On Wednesday 26th July 2023, seven major automotive OEMs announced that they were forming a new company to provide EV charging in the US. The group includes General Motors, Stellantis, Hyundai Motor, Kia, Honda, BMW and Mercedes Benz. The new venture aims to roll out 30,000 EV chargers in North America, starting along major highways and in cities.
There is industry speculation over whether this group has been formed to oppose Tesla’s NACS connector which has had a great deal of media attention recently. However, General Motors (one of the major vehicle OEMs that has announced it will ship vehicles with the NACS connector in the future), has confirmed it still plans to do so, despite its involvement. Stellantis also reported that charging stations will be accessible to all EV customers, offering both CCS and NACS connectors.
SAR Insight & Consulting believes that this group will exist to accelerate the deployment of EV public charging infrastructure in the US to provide a catalyst for sales of BEVs. It will also have access directly to the government funding which exists for EV public charging infrastructure rollout, which is cheaper and simpler than partnering with other charging network providers. 30,000 EV chargers is not a large amount compared with the US government’s plan to install 500,000 by 2030 so it’s likely all of these chargers will be high-power DC chargers, targeted at rapid recharge (less than 30 mins) on-the-go. Whilst additional rollout will be welcomed by EV users, this group does therefore compete directly with existing US high-power charge point network operators such as ChargePoint, Electrify America, EVgo and Blink. The benefit of creating their own network however means access to data that could help with future EV design improvements and optimising the EV users charging experience.
SAR Insight & Consulting sizes and forecasts the EV Charging Station rollout by more than 50 countries along with charge point operator & EV charging station market shares in its EV Charging Service.
The original article is here.
