Good day, fellow 2026 EV road trip planner 🗺️🧭

Happy New Year to you! As with our previous edition, the news is relatively thin on the ground this week, so we’ll stick to the reliably fertile ground of new charging locations and polishing some of this digest’s established sections.

Here’s your first wrap of the year on EV infrastructure news across the US/Canada ⤵️

News - Tesla led a wave of charging-related annual wraps with its Q425 highlights and full-year summary. IONNA shared a video summary of its first year achievements, from reimagining an old gas station for its first site in Apex, NC, to breaking ground on five California Rechargeries last month. Elsewhere, Electrify America closed out the year by summarizing its highly productive commercial partnership with NYPA for EVolve New York, while EVgo shared that more than 40% of its 2025 deployments featured US-manufactured prefabricated skids, in collaboration with Miller Electric Company.

Numbers - Tesla Charging confirmed 3,800 new Supercharger stalls opened globally in Q4, of which approximately 64% are in North America. Tesla also noted a 29% increase in charging sessions compared to Q424, totaling 52 million from the start of October ‘25 to the end of December ‘25. For IONNA, the story is more about how much network growth has accelerated, starting from a handful of sites in January to more than 750 ports at 80+ locations by the end of 2025.

Nuance - Full annual performance across the full spectrum of CPOs comes next, as we assess which operators made steady progress, who stalled out, and which used 2025 as a springboard to move on to bigger and better things in 2026.

Next Up - 2026 shows all signs of being a record deployment year for DC fast charging, especially in the United States, where IONNA, Walmart, and Tesla will primarily focus their efforts. Conversely, increased competition for a relatively limited pool of EV drivers to use those chargers will exert significant pressure on established operators like Electrify America, EVgo, and many mid-tier players seeking to stake their claim. Not everyone will make it, but the overall picture for public DCFC will be a positive one when we look back in 12 months.

News - Shell Recharge continues to clean house with its charging location listings, as the gradual transition of former Volta sites to JOLT gets underway.

Numbers - JOLT could add up to 3,000 US ports to its existing portfolio of several hundred in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The exact number has not yet been confirmed, as the original acquisition announcement in November only referred to Jolt taking a “substantial portion” of Shell’s Volta footprint in 34 states.

Nuance - If the pivot to yet another owner for these former Volta locations seems baffling, consider two things: 1) the US EV sector is significantly more mature than when Volta started out in 2019, and 2) Jolt already operates at the intersection of digital advertising and charging. JOLT is also backed by investment behemoth BlackRock, bolstering the company’s claim that it will succeed where Volta and Shell could not.

Next Up - We’ll watch with great interest to see exactly how many of the original locations JOLT chooses to migrate to its network. Another interesting area to watch will be fast charging. Whether JOLT chooses to pursue the operation of more costly DCFC or doubles down on the relative simplicity and longer dwell times of AC charging will be instructive in how it sees the relationship between EV charging and OoH advertising.

News - This section of the newsletter has been refreshed to match the existing DC charging additions section. It will pull from AFDC to share weekly growth in AC charging in the US and Canada, and to flag notable new locations that might benefit our readers, such as those at hotels, popular attractions, and areas with limited charging options.

Numbers - We’ll stick with weekly port additions in this section for now, which, during the crossover week from 2025 to 2026, looked like this: 249 new AC ports added in 20 states and five Canadian provinces.

Notable New L2 Charging Locations + AFDC Additions

🏔️ 11 new destination ports via ChargePoint are now available around the caves and welcome center lots of Banff, AB, adding to the popular tourist spot’s other L2 options, which include installations from Tesla and Swift Charge.

🚴‍♂️ It’s the Kempower DC fast charger in Silver Bay, MN, that will attract the most attention, but take a second look at the location. With an upcoming visitor center and trails heading off to explore Minnesota’s beautiful North Shore, it could be the four AC charging ports that make the most sense for travelers come tourist season.

