EV Partner provides end-to-end EV charging infrastructure solutions. The company helps property owners achieve their sustainability goals and offer an increasingly important service amenity for their tenants. EV+ installs and maintains the chargers while providing ongoing management services. CBRE, a global commercial real estate firm, will provide EV+ with site acquisition and grant and incentives work. The partners will also collaborate with local governments to streamline permitting, speeding up the process for new stations.
The partnership will aim to become the leading network of reliable high-powered charging stations in North America, competing with Tesla and EVgo, which have their own partnerships with carmakers. EV+ plans to deploy more than 100 stations over the next three years and will invest at least $1 billion in the effort, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company will use funds from a Biden administration program that gives carmakers $7.5 billion for a nationwide EV charging network.
Currently, there are over 32,000 public EV charging stations on the ChargePoint network in North America. The company designs, builds and supports the full range of hardware and software that power these networks. It also offers home and fleet charging with its ChargePoint Home Flex solution. Its software is used by thousands of private fleets to manage their EV charging operations. EV+ will be leveraging the network of ChargePoint to expand its own deployments.
The companies hope to help drivers find the best public and private EV charging locations in their area. EV+ will offer users a free app and access to the ChargePoint database to locate chargers. The app will show them where nearby charging stations are and whether they are open or not. The partnership will also promote EV charging in areas where it is most needed, including near tourism destinations and transportation hubs. It will also seek to deploy stations in high-priority sites that include disadvantaged communities and workplaces, as well as tribal, municipal and community facilities.
EVs are already popular with people who live in cities and suburbs, but their widespread adoption will require more recharging options. Getting those options into place will be the key to a mass rollout of electric vehicles that can compete with traditional gasoline-powered cars and trucks. The partnership announced on Thursday will be led by companies that specialize in developing and installing EV chargers. Those companies can provide site planners with a better picture of what the future could look like for EV chargers, especially in communities that may not have access to utility-owned infrastructure now. The partners can work with communities to identify the right locations for new stations and ensure that they are built to accommodate a wide variety of vehicles and charging styles. The partners can even build chargers that are compatible with recharging plugs and connectors from other companies. This is a great idea because it would mean that consumers can easily switch between charging systems as their preferences change. The partners can start by offering a wide variety of options to meet consumers’ needs and then gradually scale up as the market grows.