Good day, fellow North American EV Navigator ⚡🧭

Activations are taking a hit across the continent in Q1, as freezing temperatures slow progress in the north and high winds, winter storms, and several feet of snow wallop others (present company included).

Thankfully, we still have plenty of construction and 2025 CPO performance stats/reports trickling in to keep us occupied, until what we hope will be a spring surge in North American charging infrastructure gets underway. Whether it’s rising star Red E confirming 1,000,000 unique charging sessions or Walmart’s looming debut in at least five states, the stage is set for a spring infrastructure acceleration.

Here’s your latest digest of EVI developments across the US and Canada ⤵️

News - Paren’s latest DCFC report shows Canada’s expansion of charging infrastructure proceeding at a healthy clip in 2025, with a similar YOY growth rate to the United States. A previous report on the US market for all of 2025 noted improving reliability and steady utilization despite charger growth, which aligns with what EV-friendly areas in Canada are witnessing.

Numbers - 1,925 additional fast-charging ports were deployed in Canada across 529 locations during 2025, marking a YOY increase of 28%. This compares well to the US port growth rate of 30%, although it clearly lags the 18,000+ ports added across more than 3,300 sites in the States last year. Canada’s total of 8,804 ports is heavily skewed toward the three high-adoption EV provinces: Quebec (30% of all DC ports), British Columbia (28%), and Ontario (27%). Each of these regions sees utilization in the 11%-14% band, which is 2-3x that of fast chargers in the next-closest provinces, Alberta and Manitoba.

Nuance - The report primarily covers the second half of 2025, but provides a baseline for measuring future growth and understanding distinctions between the US and Canadian charging markets. Anyone who has taken an EV to Canada knows that fast-charging seems to be abundant when you come in from the US. That’s because more than 80% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the border, and charging infrastructure clusters around metro areas and primary travel corridors. One area in which Canada has lagged until recently is the maximum power of its DCFC hardware. Large provincial operators such as Circuit électrique in Québec and BC Hydro in British Columbia have typically deployed hardware below 200kW, whereas US counterparts are pushing closer to the 350-400kW range. This is beginning to change, as ABB’s A400 product recently launched in BC and Ontario via On the Run Charging, and Circuit Electrique’s adoption of more powerful hardware systems from Kempower spreads across Québec.

Next Up - While the Canadian EV market holds potential to influence the US market through auto industry policy on tariffs and manufacturing, the US definines the cutting edge of charging infrastructure in North America. Look for areas of Canada with high utilization, such as the Vancouver metro area, Toronto, and the stretch from Montreal to Québec City, to introduce sites with higher power and more stalls as the year progresses. Provincial, utility-backed charging programs will continue to build the backbone of Canadian EV travel, with entities like Nova Scotia Power replicating the efforts of BC Hydro’s Electric Highway to make EV ownership easier in provinces that lag the top 3.

News - As North America’s second-largest fast-charging operator (by site count) reports 2025 performance (across AC and DC charging), ChargePoint is also rolling out “service fees” across its network this month. Here’s how it looks across the company’s footprint in the US and Canada ⤵️

Numbers - 5,024 DC ports listed in AFDC, located across 2,384 DCFC sites, once these listings are consolidated. The network covers every state in the US and nine Canadian provinces. On service fees, AC sessions for guests without a ChargePoint account will cost an extra $0.49 per session, while account holders will pay $0.25 per session. For DCFC, the fee rises to $0.99 per session for guests and $0.49 per session for account holders.

Nuance - Although ChargePoint is second only to Tesla’s Supercharger network in terms of US/Canadian site count, it drops to third and falls far behind Tesla when we shift to port count. Whereas Tesla averages 12 stalls per site, ChargePoint’s average port count is below two per site. Some partnerships deliver more, such as the buildout for Love’s Travel Stops and sites with Zero 60 Charging, but the business model trends towards individual site hosts with smaller stall counts. Between greater competition from hardware-only entrants to the North American market and the arrival of Tesla’s Supercharger for Business offering, ChargePoint is under much greater pressure this year than at any time in its almost 20-year history.

