The biggest multi-standard public electric vehicle fast-charging station in the US just opened in Fremont, California.
The new EVgo Freedom Station — the 100th in California — is located at 5000 Mowry Ave at a Lucky supermarket. The new station is home to four 50 kilowatt (kW) DC Fast Chargers capable of all functioning at once — each of these chargers is equipped for CHAdeMO and DC Fast Combo. Reportedly, up to 9 vehicles can be plugged in at once. The station is also already wired for up to 4 more chargers — which could be added in only a few days time if demand called for it.
“This station is the first of a new generation of EV charging in America,” stated Terry O’Day, EVgo West Region Vice President. “With this installation, EVgo is crossing a threshold. We are already the largest provider of public DC fast charging. This station is the first of its kind to serve not only this generation, but the next generation of EVs with more power and range.”
Going by various demand observations, those behind the new station are expecting it to become the busiest public DC Fast charging location in the nation rather rapidly.
“With such rapid growth in EV adoption, it is important that EVgo’s stations be able to grow just as fast,” O’Day continued. “That is why this station is designed and built not just to double in size in a matter of days if needed, but to also add power capacity easily up to 150 kW when that technology is available.”
There are now more than 103 EVgo charging stations in California, with a further 28 in the development process currently.
They look like standard ABB chargers. You can’t use both Chademo and CCS simultaneously. Sure you can plug them in, but only one will charge. Therefore, only 4 can be charged at the same time. The nineth one mentioned is L2, not DCFC.
Worse, it doesn’t automatically start charging plugged in vehicle after the first one is “done”; you have to manually unplug/replug it in.
Given that this location saw almost 24/7 use, that probably meant lots of waiting. Hopefully, this will help with that, though getting rid of free charging would be far more effective. I suspect most of those using these get free charging.
150kw per plug?
Are these “free” to use or pay to use.
pay. $10/30 mins of charging.
eVgo OTG plan is $15/mo + $0.10/min of use ($3 for 30min). For non fee membership, it’s $5 setup + $0.20/min = $11 for 30 min.
But if you have Leaf/i3 with no charge to charge from factory, you get free charge.
Odd. It’s $9.95 per 30 minute charge for me. Must have a dated plan or something.
The plan I describe is for CA. It could be different in other states. But $10/30 min is way too steep; that would make it more expensive than driving gas cars, and completely replacing gas car like I’m doing now would not be possible.
I’m in california. Not sure. I don’t use it so much that it’s a big deal so I’m ok paying a premium for now. Competition will eventually drive that down and the fact that most of my charging is at home from our solar panels dilutes the $$/mi impact.
I just checked at eVgo web site for SF/bay area, and it’s what I describe, not $10/30min. If you’re on OTG plan and still paying so much, I think you should call them up and yell at them. 🙂
I do try to keep the yelling to a minimum as a general rule but as a compromise, I will see if I can remember my login to the site and figure out what’s crackin’ with those crazy folks.
This is impressive, but for the record the Fremont site is not the largest multi standard charging station in the country – 777 Main Street in Hartford has 10 level two charging stations plus one level three fast DC SAE-combo charging station.