Good day, fellow Frunk Fan 🧳✅

Back to some solid events and headlines this week in the EV charging world, as icnc26 kicked off conference season with North American representation in Germany, Tesla shines the spotlight on Cybercabs (and where they’ll recharge), and NACS-only sites continue to fly under the radar.

Inspired by site changes, Supercharger expansions, and the turnaround of IONNA’s Circle K work, we’ve also added a new section called “Level Up”. This will track the latest upgrades, retrofits, and sites with increased capacity as the North American charging sector continues to churn and transition to NACS-J3400. Let us know if you’d like to see other items in here.

Moving on, here’s how EV infrastructure developments in the US/Canada unfolded over the past 7 days ⤵️

📊 Sunday Stat: — 6.3% of DCFC ports in the US are 400kW or more, compared to 1.6% of fast-charging ports in Canada. Drop power levels to 350kW, and that stat jumps to 20.4% of US ports and 4.1% of Canadian ports.

As 400-500 kW becomes the norm, the next shift to watch is whether there’s a temporary ceiling for DCFC hardware requirements in the US, and how quickly the market shifts to (or past) that baseline in Canada, where BYD’s Flash Charging system looms large on the horizon.

News - Although progress has slowed over the summer, Mercedes-Benz High Power Charging moved within one site of 100 locations this week, and continues to deliver holiday savings with a Labor Day pricing promotion.

Numbers - Across 99 locations in 20 states and one province, MB-HPC is also approaching the notable 1,000-stall milestone, but only has 5 more locations on the coming soon map at the time of writing.

Nuance - The network started life with a grand opening at Mercedes-Benz HQ in Sandy Springs, GA, a site which featured a full canopy, driver’s lounge, and all the accouterments of a flagship site. While MB-HPC sites have maintained exceptional quality in the finishing touches and little touches like reliable Wi-Fi, shelter, and lounges remain features that only that first site can offer.

Next Up - MB-HPC’s combination of nationwide expansion, MultiPort adoption, and subsequent entry into Canada has marked an impressive first few years in operation for a single OEM network, but what comes next will define the automaker’s ambitions as a CPO. Only 5 sites remain in the published pipeline, all of which are in existing markets. Areas to watch are the California Starbucks partnership on I-5, only one of which has been opened so far, and how far the network progresses into Canada’s EV-friendly provinces, with Québec and Ontario yet to be announced.

News - ChargePoint again dominated the week, but Blink also attracted attention with a major workplace charging expansion in California. FLO's Northwest Territories work showed up in both AC and DC this week, while Circuit électrique maintained its strong, wide-ranging L2 presence in Quebec.

Numbers: 448 L2 charging ports were added to the Alternative Fuels Data Center this week, covering 26 states and 6 Canadian provinces/territories, including a rare appearance from the Northwest Territories.

Notable New L2 + AFDC Additions:

🟠 ChargePoint added 282 ports across 75 locations (63% of the week's total), led by three 16-port sites. A Honda campus installation in Markham, ON, a conference center in Indio, CA, and a Rhode Island OER demo site in North Kingstown, RI, all grab the attention, with the rest spread across a long tail of smaller municipal, campus, and retail installs.

◾ Blink Charging added 72 ports at 5 US locations, headlined by another week of growth at G2 in Burbank, CA, which adds 42 ports at the site. A 20-port addition at St. David's North Austin Medical Center in Austin, TX, is another site worth noting.

⭕ Red E energized 12 ports at 3 locations, with 4 apiece at the YMCA in Bath, ME, and two adjacent apartment addresses on Whiteman Street in Fort Lee, NJ.

🗽 ViaLynk added 32 ports at 8 sites, led by a 10-port distribution center in Ellabell, GA, and a 6-port site at Kennedy High School in Plainview, NY, with the rest scattered across New York, New Jersey, California, and Pennsylvania.

🔷 Circuit électrique added 13 ports at 6 locations Québecois, incorporating borough schools and pools in Montréal, all the way out to a remote charger in Grande-Rivière, on the Gaspé Peninsula.

🔌 Rounding out this week's L2 activity: FLO added 8 ports at 3 sites spanning British Columbia, Ontario, and a rare Northwest Territories stop in Yellowknife, which is also present in the Fast Forward section, as you’ll see shortly. Elsewhere, OpConnect added 8 ports across 3 Oregon sites; EVSTART added 6 ports in St. Catharines, ON; and EV Connect (California), SynergEV (New York), ChargeLab (Ontario), and NOODOE (Texas) all added small single-site installs.

