ChargePoint teams with US truck stops to expand EV charging

ChargePoint and the National Association of Truck Stop Operators (NATSO) formed the National Highway Charging Collaborative. It plans to install fast-chargers at more than 4,000 US locations by 2030 and invest one billion dollars.

The network of Level 2 and DC charging stations will line along highways and in rural communities with money to be raised through private and public sources. This may include the Volkswagen Settlement Funds and other dedicated resources available to NATSO members.

ChargePoint Chief Executive Pasquale Romano told Reuters, “enabling long-distance electric travel and equipping rural areas with vital universal charging is key and must begin scaling aggressively today”. NATSO CEO Lisa Mullings echoed the sentiment from a client’s perspective when saying, “it appears clear that the next generation of fuel is going to be electricity, so we want to make sure that our members are prepared to meet the needs of their customers”.

Also, on the federal level, there is a movement for the US charging infrastructure. Democratic MPs Andy Levin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez presented the ‘EV Freedom Act’ – a draft bill which aims to establish a network of high-speed charging stations along the US highway network within five years. Reuters quotes Ocasio-Cortez: “This is the infrastructure bill that we need to be rallying around. A lot of naysayers will say, ‘They are trying to get rid of cars.’ Well, we’re not trying to get rid of cars. We’re trying to advance and improve our fleets. We have to go electric.”

The bill points to the lack of charging infrastructure hampering electric vehicle uptake. A separate bill by Yvette Clark and others aims to improve the charging infrastructure in low-income communities.

Back to (semi-) private initiatives: ChargePoint operates but does not own its charging network and says it accesses more than 108,000 charging points globally, mostly in North America. The aim is to increase the network to 2.5 million by 2025. Also through a number of deals: ChargePoint signed a deal with VW subsidiary Electrify America in June 2019.
In Europe and the UK, roaming agreements include NewMotion as well as Dutch EVBox. In case of the latter, the partners had announced a joint commitment at the Global Climate Action Summit last year, saying they would install 3.5 million EV charging points between them by 2025 reportedly. The pledge is part of the ZEV Challenge by the C40 Cities and Climate Group.

reuters.com (ChargePoint & NATSO), chargepoint.com, reuters.com (EV Freedom Act)