Good day, fellow “EV Winter” dweller ☃️⚡

As the now routine negative headlines swirl around EV adoption in the United States, the construction boom driven by the need for charging infrastructure goes largely unreported. The same outlets that decried slow progress and charger reliability challenges just a year or two ago have fallen silent on the remarkable progress of charging providers.

When even the medium-sized operators have energized hundreds of locations, and IONNA just moved a site from shovels to sessions in six days, does the lack of coverage move from mere oversight to willful ignorance?

Whatever the reason, you can count on these pages to keep you up to speed. If a friend or colleague also needs to know what’s happening, please pass this edition on and encourage them to sign up!

That said, here’s our digest of EVI developments this week, across Canada and the US ⤵️

News - Battery energy storage meets urban EV charging, as XCharge North America joins forces with Energy Plus to build New York City’s latest fast-charging hub in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood.

Numbers - Depending on your definition, NYC has at least 10 distinct charging “hubs”, with multiple locations offering 10+ stalls. XCharge’s entry will be the largest yet, with 44 Gridlink units serving 88 charging spaces when the station is fully operational. That many units will also give the facility 9.46 MWh of energy storage, reducing strain on the local grid and ensuring sufficient power for time-constrained fleet users.

Nuance - Despite lagging in sufficient fast charging to give residents confidence they will always find a charge in the city, New York has emerged as a popular place to deploy individual charging hubs. Revel got in early with the first Brooklyn hub that I visited almost five years ago, followed EVolve NY powering up at JFK later that year. Revel continued to deploy hubs (and got so good at it that the company is now a pure-play charging infrastructure firm). More recently, Gravity Charging claimed the first 500kW charging hub, right in the heart of Manhattan. Beyond sheer size, XCharge and Energy Plus will introduce battery storage to the equation, which could prove an important component as electricity costs continue to rise.

Next Up - The new facility is projected to open in Q2 2026. New hubs from Revel and EVolve NY at LaGuardia airport are also eagerly awaited by NYC’s rideshare fleet, with existing locations straining under the weight of demand from rideshare, rental companies, and locals who can’t charge at home. Other players in the Tri-state area, including Gravity Charging and Get Charged, are also expected to open new hubs, with Gravity also planning expansion to Los Angeles this year.

News - After hitting its original target of 200 fast-charging sites last year, Pilot-Flying J’s EV charging project is now halfway to its ultimate goal of 500 DCFC locations.

Numbers - 250 Pilot-Flying J charging locations have been built in conjunction with GM Energy and EVgo eXtend, which uses the charging operator’s technology stack but has Pilot Corp. as the owner of the hardware and deployment strategy. The P-FJ sub-network of EVgo’s wider footprint spans 40 states, with more than 1,000 charging ports now online.

Nuance - Stall count is creeping upwards. Until recently, P-FJ locations featured a standard two-dispenser/four-port setup, typically deploying two Delta Electronics 350kW units. With the average number of ports per site now at 4.2, we’re starting to see the impact of larger-format locations like the one pictured above. This makes sense when you consider that other rising nationwide players, such as IONNA, Mercedes-Benz, and Pilot’s direct competitor, bp pulse (owner of TravelCenters of America), all average closer to 10 ports per site.

Next Up - Since the latter half of 2023, the growth of Pilot-Flying J’s charging offering has been a steady affair. That shows no signs of slowing down, despite the nationwide presence the company can now claim. More than 20 future locations are in line for the revitalized NEVI program, while new build travel centers, such as Chicopee, MA, give the company an opportunity to build out EV charging on the first pass.

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News - We’re still calibrating this section to see what kind of weekly activity is normal in the world of AC charging, but the first full week of 2026 certainly gives us more L2 to chew up. 400+ ports represent a 61% uptick over last week’s additions, which were likely limited by the holiday period. The overall AFDC count drops back below 200K ports, however, which is likely influenced by the ongoing removal of Shell Recharge/Volta sites.

Numbers - 402 L2 charging ports added to the Alternative Fuels Data Center this week, spread across 33 states and provinces.

Notable New L2 + AFDC Additions:

🔴 Tesla Charging confirmed 161 Wall Connectors installed at 26 locations (mix of private and public use). Several hotel locations are notable, including new L2 options in Pooler, GA, at the Aloft Savannah Airport, the Cambria Hotel in Omaha, NE, and the Killington Resort in Vermont. See the full list here.

🟦 EV Connect energized eight new L2 plugs at the Westin hotel in Edmonton, AB.

