VW’s Electrify America to install ‘2,800 charging stations’ at workplaces and apartments

‘Electrify America’, a VW subsidiary created as part of the German automaker’s $2 billion settlements with California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its use of emission test cheating devices in its diesel vehicles, is expanding its charging station deployment to workplaces and apartments.

We have mostly focused our reporting on the company’s plan for DC fast-charging stations, like the plan for California, which includes installing ultra-fast 320 kW chargers, and the plan for the whole country, which includes a ‘nationwide 150 kW+ fast charging network’.

But this week, Electrify America announced that they will install “more than 2,800 workplace and residential charging stations by June 2019 in 17 of the biggest metropolitan areas in the United States.”

Mark McNabb, CEO of Electrify America, commented on the announcement:

“One of the biggest barriers to the mass-market adoption of electric vehicles is access to chargers. Having chargers where people work – and live – will help them see that an electric vehicle can be their primary vehicle because charging is convenient and reliable at the places where they spend time.”

500 sites will be chosen in Fresno, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose – as well as in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland, Raleigh, Seattle and Washington, DC.

75 percent of the 2,800+ level 2 connectors at these 500 sites will be for workplaces and the rest will be installed at apartment buildings, condominiums and other multi-family properties.

Electrify America is partnering with SemaConnect, EV Connect and Greenlots for this project.

Electrek’s Take

So far, I am fairly impressed with Electrify America’s plan for their charging networks.

Electric car charge points recently reached over 50,000 units in the US, but the vast majority of those are level 2 chargers, which should really just be for workplaces and apartments, like is the case with Electrify America’s plan.

For virtually any other location, aside from homes of course, they should focus on DC fast-chargers. Tesla was the only company to nail this with its Supercharger and Destination charger networks.

However, it looks Electrify America is going in the right direction at a significant scale.