🚸 A boost for electrified school transportation in California, with 21 new level 2 ports added at the Ojai Unified School District, a little north of Los Angeles. These are on the EV Gateway network.

🔴 Tesla confirmed new Wall Connector for Business sites deployed during the final two weeks of 2025. 352 connectors were installed at a mixture of 46 public and private destinations, including six at the Hampton/Home 2 Village in Huntsville, AL, and five at the Embassy Suites by Hilton in Denton, TX.

🅿️ 10 new ChargePoint units for the many parking lots serving Boston’s Public Garden, located at various corners of the underground parking lot at 350 Boylston St.

News - A slow week for AFDC additions lags real-world activity, with Tesla adding new Superchargers at the usual rate, while IONNA and Mercedes-Benz High Power Charging take no breaks over the festive period, powering towards the milestone of 100 DCFC sites.

Numbers - 333 DC charging ports at 51 charging locations added to the Alternative Fuels Data Center this week, spread across 18 states and one province. Activity in Canada was also notably low this week, with only one location in Ontario added.

Notable New Stations + AFDC Additions:

🟠 IONNA posted strong numbers in a sprint finish to 100 first-year sites. 164 fast-charging ports across 19 new Rechargeries in nine states significantly increase the network’s presence, even as it falls just short of triple digits. New locations like Brattleboro, VT, have been closely watched for months, while sites like Elkton, MD, popped up with no prior knowledge from locals or permit spotters.

🔴 For once, Tesla came in second on both weekly port and location additions, but still posted a strong week to compete with IONNA’s last-minute dash to the line. 160 stalls at 11 new Superchargers across six states and one province is slightly below the company’s higher weekly numbers, but still caps a strong fourth quarter of DCFC deployment. Florida posts another strong week for Tesla, with 36 stalls across three sites, while 24-stall sites in Bronx, NY, and San Jose, CA, are the largest of this week’s additions.

⭐ A string of year-end openings for Mercedes-Benz HPC was capped by the network’s first locations in Canada, with four new sites in British Columbia now available to the province’s EV drivers. Combined with others across the US, the network now has 666 ports across 72 sites and, like IONNA, is eyeing the 100+ club. Among the US sites, a first for the network in Pennsylvania is notable: the Old Mill in Washington, PA.

🔵 EVgo started the year with 54 new ports across six sites, three of which are in its home state of California. The other three are located in Walpole, MA, at the city’s mall, Salt Lake City, UT, at a Smith’s grocery store, and the following location in Maryland ⤵️

♦️ Pilot-Flying J opened a new travel center charging spot in Hagerstown, MD, giving the state its fourth NEVI-funded location.

🛣️ bp pulse added a trio of TravelCenters of America (TA) fast-charging locations this week, plus one at a smaller-format Thornton’s fueling station. Two of the TA sites are in Florida, with a third in Madison, GA. All feature 10-12 stalls powered by Alpitronic hardware up to 400kW, with the fourth site in Bolingbrook, IL, adding six stalls using Tritium hardware up to 150kW.

⚡ FLO added a pair of its rock-solid 100kW units to a municipal parking lot in Grand Bend, ON, for the only Canadian listing added to AFDC by a charging vendor this week.

🟢 Electrify America added new locations in Illinois and Florida, bringing the total to 18 stalls to start the New Year. The site in Daytona Beach, FL, is a standard six-stall location, while Dolton, IL, doubles that, for a total of 12 new stalls at the town’s Menards store.

🔶 Rivian opened a new 10-stall Adventure Network location in Fresno, CA. As with all new RAN openings, this site deploys Gen. 1.5 hardware that is accessible to all EVs capable of charging with the CCS1 connector.

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

📢 IONNA’s activation announcements stole focus in December, but the “fences up” notes are what keep the pipeline full of future openings. We have to look West for the majority of future locations, with Rechargeries in Corona, Santa Ana, and San Jose, CA, all confirmed under construction this week.