News - An uptick on the previous week’s lull in activity gives us more to chew on this edition, with IONNA adding more than Circle K upgrades, Francis Energy juicing NEVI numbers in several states, and the Rivian Adventure Network swinging back into action. Activity in Canada remains muted, but the presence of FLO in the Northwest Territories and ChargeLab in Québec keeps the country’s DCFC numbers moving in the right direction.

Numbers - 227 DC charging ports at 48 charging locations were added to the AFDC, covering 19 states and 3 Canadian provinces/territories (Ontario, Québec, and the Northwest Territories).

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

Notable New Locations + AFDC Additions:

⚡ Program-leading CPO Francis Energy added another 12 NEVI ports to the map at 3 sites in 2 states. The port count is split evenly at 4 stalls apiece, now charging at Applebee's in Flint and Jackson Crossing Mall in Michigan, and at the Valle Verde Center in Green Valley, AZ, for that state’s second NEVI location.

🟠 IONNA added 42 ports at 7 Rechargeries, driven by its Circle K retrofit push with the locations listed in our new section, which also tracks the progress of that upgrade project. Non-CK activity as well, with a Rechargery @ Wawa in Fredericksburg, VA, and the largest deployment of the week at a 12-stall standalone location in Riverside, CA.

🔴 Tesla Charging energized 180 stalls at 11 of its own locations across 5 states, with California scooping more than three-quarters of the port count. The largest site adds 32 stalls in Castaic, CA, while the largest of the sites outside the Golden State brings 16 stalls at a full V4 Supercharger in Potomac, MD. No Canadian provinces got a Supercharger this week.

⚪ On the Supercharger for Business side, two sites are added to the growing list of SfB locations, with a 4-stall Supercharger for HiON EV in Clarksville, TN, and 12 stalls for Victron Energy in Van, TX.

🚖 All of these Superchargers could be an option for topping up Cybercabs, which Tesla shared details on this week in Austin, TX. In addition to wireless charging and the private depots we’ve seen pop up in permitting throughout the year, Tesla’s Max deZegher clarified that Cybercabs using Superchargers during periods of low utilization would help keep costs down. All of which is good news, as it appears AC charging won’t be an option.

🟢 Electrify America added 30 ports at 4 locations, led by a 12-stall site at Heritage Hills Shopping Center in Lone Tree, CO, and a 10-stall addition at a Crossroads shopping center in Reno, NV. NEVI-backed sites are also present for the program-leading state, with 4 stalls each at a Sheetz in Harrisburg, PA, and a Wawa-owned location with Alpitronic hardware in Williamsport, PA.

🍁 FLO added 2 ports at 2 locations in Yellowknife, allowing a rare appearance for Canada's Northwest Territories in these pages. Both add a single 100kW dispenser, with one at the Northland Utilities office and another at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre.

🔷 Circuit électrique added 4 ports at a single site this week, which is a quieter showing than the multi-site deployment we typically see across Québec. The sole site comes at BRCC's Kingsley Road location in Côte Saint-Luc, QC.

🔶 Rivian’s Adventure Network gained two new locations out west, adding 10 ports each in Englewood, CO, and Tremonton, UT, which is a NEVI-backed site.

✨ Mercedes-Benz High Power Charging added what should become a 10-stall site in Cary, NC, although only 9 ports are operational at the time of writing. The network is now only one activation away from its century of sites.

🗽 ViaLynk continued a busy few weeks with 34 ports at 6 sites, led by a 12-stall NOCO location in Pittsford, NY, and an 8-stall site in Fairport, NY.

🔵 EVgo’s 3 locations are headlined by an impressive 18-stall site on Robertson Blvd in Los Angeles, CA. 6 stalls in Mount Vernon, IL, round out the EVgo-owned locations, while a 4-stall site at the Travel Center in Alsip, IL add to the Pilot-Flying J network under EVgo eXtend.

⚡ ChargeLab added 13 ports at 5 locations, with a 6-stall Ford dealership in Gatineau, QC, the biggest of the bunch.

🟢 ChargeSmart EV got back on the DCFC trail in its home state, with 8 new high-power ports energized at a Hampton Inn in Batavia, NY.

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

✅ Electrify America has now converted 4 California locations to NACS/J3400-only, as announced in an expansion of its NACS pilot program at the start of summer. Those sites are: La Mirada, CA (Station ID: 200075) | Arcadia, CA - Albertsons (Station ID: 200050) | Santa Ana, CA - Bank of America 17th St (Station ID: 200067) | Diamond Bar, CA - Target (Station ID: 200052). With a nod to the earliest EA installs, despite losing CCS1, several of these locations still have a J1772 plug! 🐌⚡

🔴 Recent expansions from Tesla include the addition of 8 additional stalls at a V4 Supercharger in Kissimmee, FL, and 16 V4 stalls added alongside 12 existing V3 stalls in East Point, GA. The latter is the state’s first full V4 location.

