The Weekly 1.21⚡(EVI News #18): States Sue Feds Over NEVI. Tesla Price Dynamism. EVgo On the Up in Q1.

Good day, fellow AC/DC addict ⚡🤘🏻

NEVI nudged its way back into the headlines via legal action this week, at the same time as steady activations of obligated sites progress the program on the ground.

Whether or not that momentum continues is now likely to be decided by the courts. And we (still) await news from the FHWA on its revised program guidance, due in spring.

Regardless of federal funding, fresh charging installations and news appear every week, so let’s plug into another seven days of EVI developments ⤵️

📢 16 States and DC Sue Trump Administration Over NEVI Freeze

News - The coalition of states, led by California, Colorado, and Washington, claim the administration is unlawfully withholding remaining funds from the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program.

Numbers - 16 states and the District of Columbia are part of the coalition, many of whom had awarded NEVI funds before the FHWA pause in February. Tesla commands around $31 million of the awards issued to date, while California claims more than $300 million is on the line, with charger construction, management, and maintenance jobs all in jeapordy.

Nuance - Some of the states leading the lawsuit to preserve NEVI funding are among those that have been the slowest of the ZEV states to roll it out. Although California has identified vendors and corridors, no stations are yet under construction, while Washington was still evaluating its first applications when the FHWA’s pause was announced. To date, of the 17 plaintiffs, only Colorado and New York have forged ahead with consistent NEVI-funded construction.

Next Up - For some states named in the lawsuit, such as Washington and New Jersey, winning could be the only hope of seeing NEVI-funded stations materialize. Others moved earlier and will continue to add new stations regardless of the outcome, thanks to FHWA’s pause waiver on ”obligated” projects. Expect to see some states maintain momentum by integrating state funding to existing NEVI plans, as Minnesota has done, while other state plans will remain stalled until court action or updated FHWA guidance get them moving again.

🔍 Charging Vendor Spotlight: Ivy Charge

News - Ivy Charge operates across the breadth of Ontario, with a mix of fast charging and level 2 locations (typically not co-located).

Numbers - 143 DC fast charging ports across 53 charging stations, all located in Ontario. Ivy also has 51 L2 ports across 22 locations in the province.

Nuance - Ontario’s largest fast charging network is a partnership between Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation. One of the network’s most prominent collaborations is with ONroute, the convenience and service company that manages service areas on Highways 400 and 401. These sites comprise just under 50% of Ivy’s fast charging ports across the province.

Next Up - With much of the province now covered, Ivy Charge’s growth has been limited in the past year. Remaining stations and site upgrades at ONroute locations are scheduled for completion in 2025, but no explicit expansion plans are noted on the network’s website.

🔌 AC/DC: it’s electric Reaches More City Curbs

News: Expansion into San Francisco and Detroit builds on early deployments in New York City and Boston, as it’s electric builds momentum for its bring your own cable charging solution.

Numbers: The initial installation at Smart Parking Lab Detroit will build out to 25 locations across the city in total. In San Francisco, two chargers on Filmore St, opposite the local IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electric Workers) union whose members installed it, will start the ball rolling for it’s electric deployments across the city.

Nuance: As the company transitions from early pilots to scaling production, collaborations with forward-thinking organizations and municipal entities with sustainability targets will be critical for it’s electric to grow. Becoming a staple of curbside furniture in cities across North America holds huge potential for the company, but it will need to deliver clear advantages over competing AC solutions in this phase to reach that kind of ubiquity.

Next Up: While it’s electric will continue to seek opportunities in new metro areas, expanding its footprint in the core markets of San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, and New York City will provide the proof of concept others are looking for to drive such growth.

🛣️ On the Road: This Week in DCFC

News - What this week lacked in location quantity, it somewhat made up for in stall count per site. More than 10 of the stations added this week offer six stalls or more, with additions from Tesla, iONNA, and Mercedes-Benz High Power Charging all boasting 10+ stalls. (AFDC).

Numbers - 144 fast charging ports at 42 charging station locations added to AFDC listings this week. After seeming to pass 15,000 DCFC listings in April, a clean-up of retired locations took the count back below that milestone. Expect to see a gradual march back as new additions and existing stations under new ownership are added to the database.