🚆 Four new ChargePoint ports for commuters from/visitors to Tarrytown, NY, located in parking lot D near the Metro North train station (in case the even more commuter-convenient EV Connect location is full).

🔵 FLO added 10 new ports across two sites in Winchester, ON, both of them at hospital locations. The network also added nine new ports at a business park in Nisku, AB.

🛌 Blink opened three new 19.2 kW-capable chargers in the heart of New York City, available to guests staying at the Loews Regency Hotel. If you don’t fancy searching out one of the charging hubs mentioned in the headline story, this location, just a few streets from Central Park, is even more convenient (and, presumably, quite pricey).

🚘 Connecticut has installed 36 L2 chargers at six DMV locations across the state.

☀️ And more hotel AC charging action for the Greater Bay Area to close us out, with six new ports from ChargePoint at the Home2Suites in American Canyon, CA.

News - The hangover from a hectic close to 2025 charger deployments continued this week, with limited activations from the operators who had been busiest at the end of the year. Instead, typically steady players like Pilot-Flying J with EVgo, ChargePoint, and Electrify America took up the mantle of most sites energized.

Numbers - 296 DC charging ports at 55 charging locations added to the Alternative Fuels Data Center this week, spread across 31 states and provinces.

Notable New Locations + AFDC Additions:

🔵 EVgo activity was driven by a spike from this edition’s spotlight vendor, Pilot Flying J, which opened 10 new locations across nine states this week. Eight of the locations stick to the previously standard two-dispenser, four-stall format, with the final two in Indianapolis, IN, and Colonial Heights, VA, moving up to three dispensers and six stalls. As flagged above, this burst of activity pushes P-FJ past 250 DCFC locations.

🟢 Electrify America energized four new locations this week, bringing 30 new stalls to four EV-friendly markets (CA/NJ/NY/TX). A new 10-stall opening in Roseville, CA, adds another Costco location under Electrify Commercial, while eight stalls in Flushing, NY, bring the growing EVolve NY network closer to its target of 400 chargers deployed.

🟠 ChargePoint added 48 stalls at 16 locations across 10 states and two provinces. A new four-stall location from Optimus Energy in Newnan, GA, is one example. Note that Petro Canada locations migrating to ChargePoint’s ecosystem remain a work-in-progress, with hardware onsite and powered up but not necessarily available for use.

⭕ Red E did what it does week-in, week-out, opening a handful of useful locations with minimal fuss or fanfare. 16 stalls at four locations in three states won’t top the week’s activity, but it puts them at almost 400 locations and 1,400+ ports across the US. Six stalls at 120kW is the largest of the week, at Harvest Tap & Table in Swansea, MA.

🔴 Tesla Charging caught up with data entry duties this week, with the New Year week entries we reported last week now showing up in AFDC. On the ground, things were slower for the first full week of 2026, with Tesla adding 48 stalls across five new Superchargers in as many states (ID/NC/OR/SC/VA).

⚪ That Supercharger count also includes the third Supercharger for Business (SfB) location in the United States, with a four-stall site in Deary, ID, attracting a lot of attention this week.

🔷 Two FLO locations this week: one in Edmonton, AB, and another in Monroeville, AL, bringing the company’s Flo Ultra units online in partnership with Alabama Power.

🔶 Rivian opened a new Adventure Network location in Medford, OR, bringing 10 stalls and pull-through spaces to a site with both dining and accommodation options.

🟠 After a frenetic end to 2025, IONNA slowed its roll this week to catch a breath. Two new locations with 10 stalls in Lake Delton, WI, and Reading, PA, mark the network’s continued march toward 100 locations this week. But the reports of last-minute activity over the holidays continue to impress. A site in Tucumcari, NM, was turned around in six days by Osborne Company, with the contractor noting that the team sprang into action with only 48 hours’ notice right before Christmas 🤯⚡

🪙 Francis Energy didn’t add any NEVI locations this week, but did have late-breaking upgrade action, which you can peruse in the next section.

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

🗓️ Francis Energy has set the date for officially opening its first site using Tesla Superchargers, and we don’t have long to wait. Contractor Goodfinch has finished buttoning up the initial location at Crest Foods in Norman, OK, which we first shared with you back in edition 50. The grand opening is Tuesday, January 13th at 2PM (CST), with charging demos and food trucks to celebrate the occasion. If you’re in the area and want a preview, rumor has it the location is already ready to charge EVs… 👀👀

📝 In permitting, AlejandroEV66 identified a new IONNA location in Mesa, AZ (a second location), Bonney Lake, WA, and Parker, CO. On the Tesla side, we have permits from MarcoRP1 for new Superchargers in San Diego, CA, Sparks, NV, and a significant Supercharger expansion in Hawaii.