Next Up - With more and more fast-charging providers opting for dedicated hardware manufacturers like Alpitronic, ABB, and Kempower for sites in the US and Canada, ChargePoint’s future appears to lie in some combination of its back-end software, L2 charging, and fleet solutions. A partnership with Eaton also brings bidirectional charging and grid services into the equation, but competition in this sector is also growing.

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News - Another week of AC charging hovering just below the milestone of 200,000 ports in the US and Canada, with this week’s additions significantly lower than the previous week and needing around 200 more to break that notable number. ChargePoint again dominates the L2 deployments with 75% of all new ports, with Blink (8%) and FLO (7%) a very distant second and third.

Numbers - 408 L2 charging ports added to the Alternative Fuels Data Center this week, spread across 19 states and 6 Canadian provinces.

Notable New L2 + AFDC Additions:

🟠 ChargePoint added 307 ports across the United States and Canada. 28 new handles at Manteca Crossing in California will be a welcome addition for local residents and customers at nearby quick service restaurants like Chick-fil-A and Dutch Bros Coffee. The network also deployed new municipal L2 charging at multiple sites in Illinois, including 10 new ports in Decatur and nine in Galena.

◾ Blink Charging added 34 new ports at eight locations, from Washington DC (Luther Rice Hall) to McKinney, TX (Sylvan apartments). The largest brings 12 stalls to the Gonzales Community Center in California on Route 101.

🔷 FLO added 28 AC ports at 12 locations, including four at the 188 St Industrial Centre in Surrey, BC, and six across various facilities in Fort Erie, ON, such as Crystal Beach Arena.

⚡ BC Hydro also added a single, solitary L2 port this week, found as an additional bonus at the more DCFC-focused Fish Trap Rest Area in Kamloops, BC.

⭕ Red E opened 14 new L2 sites across four locations in Michigan and New York state. Six are at the Bay Mills Resort Casino, an increasingly valuable long-stay niche to explore for AC charging providers. The NY location brings destination charging to Designer Homes, just outside of Buffalo in Depew.

News - Fast-charging additions slowed markedly last week, with 40% fewer stations opened compared to the previous week. Blizzard conditions might have slowed activity in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, while delayed data from Tesla also leaves a gap between accelerated Supercharger additions and what is shown in the AFDC listing. This leaves us watching for a spring surge in new DCFC locations, as regions thaw out and delayed construction is completed.

Numbers - 228 DC charging ports at 36 charging locations added to the Alternative Fuels Data Center this week, spread across 17 states and three provinces.

NB. Some readers have suggested organizing these weekly additions by state or region. Happily, prolific permit spotter AlejandroEV66 has turned his hand to AI-supported site coding and answered that ask for US locations!

Check out the DCFCtracker.com site to see a map of the latest AFDC additions, which can also be filtered down to the past week or month.

Notable New Locations + AFDC Additions:

🌟 BC Hydro contributed half of Canada’s DCFC haul this week, with 10 new ports across two British Columbia charging locations in Kamloops and Victoria.

🛒 Walmart EV Charging is up and running in Alabama, with the retailer’s first site in the state now showing online in Wetumpka. This is likely a soft launch ahead of an official opening/availability in the Walmart app later in March.

🧿 Revel opened its latest California charging hub, aimed at metro area rideshare drivers and residents who can’t charge at home in South San Francisco. This is the company’s second Bay Area location, with the first serving the city’s Mission District.

⭕ Red E was relatively quiet this week, but the sites it did add continue a familiar pattern. One in the network’s home state of Michigan, at a Shell station in Fennville, and another in its second-largest market of Massachusetts, at a Mobil gas station in Rehoboth, continue the company’s steady rise up the CPO ranks.

