More from All the news about EV charging in the US
The nationwide electric vehicle charging network company and the Midwest superstore chain have already installed 24 charging stalls in six locations across Michigan and Ohio.
Fresh off of National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) funding, EVgo will provide white-label chargers to Meijer and will also manage installation, ongoing operation, and maintenance. Ohio’s $13.8 million allocation of the funding is good for 20 new locations for EV chargers, of which EVgo will handle 14.
Premium “Certified Elite” dealership locations now only need to install three AC charging stations instead of five by June 30th, 2024 — a six-month delay. They won’t need to install a DC fast charger by 2026. And required EV training costs have also been reduced.
The automaker changed the rules after some of its Illinois dealerships argued that the demands for EV sales and its certification program violated state franchise laws.
[Automotive News]
Hertz and charging network EVgo are partnering to offer EV car renters one year of discounted charging rates with no monthly subscription or charge fees.
To take advantage, EV renters can sign up online or scan a QR code at Hertz locations and set up a new EVgo account from now until November 2024. Then you can go to one of EVgo’s 950-plus stations in the US — and hope you find one that works!
After experiencing fast-charging frustration in her Mustang Mach-E, WSJ’s Joanna Stern tried connecting DC chargers to a Rivian R1T at 30 LA-area stations from EVgo, Electrify America, and EVCS. More than 40 percent of the stations had a problem somewhere, with 27 percent of the 126 charging stalls offline.
A lot of money is being spent to improve charging electric cars in the US, but broken parts, handshake issues, and payment processing are still hurdles. Opening up access to Tesla’s Superchargers and switching over to NACS may help some in the future, but this is the present.
The automaker’s electric luxury sedan works with a new vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) adapter called RangeXchange that can charge other EVs at a rate of up to 9.6 kW — delivering 24 to 40 miles of range per hour of charge. Owners can enable the bi-directional charging feature through a new OTA software update.
Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) is on a roll. ChargePoint recently started rolling out its support for the standard, and Subaru hopped aboard the NACS train, following Toyota / Lexus, and others. Now, Lucid says it’s coming to the party by 2025 in North America.
That leaves precious few holdouts for the Combined Charging System. Pour one out for CCS, my friends. Only be careful. Electricity, and all.
Keen Tesla Owners Club users found this new Sparks, Nevada charging station near Tesla’s first Gigafactory under construction earlier this month, along with another in Wilsonville, Oregon.
The new V4 stations feature payment terminals, CCS adapters, and longer cords that can make charging non-Tesla EVs a bit easier in the US.
Drivers could already see what stalls are occupied or broken, but with the new update (slowly) rolling out, Tesla now factors ETAs of drivers navigating to the same station and past activity data to predict wait times before arrival. It probably won’t factor in people taping cables to their cars, though.
In other charging news, Tesla is now deploying new V4 Superchargers in the US.
If you’re keeping up with electric vehicle charging news, you know that network providers are having a tough time maintaining chargers — which hurts EV drivers who can’t find reliable places to charge up.
After saying it would spend millions on improving, ChargePoint is linking up with fleet maintenance company Amerit to handle the hard work of keeping EV chargers alive.
Under the agreement, Amerit will leverage its 2,200+ technician footprint to provide prompt, efficient and reliable preventative maintenance, inspections and warranty repairs to ChargePoint’s charging stations across the United States, ensuring that ChargePoint stations are operating at peak performance.
[Amerit Fleet Solutions]
V4 Superchargers feature a longer cable (which can reach the other side of a VW ID Buzz, as we’ve tested) and up to 350kW charging speeds — both of which are key to the US EV charging rollout as cars from more manufacturers start working with Tesla’s plugs.
The new DC fast-charging stations were spotted getting installed in Wilsonville, Oregon, and in Sparks, Nevada, as discovered by Tesla Motors Club users. One image shows it’ll have credit card terminals and “Magic Docks,” which can dispense a CCS dongle for non-Tesla EV compatibility.
The hotel chain announced a new deal with EV Connect to install branded electric vehicle charging stations at its hotels in the US and Canada.
Renting or traveling with an EV will be an easier choice if you know there’s somewhere to charge it, and Marriott may also need to compete with Hilton, which just announced a new charging deal with Tesla.
In new US EV charging news, the automaker will adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) port in its next-generation EVs starting in 2025. Current and future I-Pace customers will also get adapters to use the 12,000-plus Tesla Superchargers beforehand, but there’s no timeframe for availability.
Jaguar is joining the likes of Ford, GM, Rivian, Volvo, Polestar, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, Fisker, and Honda on essentially the same deal to get on Tesla’s winning connector.