Notable Stations + Additions to AFDC

🟢 Electrify America energized new locations across several major partners, with the pick of them being 10 stalls at a Costco in San Luis Obispo, CA. Others get the more standard four or six stalls, with EVolve New York, Bank of America, and IKEA all on the open list.

💲One of those EA/EVolve locations in Owego, NY adds another federally funded station to the NEVI map. In a week where legal action around federal funds stole the headlines, the program continued to add valuable stations to the map, like Love’s in Brookville, PA and the full commissioning of a new Kwik Trip location in Mt. Horeb, WI.

🟠 iONNA opened another new station in Goodland, KS. 10 new stalls served by five Alpitronic dispensers under a canopy continue the new standards set by the disruptive network. As we shared last week - and evident in the brand visual below - with stations like this, iONNA’s first cross-country route along I-70 is beginning to take shape.

⚡ Pilot-Flying J’s quiet expansion across the US continues with three new stations in as many middle-American states. The locations are Tonkowa, OK, West Monroe, LA, and Winona, MS, all of which get the familiar four-port, two-dispenser setup using Delta Electronics hardware.

🟩 ChargeSmart EV bursts onto the Greater Boston fast charging scene with a 10-stall, 240kW option at the Fairfield Inn at Amesbury, MA. No photos from the site yet but we expect to see AUTEL hardware deployed at this useful location between Boston and the coastal towns of New Hampshire and Maine. Watch for a Plug & Play EV site visit soon!

🚛 We’ve covered recent electric truck charging openings in the Fleet Focus section, but it’s uncommon to see a full site tour from the channels covering passenger EV charging stations. Our friends Liv & Patrick at Mach-E Vlog remedy that rarity with the report below from Greenlane Infrastructure’s new HDEV charging hub in Colton, CA 👇🏻

🔴 Tesla didn’t quite reach the giddy heights of recent weeks with Supercharger activations during the opening days of May, but new sites in Milton, PA and Cortland, OH, both deliver stall counts in the double digits to EV drivers traveling the Midwest US.

⬛ Mercedes-Benz High Power Charging continues to grow in Texas, with a new 10-stall station in Round Rock. Rather than another expansive Buc-ee’s site, this station leans into the partnership with Simon Properties. Catch CEO Andrew Cornelia’s exciting updates about future MB-HPC expansion plans on this Coast-to-Coast EVs show replay.

🍁 New ChargePoint locations bring 200kW charging options to Québec, with new stations in Rivière-du-Loup and Québec City expanding fast charging for travel across the province.

To see how and where the leading charging vendors are expanding, check out The Network Architect Channel on YouTube for DCFC updates like this one.

💲DCFC Pricing: Tesla Tests Dynamic Rates at Select Superchargers

News: Tesla is piloting what it calls “on-peak and off-peak pricing” at select Superchargers, adjusting charging prices based on real-time utilization at those locations. The existing system is based on peak forecasting, which Tesla notes can lead to periods where off-peak rates are applied to unexpectedly busy Superchargers and vice versa.

Numbers: 10 Supercharger sites are included in this small-scale pilot, including the Davis, CA location shown in Tesla’s announcement of the pricing experiment.

Nuance: True to Tesla Charging’s track record of incremental experimentation, the dynamic pricing pilot is initially limited to a handful of California Superchargers. With immediate questions from Tesla owners around unpredictability and the potential for unavoidable surge pricing in isolated locations, expect to see the Supercharger team dissect the impact of dynamic pricing and only roll it out to more locations when they’re convinced it elevates the experience for drivers, rather than aggravating them.

Next Up: Tesla will gather and analyze data from the pilot locations, presumably at least through Memorial Day and the end of May, which marks the unofficial start of summer travel in the US. Watch Tesla Charging on Twitter/X for further announcements.

✒️ Policy: More States Step In to Fill Potential Federal Funding Gaps

News - New Jersey and Minnesota are the latest to confirm state-level funding designed to continue the momentum of charging expansion in their areas. The ChargeUp NJ move expands the “EV Tourism Charging Corridor” program, while Minnesota is adding funds to bolster plans forged by the promise of federal funding.