⚡ bp pulse was also active at gas stations, with two new sites open at Thornton’s locations in Illinois over the past seven days. EV drivers in the state can now enjoy up to 150kW charging at the sites in East Dundee and South Holland. Based on the power level, both appear to use the older Tritium hardware more common at Thornton’s locations, rather than the 400kW Alpitronic units we started to see creep in last week.

📍 MB-HPC added another state to the network’s map with its first location in Michigan. 10 stalls at Eastwood Towne Center in Lansing, MI, bring the familiar Mercedes gray HYC400 dispensers and modern light poles, with the layout suitably arranged for pull-through access. A Tesla Supercharger in the same retail area is an aging V2 limited to 150kW, making the 400kW NACS-J3400 handles at the Mercedes location the better option for most Tesla models.

🔴 Fresh from passing 3,000 active Supercharger sites in the US, Tesla Charging opened more locations this week than AFDC listings reflect. 10 new Superchargers across eight states and one province this week add 108 stalls to the network. Given the province’s limited infrastructure, the pick of the bunch this week is Alberta’s latest Tesla location, with 12 new stalls in Penhold, AB. An expanded Supercharger at Arroyo Crossing in Las Vegas, NV, also adds another 16 stalls to a mixed V3/V4 station.

🔸 EVCS energized three dispensers at a new site at the Motel 6 in Corona, CA. Although only 50kW units, the dwell time at an overnight location makes more sense than some we see still deploying double-digit kW hardware, such as Interstate rest stops.

◼️ Blink Charging opened a new 180kW location with four stalls at North Carolina’s Morganton Plaza retail center. Quick meals and a coffee shop are within a short distance of this suburban location serving US-70 (and I-40, for those willing to drive a few miles).

🟠 IONNA opened a new Rechargery, adding a third to its tally in California with a new Bay Area location in Larkspur. 14 stalls make it a suitably sizable option for this high EV adoption area, but no canopy or pull-through spaces at this one.

📍 Pilot-Flying J also continued its California expansion with a new six-stall option, complete with pull-through spaces under a canopy in Lodi, CA.

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

📝 Starting with permitting news, we have new Superchargers found by MarcoRP1 for Fort Wayne, IN, Paducah, KY, Spartanburg, SC, and Renton, WA.

⚪ New white-labeled Tesla locations - aka Superchargers for Business (SfB) - are coming to Boca Raton, FL, courtesy of Envirospark, Carson City, NV, via Trout Electric, and Caledonia, WI (operator unknown).

🚧 IONNA confirmed “fences up” construction at two new locations: Lafayette, IN, and Frederick, MD. I was able to see what that means a few days after the notification for South Weymouth here in Massachusetts… and it’s exactly what you’d expect (albeit not buried in snow, as this was a day before our blizzard). Photo below from a site that will be right behind a Starbucks/Five Guys twofer.

📍 With Alabama seemingly checked off the list, Walmart is close to adding a few more states to its active list. Locations in North Carolina look close, with Raleigh awaiting a transformer and Charlotte a step closer, as both the transformer and dispensers are now in place. Across the border in South Carolina, the first location in Indian Land also has construction fences up.

⌛ Sticking with Walmart, lack of a transformer is also the apparent sticking point for the first site in Missouri, found in Lake St. Louis, while early construction seems to be underway at the first Kansas location in Shawnee. Further west, the first site to open in Utah looks to be a straight race between stores in Salt Lake City and West Jordan, although a third in Orem has construction fencing up. If all that sounds like a lot, consider that we haven’t even touched on the additional sites in states where Walmart is already charging EVs, such as Texas, Arizona, and Florida. Buckle up, this is about to become a very busy section of the newsletter… 🏗️👀

Is there an upcoming site in your area that the EV community needs to know about?

Reply to this email with the location and charging provider (if known) and we’ll add it to the next edition 🙌🏻

News - The City of Lawrence, KS, is advancing its municipal fleet electrification further, introducing EV charging and electric fire trucks at select stations.