🚛 In line with the pending opening for bp pulse in Ontario, CA (see next section), more Semichargers are also in the pipeline directly from Tesla Charging. MarcoRP is again the source for Tesla Semicharger permits, identifying Texas sites in Mesquite and Laredo.

🚧 Kentucky now has 11 NEVI locations in progress, indicating action is moving quickly from the courts to construction on the ground. After being among the program’s early movers with a couple of openings at Circle K, Kentucky stalled out with only three more openings as others pushed on to double-digits. NEVI sites across the state could now be energized within a few months, including several well-placed Love’s locations.

News - bp pulse confirmed its first public fast charging site to deploy stalls with Tesla’s Megawatt Charging System (MCS), designed for large electric trucks and other fleet vehicles.

Numbers - With 2 × 750kW MCS stalls and 4 × 400kW CCS1 stalls, the site isn’t the largest fleet charging option. But it is a sign of things to come. bp pulse has been building out electric fleet corridors in Europe for three years and promises more to come for class 6-8 HDEVs in the US, specifically looking to develop routes in Southern California.

Nuance - The first purported BP pulse location to adopt Tesla charging hardware was a site in Troutdale, OR, which turned up in permitting in late 2024. That site plan mentioned only Tesla Superchargers, which bp pulse has since pivoted away from, preferring a mix of Tritium and Alpitronic hardware. Leaning into Superchargers for high-power fleet charging instead is an interesting adjustment. It aligns well with both the progress of the Tesla Semi and bp’s rollout of charging at TravelCenters of America, which has 300+ locations across 40 states.

Next Up - bp pulse promises more to come, but we can first expect an opening ceremony to mark the launch site in Ontario, CA. Watch future editions for more details when the location goes live.

News - No news is good news? IONNA’s network-wide pricing, set to $0.39 per kWh for the holidays - or below, where existing rates were already cheaper - remains in place as of January 11th. Is this the new normal for IONNA, or are they simply still resting after a ridiculously busy holiday period?

Numbers: More than 25 new Rechargeries have been energized since IONNA set the $0.39 per kWh or below rate on 12/17/25. The most recent locations, such as Sulphur Springs in Texas, have adopted that price, while the newest in Lake Delton, WI, is set two cents lower, at $0.37/kWh.

Nuance - Although the promotional rate didn’t represent a significant savings for many locations, certainly not to the extent that the $0.25/kWh price point set for summer promotions did, as an everyday rate, it represents exceptional value. As electricity rates rise in markets across the country, the price of DC fast charging is increasingly in the spotlight. Whether IONNA can maintain such a low rate as it approaches 100+ locations is in question, but the industry should closely watch it this month.

Next Up - How long is too long for a holiday promotion? We expected to see rates reset to previous levels earlier this week, as the EV charging world settled in for the New Year, but that hasn’t happened. If the current rates continue into a second month, the potential for IONNA to become the most affordable DC fast-charging network, just as it hits its nationwide stride, will put pricing pressure on almost every other DCFC operator.

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

This week, we head back to the Field Frequency podcast to hear from Blink Charging’s CEO Mike Battaglia.

🎧Field Frequency Podcast: Mike Battaglia on Blink’s Strategic Reset ⚡

Host Jason Cortes discusses his guest’s background in the automotive sector, before unpacking the details and rationale behind the network’s new strategic direction, which it calls the BlinkForward initiative.

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:

Voltpost confirms EVSE LLC partnership to expand pole-mounted charger product

Greenlane Infrastructure offers update on its 2026 fleet charging plans

Electric Fish unveils 400squared battery-integrated fast charger at CES 2026

Highland Fleets celebrates electric school bus/charger launch in Topeka, KS

California’s Clean Bus & Truck Voucher program is open again

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

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

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

Portal for Pennsylvania Corridor Connections funding is open (deadline: 1/30/26)

Michigan’s DTE is now accepting applications for grants from its Emerging Technology Fund through 1/31/26

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)

If you found this edition useful, please share the value by passing it on to a friend, colleague, or family member with an interest in electrification.

See you next week ⚡

Cheers,

Steve / Plug & Play EV