By: Paul Suhey, Revel Co-Founder and COO
Large automakers are doubling down on electric vehicles.
In the past three months, GM announced its commitment to selling only zero-emissions vehicles by 2035, Ford announced its intention to invest $29 billion in EVs and autonomous vehicles through 2025, and Volkswagen announced that half of U.S. sales will be electric by 2030. Long-term, EVs will replace gas-powered vehicles, the leading cause of carbon emissions in the U.S.
We’re nowhere close to that reality.
Charging infrastructure is the elephant in the electrification room. Without easy access to a charger, no one in cities will buy EVs. Can you imagine buying a car that runs on gas with little to no access to gas stations?
Dire need for charging infrastructure
Take the city that never sleeps: 99.75% of the 2.4 million registered cars in New York City are powered by a gasoline or diesel engine.
Trading in a gas guzzler for an EV in a major city is painfully inconvenient. Unlike in the suburbs, you can’t rely on at-home charging and must use publicly accessible chargers.
Right now in NYC, there are 105 fast chargers available. Eighty-two only serve Tesla EVs and nearly all of them are behind paywalls of commercial parking operators. Of the 23 non-Tesla stations, 10 are in cell phone waiting lots at JFK Airport, catering to the few taxi and rideshare EVs. Three are on Randall’s Island — requiring an $8.50 toll to reach — and six are located behind paywalls at shopping centers in Queens (sources: Plugshare, Energy.gov). That leaves four truly accessible fast chargers. More than 300 square miles, eight million people, 2.4 million cars — and only four publicly accessible fast chargers.
Those four accessible fast chargers in NYC are spread across three sites. This is the standard across the U.S.; the average fast charging station (excluding Tesla) has just 1.9 plugs.
Imagine this in the context of owning a gas car. Every gas station would have less than two pumps — half of them would be down for maintenance and the other half would be blocked indefinitely by a parked car that’s not even filling its tank.
To date, most urban chargers are also Level 2 — which take six to eight hours for a full charge — and many are installed in retail parking lots to cater to the “green consumer.” When was the last time you spent six hours at a Whole Foods?
Major cities need Superhubs to go electric
At Revel, we’re tired of waiting for the fast charging infrastructure needed to make the rapid transition to EVs — so we’re building it now.
In February, we announced our first in a network of fast charging Superhubs at the historic former Pfizer building in Brooklyn. This site will be the largest universal fast charging depot in North America, with the first 10 chargers going live in June.
With our Superhubs, you won’t have to worry about having access to a plug. They’re open to the public on a 24/7 basis, accessible to owners of any electric vehicle brand, and can provide EV drivers with 100 additional miles in only 20 minutes.
By introducing just one Superhub, NYU’s C2SMART research center found that Revel will drastically improve charging times and access for NYC’s EV owners.
We’re not stopping with one Superhub. We’re moving quickly to make every day electric — today.
Stay tuned!