Numbers - Two of the city’s fire houses are involved in the electrification project, bringing EVs to another section of the municipal fleet. As of last summer, Drive Electric USA identified 578 electric vehicles in that fleet, 59% of which are medium- to heavy-duty vehicles such as refuse trucks and transit buses.

Nuance - According to ChargePoint’s National Fleet Leader Steven Rice, the City of Lawrence is only the sixth municipality in the United States to electrify a firehouse with an active-duty electric fire truck. He confirms that two fire stations are installing dual‑port Express Plus Power Link 2000 from this week’s spotlight vendor, using a system mounted overhead to fast-charging cables off the ground and out of the way.

Next Up - The City of Lawrence is committed to transitioning its entire municipal fleet to renewable energy by 2030. A full analysis of the fleet replacement plan and fuel alternatives is available here.

News - Walmart’s retail promise of affordability, summed up in its “Save Money. Live Better.” tag line, is emerging in the brand’s EV charging program. Base rates are typically at or below the market average, with TOU rates bringing the prices close to L2 charging for the latest DC fast-charging power levels.

Numbers - A $0.30/kWh rate between the hours of 11PM and 8AM at the retailer’s latest location in Irving, TX, represents a 33% discount on the site’s peak daytime rates. EV drivers who can shift their charging habits to those off-peak hours, such as rideshare workers or early-bird commuters who can’t charge at home or their workplace, could save around $10 per session. TOU rates are in place at 29% of Walmart’s 21 active DCFC sites. An additional 10% discount on EV charging is available to Walmart+ members.

Nuance - Although Walmart’s pricing doesn’t reach the eye-catching lows of IONNA’s $0.20 per kWh welcome pricing we reported last week, or the launch event $0.01 per kWh temporary rate favored by bp pulse, TOU lows are likely more sustainable than these promotional rates. Unlike those growing competitors, Walmart’s energy ecosystem encompasses a commitment to widespread solar power at its stores and not insignificant power consumption for those retail operations. This should give Walmart greater control over what it pays for energy, with demand savings and economies of scale that it can pass on to EV drivers over the long-term.

Next Up - With a relatively small site count and only around one-quarter of open locations employing TOU rates, we need a larger sample of sites and pricing history to understand where Walmart’s EV charging pricing strategy will land. Fortunately, there are hundreds of new locations in the pipeline across the United States, so further analysis should yield insights by the second half of 2026.

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

This week’s suggestion comes from the Directly Current Podcast, a show that blends developments in the world of electrification with EV-related policy out of Washington DC.

🎧The US auto industry can no longer put off EV affordability w/ Ed Kim💲

This episode brings in AutoPacific’s chief analyst, Ed Kim, to explore the enduring potential of electric vehicles among even supposedly skeptical groups, and why more affordable models will be essential to bringing EVs to more mainstream buyers.

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:

EVs = grid resilience? Rivian + Energy Hub partner on managed charging

Donut Labs shares first independent testing report on its solid-state battery tech

EV driver satisfaction hits new high in JD Power consumer sentiment survey

Toyota enlists Treehouse to simplify home charger installation for its EV buyers

PG&E rolls out latest ABB hardware for electric fleet vehicle charging

$11M for six school districts in Massachusetts to electrify public school buses

EVgo marks 5,000 active DCFC ports milestone in the United States

Pennsylvania offers $100M for community EV charging projects, with different 2026 NOFO windows across the state. Start with the Interested Organizations Survey here.

$10 million available for hotel charging sites via NJ EV Tourism Corridor Charging

Maryland’s third round of NEVI funding for these target areas opens on 3/17/26

California’s third round NEVI funding is open for applications (deadline: 3/25/26 at 11:59 PST)

California’s Clean Bus & Truck Voucher program is also open for applications

The latest round of Colorado’s DCFC Plazas Program is targeted for “Spring 2026” — use the general info page to see previous recipients or sign up for the latest dates/news

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