Wednesday morning the White House announced details of its $7.5 billion plan to expand America’s DC fast charging network in all 50 states, along with the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The biggest component includes Tesla building and opening at least 7,500 chargers to non-Tesla EVs. Other companies including BP, EVgo, Electrify America, Pilot and others have also announced expansion plans.
Here’s a roundup of the expansions announced by the Biden Adminstration:
- Tesla, for the first time, will open a portion of its U.S. Supercharger and Destination Charger network to non-Tesla EVs, making at least 7,500 chargers available for all EVs by the end of 2024. The open chargers will be distributed across the United States. They will include at least 3,500 new and existing 250 kW Superchargers along highway corridors to expand freedom of travel for all EVs, and Level 2 Destination Charging at locations like hotels and restaurants in urban and rural locations. All EV drivers will be able to access these stations using the Tesla app or website. Additionally, Tesla will more than double its full nationwide network of Superchargers, manufactured in Buffalo, New York. The White House didn’t announce details on how Tesla will add CCS outlets to its Superchargers but it is believed in automotive news circles that Tesla has been working on a so-called “Magic Dock” system that will include a releasable handle that includes a Supercharger-to-CCS adapter for non-Tesla EVs. The Magic Dock will presumably be retrofitted to some existing Superchargers and included with new Supercharger stations that receiving federal funding. At the time of this posting, neither Tesla nor the White House had announced whether all Superchargers might receive CCS retrofits at some point.
- Hertz and bp are announcing their intention to build out a national network of EV fast charging infrastructure to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles. Hertz and bp intend to bring charging infrastructure to Hertz locations across America, including major cities such as Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Miami, New York City, Orlando, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. The charging hubs will serve rideshare and taxi drivers, car rental customers and the general public at high-demand locations, such as airports. A number of installations are expected to include large-scale charging hubs, known as “gigahubs.” bp aims to invest $1 billion in EV charging in the US by 2030. Hertz’s objective is to make one-quarter of its fleet electric by the end of 2024.
- Pilot Company, General Motors, and EVgo have partnered to build a coast-to-coast network of 2,000 high power 350 kW fast chargers at Pilot and Flying J travel centers along American highways. The nationwide network of up to 500 travel centers will enable long distance EV travel by connecting urban and rural communities. Today, the companies are announcing that the first 200+ chargers in this network are expected to be available for use by drivers in 2023.
- TravelCenters of America and Electrify America announced that they will offer electric vehicle charging at select Travel Centers of America and Petro locations, with a goal of installing approximately 1,000 EV chargers at 200 locations along major highways over the next five years.
- Electrify America recently held the official groundbreaking of Electrify America Solar Glow™ 1, the new 75 MW solar PV project in San Bernardino County, CA to help back all energy delivered to EV drivers with renewable energy across more than 800 DC fast charging stations nationwide.
- Mercedes-Benz, ChargePoint, and MN8 Energy announced a partnership to deploy over 400 charging hubs with more than 2,500 publicly accessible DC fast charging ports across the U.S. and Canada.
- ChargePoint, Volvo Cars, and Starbucks announced a partnership to deploy 60 DC fast chargers at up to 15 locations along the 1,350-mile pilot route between Seattle and Denver to be completed by summer 2023.
- General Motors, in partnership with FLO, has announced a collaborative effort with dealers to install up to 40,000 public Level 2 EV chargers in local communities by 2026 through GM’s Dealer Community Charging Program. The new charging stations will join the GM’s Ultium Charge 360 network, and will be available to all EV drivers.
- Francis Energy, a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based EV charge point operator, is expanding into 40 states in 2023, with plans to install 50,000 EV charging ports by 2030 in partnership with municipalities, auto dealers, Tribal Nations, and private businesses. Currently 75% of Francis Energy’s network is in Justice40 communities.
- Forum Mobility, a zero-emission trucking solutions provider, recently announced a $400 million commitment to deploy over 1,000 DC fast-chargers. The charging infrastructure will serve the thousands of heavy-duty electric trucks projected to begin operating at the San Pedro and Oakland ports in California over the next decade. The community charging depots will create over 600 new union jobs in disadvantaged communities while reducing harmful emissions at the ports and along freight corridors.
- Ford has committed to installing at least one public-facing DC Fast charger with two ports at 1,920 Ford dealerships by January 2024.
Additional details about the charging infrastructure expansion announcement are available in this White House news release.