the executive say about the FBC, the Partner Portal, the NOC, and the operating split?

Answer key

1. Tesla — operates the station (software, billing, monitoring, driver app). HiON — operates the system (Partner Portal, NOC, on-call maintenance, brand, FA / MSA / Operations Manual). Franchisee (Owner + DBM) — operates the site (DBM, site-area maintenance outside cabinet, Sinking Fund, vendor mgmt, fault escalation through HiON). Site Host — provides land; no operational role. (§3.1)
2. Public: “On-call maintenance designed to support high uptime; actual uptime varies by site and equipment.” Internal: 98%+. (§3.2)
3. Partner Portal is the authoritative system of record for franchisee operations — tickets, exception requests, Compliance Register, insurance certificates, Sinking Fund statements, Site Authorization Submittals. Single-system-of-record discipline means no parallel ticketing, no parallel vendor register, no third-party integrations replacing Partner Portal functions. Alternatives violate FA discipline. (§3.3)
4. FBC = Franchise Business Consultant. Any three of: first escalation step above Standard Support; monthly performance commentary recipient; exception request reviewer (5-day acknowledgment / 20-day decision); renewal and lifecycle event conversation owner; audit-readiness coach. (§3.4)
5. Any five of: no direct Tesla contact; no opening cabinets / no resetting equipment; no independent pricing; no third-party network integration; no “free charging for guests” arrangements; no commitments on HiON’s behalf; no driver payment data collection; no parallel ticketing or vendor systems. (§3.5)
6. 15 modules in 5 phases. Phases: A Foundations, B Site Acquisition & Contracting, C Build Commission Launch, D Operate, E Lifecycle. (§3.6)
7. “Successfully complete the Franchisee Training Program” — defined as passing every module’s knowledge check and application demonstration. (§3.6)
8. Three errors: (a) “guarantees 98%+ uptime” — internal target stated publicly + implied contractual guarantee; (b) “runs all the day-to-day operations through Tesla” — misstates the operating split (HiON operates the system, Tesla operates the station, franchisee operates the site); (c) “certifies franchisees after a six-month training” — wrong phrasing and wrong duration framing. Correct version: “Tesla operates the station — the equipment, the software, and the driver app. HiON operates the franchise system, including a Partner Portal, a 24/7 NOC hotline, on-call maintenance, and an FBC-led relationship model. The franchisee operates the site, including site-area maintenance and a required Designated Business Manager role. Franchisees successfully complete a 15-module training program in 5 phases as a condition of opening their first site, with knowledge checks and application demonstrations per module.” (§§3.1, 3.2, 3.6)
9. Structural answer: No — this is a Network Boundaries violation (franchisee curriculum M12). The Canvas Program structures HiON sites as Tesla-network only; no OCPP / OCPI integration, no enrollment in non-Tesla networks. Routing: acknowledge in the Portal; route to the FBC; loop in Kevin Hein on the grant program’s specific compliance language because the franchisee may need a written decline letter to the grant administrator. Safe phrasing: “The grant program requirement for OCPP-based operability isn’t compatible with the HiON system — Canvas Program sites operate on Tesla’s network exclusively, and OCPP integration is specifically prohibited under your Operations Manual and Franchise Agreement (franchisee curriculum M12 walks this in detail). The grant program is one HiON cannot accept on this site, and you cannot accept it on the site either. The right next step: I’m routing this to your FBC, and we’ll loop in Kevin Hein at Akerman to put together a written decline to the grant administrator. Other state programs that don’t carry the OCPP requirement may be accessible — your FBC will surface those. Don’t sign anything with the program before we close this loop.” (§3.5; franchisee curriculum M12)
10. “Three surfaces. First, you’re assigned a Franchise Business Consultant — your FBC — as your relationship person at HiON. Anything strategic, anything that needs a conversation rather than a ticket, that’s your FBC. Second, the Partner Portal is the system of record for all operational tickets, compliance documentation, and reporting — your DBM and operations lead are in there daily. Third, the NOC hotline is 24/7 for SEV 1 and SEV 2 events — site down, safety-impacting events, partial outages. The operating split is structural: Tesla operates the station — the software, the billing, the driver app. HiON operates the system — the Portal, the NOC, on-call maintenance, the franchise apparatus. The franchisee operating your site owns day-to-day site presence, site-area maintenance outside the cabinet, and the required Designated Business Manager role. As the host, your operational interface is principally with the franchisee, plus your FBC at HiON for the strategic relationship. The franchisee curriculum walks the full operational discipline they’ll be running against — happy to send the curriculum overview if your CFO wants to see what the operator’s actually trained on.” (§§3.1, 3.3, 3.4; M05 §3.1)

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Section 9 · Cross-references

Other exec curriculum modules

• M01 — what HiON is and the role split origin.
• M03 — Tesla’s operational role; the no-direct-Tesla-contact rule.
• M05 — Host product, where the host’s operational expectations are set.
• M07 — site lifecycle handoff to day-1 operations.
• M09 — uptime hedging compliance and FDD Item 11 anchor.

External documents

• hion-context.md §§2, 3, 4, 7
• Franchisee curriculum 01_Outline.md (top-down summary source)
• Franchisee curriculum M01–M15 (operator-grade companions)
• HiON Operations Manual [CONFIRM]
• Master Services Agreement [CONFIRM]
• FDD Item 11 [CONFIRM]

Franchisee curriculum overlap

• All 15 modules. Deepest overlap zone in the exec curriculum.

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Section 10 · Source verification log

Claim	Current source	Primary source needed	Status	Owner
Tesla 99.9% uptime	hion-context.md §3	Tesla disclosure	unverified	Jim
HiON internal 98%+ uptime target	hion-context.md §3 (internal-only)	Operating standard documentation	unverified	Joe Lewis
Public-safe uptime descriptor	hion-context.md §7	Akerman redline doc	partially verified	Will / Kevin Hein
15 modules / 5 phases / ~29 classroom hours / ~11 pre-work / 1 OJT day	franchisee curriculum 01_Outline.md	curriculum document itself (verified)	verified	Joe Lewis
FDD Item 11 12-hour classroom commitment	franchisee curriculum Item-11-Decision-Memo	current FDD	unverified	Kevin Hein
2 attendees / +$1,000 per additional	franchisee curriculum 01_Outline.md	FDD Item 11	unverified	Kevin Hein
Severity model SEV 1–5	franchisee curriculum M02	Ops Manual / MSA	unverified	Joe Lewis
Various operating windows (snow 2hr / lighting 5 bday / bollards 5 bday / brand 15 days)	franchisee curriculum M03, M10	Ops Manual	unverified	Joe Lewis
Exception request 5/20-business-day workflow	franchisee curriculum M02	Ops Manual / FA	unverified	Joe Lewis / Kevin Hein
Partner Portal admin / URL	not in this brief	operational lookup	open	Joe Lewis

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Section 11 · Change log

Version	Date	Author	Changes
v0.1	2026-05-20	Claude	Initial draft. Bridge module to franchisee curriculum.