Numbers - New Jersey’s program offers up to $50,000 per charger for DCFC installations and $5,000 per charger for AC installations. An additional bonus of 50% is available for sites within an NJ-designated “Overburdened Municipality”. Meanwhile, Minnesota chose to top up existing NEVI plans with $4.7 million for its second round awards.

Nuance - California was quickest off the mark with $55 million allocated for its state-level FCCP initiative just a week after the FHWA paused NEVI progress. Now, other states are adding their own take on regional charging infrastructure support. New Jersey is especially interesting, as it is one of the slower states to deploy NEVI funding, in contrast to neighboring New York and Pennsylvania, both of which have deployed 10+ stations using NEVI funds while NJ has yet to begin construction.

Next Up - Both New Jersey and Minnesota are involved in the lawsuit covered earlier in this edition, aiming to secure federal funding they were promised years ago under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. These different approaches to adding state-level support amount to the same thing: a backstop to ensure that EVI momentum doesn’t completely stall out if the courts don’t rule in their favor when it comes to securing federal funds.

🚛 Fleet Focus: Prologis Opens Depot, Eyes HDEV Hubs

News - Prologis Mobility and logistics firm NFI opened a new electric truck charging depot in Ontario, CA. The location will serve Class 8 electric trucks performing drayage moves between the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach and the Inland Empire.

Numbers - A one megawatt facility with 10 charging ports, supporting up to 20 active vehicles every day and serving NFI’s wider fleet of almost 90 electric trucks.

Nuance - Smaller, dedicated charging depots for specific clients guarantee available charging spots and a baseline for throughput, but potentially limit utilization by excluding other fleet vehicles. The next Prologis charging facility adopts the larger hub approach, aligning with the likes of Greenlane Infrastructure, Terawatt, and Voltera, all of whom have opened full HDEV charging hubs in recent months.

Next Up - Prologis plans to open a larger charging hub for wider fleet use in June. The Vernon, CA site will add 32 high-powered chargers serving class 2-8 electric trucks, with a competitive public charging rate of $0.50 per kWh.

🎧 For Your Listening Pleasure

In every edition, we recommend one of the best listens on electrification, energy, or something similarly EV-related.

This week it’s over to NPR’s 1A, who caught up with former Joint Office of Energy and Transportation Executive Director Gabe Klein to discuss the role of charging infrastructure in EV adoption:

🎧1A on EV adoption and infrastructure (w/ Gabe Klein & Shannon Osaka)  📶

Climate reporter Shannon Osaka rounds out the guest panel, adding context around what North American consumers are concerned about when they consider transitioning to an electric vehicle. Confidence in public hargers is, naturally, high on that list.

🧮 Data Dive

This new section surfaces fresh research and reports around electric vehicle charging/infrastructure that readers can bookmark and dive into when they have time to digest the data.

This week, it’s EVgo’s Q1 results data that yields some insights, including:

⚡51.5 GWh delivered in Q125, representing a YoY increase of 114%.

⚡Average daily throughput of 266 kWh in energy delivered across 4,240 stalls.

⚡Stall additions via EVgo eXtend partnerships, which is primarily driven by Pilot-Flying J’s build out at this stage, grew by 377% YoY.

What data from the report jumps out at you?

Hit reply to share your thoughts or to recommend a data dive item for future editions.

🔋💯Topping Off…

Here are a few additional items we couldn’t squeeze into other sections or have covered to some degree in earlier editions:

New York-based Gravity Charging will bring its 500 kW DEAPs to Los Angeles

Sunoco to acquire Parkland for $9.1 billion, creating largest NA retail fuel entity

Mayor of Montreal sets ambitious 11,000 EV charging station target for 2030

That’s another week hard at work for North American EV infrastructure. Our closing question: what’s the most overlooked site type/option when it comes to deploying more EV charging infrastructure?

Send thoughts my way by hitting reply.

See you next week and remember, one of the best gifts you can give an EV driver this summer is a strong cell signal 📡📶📲

Cheers,

Steve / Plug & Play EV

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