⭕ IONNA upgraded another 5 sites to Rechargery @ Circle K locations, including 3 locations in the Carolinas (4 stalls each). Larger sites in Jordan, MN, and Ellensburg, WA, add 6 stalls each, bringing the total across the upgrade program to 148 new ports on the IONNA network since the takeover was announced in April.

📝 In Tesla permitting, new Supercharger filings identified by MarcoRPi1 for Blytheville, AR, Redding, CA, and North Haven, CT (home of excellent pizza options, according to follow-up commentary 🍕⚡).

🚧 Construction is underway at new 500kW Supercharger sites, with full V4 coming soon to Knoxville, TN, and Mt. Crawford, VA.

🪙 On the NEVI side, construction is underway in Pennsylvania, at a location we’ve featured before when its V2 Superchargers were ripped out. The Your Choice gas station in Bloomsburg, PA, has trenching work and conduit runs in place, reports T. Williams from the area.

⚪ Activity on the Tesla Supercharger for Business side shows SfB locations coming for EVIO Charging (Wayne, Warren, and Florham Park, NJ, for starters), Charjo (Chicago and Detroit), and HiON EV (multiple NYC + Long Island sites).

🔶 Switching to Rivian, RANtracker filled a summer lull with a full thread of Adventure Network site updates. Several are now open, so I’ll pick the nearby Manchester, CT, site as it looks pretty close to commissioning and will be one of the network’s larger sites, adding 12 stalls.

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 - As the final long weekend of summer arrives, MB-HPC and IONNA deliver the kind of holiday promotions we saw on July 4th, while EVgo leans into charging credits and others shrug off temporary discounts in favor of a reputation for long-term affordability.

Numbers - IONNA delivers the largest price cut, lopping up to 48% off its maximum price of $0.39/kWh to a network-wide rate of $0.20/kWh at all 169 sites. MB-HPC favors a 25% discount at the dispenser, which applies to all locations with Alpitronic hardware, while EVgo offers $5 off a charge session for every app user (code “LABORDAYFASTCHARGING”). That’s in addition to a $50 September credit that it recently rolled out to GM EV drivers.

Nuance - As other networks jockey for position to spike utilization during busy travel weekends, Walmart EV Charging emphasized its focus on consistent affordability. The interview with Fast Co. specifically notes a different approach to DCFC price-setting than temporary promotional rates, which aligns well with The Arkansas eTraveler video above, which pushes back on the idea of a price war between new CPOs. Bottom line? Competition is coming, and pricing is now a factor where charging sites are close together.

Next Up - Holidays will come and go, but regular low rates remain for IONNA and WEVC. The former chooses a price cap and OEM-related discounts, while the latter leans into off-peak rates and discounts for its retail members. Both are consistently below the US national average DCFC rate of $0.543 per kWh, leaving other networks with decisions to make as both networks build towards a nationwide presence.

Here’s a selection of news items we couldn’t squeeze into other sections, and interesting deeper reads we think you’ll want to know about:

Get Charged receives $928K in rebates from PSEG for Long Island DCFC

San Francisco solicits curbside charging installation suggestions

Schneider Charge integrates smart load management into home charging

Inside Walmart’s push to build its own EV charging network

Colorado reports state travel corridors nearing Fully Built Out status

Ports > Power? Kempower finds more plugs has greater impact on utilization

Virginia DOT phase 2 NEVI funds are open for applications (deadline: 9/28/26)

Minnesota has opened its round 3a NEVI RFP for $41.18M (deadline: 11/2/26)

CalEVIP confirms next two windows for Fast Charge California Project (FCCP)

Efficiency Maine seeks qualified bidders for L2 charging (up to $120K per site)

California Clean Fuel Reward (CCFR) has enrollment for M-HDEV rebates

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

If you found this edition useful, please pass it on to a friend, colleague, or family member interested in electrification.

See you next week ⚡

Cheers,

Steve / Plug & Play EV

☕ ^{This edition fueled by: TJ’s Autumn Maple Blend |} 📖 ^{Reading: nope :(}

🎵 ^{Spinning: J Dilla - Workinonit | 📺 Watching: AMN’s worldie vs MUFC} 🔵💀