🚧 With so many new Mercedes-Benz High Power Charging locations lighting up over the holidays, it can be easy to forget that there are still 25 further pins on the network’s “coming soon” map. Many are already under construction, including more sites in British Columbia, Elmira Heights, NY, and the welcoming site pictured below in Alpharetta, GA, which was finished up this week by the skilled crew of the Murcia Group.

🛒 The list of confirmed Walmart stores in line for EV charging action continues to grow at a remarkable rate, with the retailer adding more states every week. Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas all still warrant their own sections on Walmart’s DCFC coming soon page, but additions from Colorado to Illinois and Washington state, as well as permits for eastern states including Pennsylvania and New Jersey, all speak to the company’s plans to take this thing nationwide this year.

📝 In permitting uncovered on X/Twitter, AlejandroEV66 shared a new IONNA Rechargery slated for Mesa, AZ, and Minneapolis, MN. He also identified two new Electrify America locations coming to Denver, CO. Meanwhile, MarcoRP1 found new Tesla Superchargers coming to Prosser, WA, and Fishers, IN.

⚡ Another true V4 Supercharger is expected soon, and this one is outside California, perhaps indicating a more widespread transition to 1,000V Superchargers earlier than expected in 2026. Following some time after the first two locations in Campbell, CA (under construction), and Redwood City, CA (active for Tesla owners), Taylorsville, UT, is the site to watch if you’re looking for a place to test Tesla’s latest charging hardware.

News - The Tesla team was also looking forward as the calendar flipped last week, hinting at the charging potential of its Semi HDEV model through the Megawatt Charging System.

Numbers - 1,206 kW, more excitingly reported as 1.2 Megawatt charging, is the key number shown on the Tesla Semi’s charging panel in a video shared on X. No charging logs were shared, in what seems intended to be a teaser for more to come.

Nuance - The Tesla Semi has been part of Tesla’s planning for almost a decade, but the milestones are starting to align for real-world deployment beyond tests and pilots. In addition to Megawatt plus charging and Semichargers under construction along key freight routes, the refreshed Semi spotted near Giga Nevada recently suggests Tesla is ready to begin delivering on the product’s promise after years of preparation.

Next Up - Early customers like DHL report that their Tesla Semi pilots “exceeded expectations”, which bodes well for more significant deployments in 2026. PepsiCo is another notable client for the Semi, which Tesla plans to start producing at volume in the first half of 2026.

Here’s a selection of news items we couldn’t squeeze into other sections, followed by select EVI incentive program updates we think you’ll want to know about:

Florida confirms 2026 construction plans for roadway with wireless EV charging

Revel updates site + releases app, in line with shift to focus on fast-charging

New Jersey released its ZEV Roadmap report shortly before Christmas

Matcha EV + MassCEC partner to bring destination chargers to Quincy, MA

GM Energy shares leading charging states + provinces recorded in 2025

California’s Clean Bus & Truck Voucher program (HVIP) reopened last week

Application period is open for Rebuild Illinois funding opportunity (DCFC + L2)

Now in phase 2, Arizona is accepting bids for 34 NEVI stations (deadline: 1/16/26)

California’s FCCP incentives program application period remains open (deadline: 1/29/26) — assistance with applications is available here

Michigan’s DTE is now accepting applications for grants from its Emerging Technology Fund through January 31st, 2026

Round 3 of Ohio NEVI funding is open, with an info webinar recording + resulting Q&A doc now available (up to 10 contractors selected, deadline for rd. 3 proposals: 2/5/26)

Round 3 of the Illinois NEVI funding is now open, with $65.6M available, including applications for M-HDEV charging sites (deadline: 2/13/26)

Oregon’s second round of NEVI funding, totaling $32.3M, is accepting applications (deadline: 2/20/26)

California’s third round NEVI solicitation, GFO-25-602, with $79M available, opened in the final days of December (deadline: 3/25/26)

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See you next week ⚡

Cheers,

Steve / Plug & Play EV