A variety of of us had been probably nonetheless digesting the main points of Tesla’s near-takeover of the North American public EV charging scene—and alongside comes one other blockbuster improvement on the infrastructure entrance.

Seven of the world’s main automakers—GM, Stellantis, BMW, Mercedes, Hyundai, Kia and (oddly sufficient) Honda—have introduced plans to kind a three way partnership to construct a brand new North American quick charging community within the US and Canada with no less than 30,000 chargers. The primary stations are anticipated to open in the summertime of 2024.

It is a very huge deal. In response to the DOE, there are at present about 32,000 publicly obtainable DC quick chargers within the US. Tesla, North America’s largest quick charging supplier, operates round 22,000 Supercharger stalls. Electrify America, the subsequent largest, has 3,592 items.

As astute readers might have gathered, a few of us at Charged didn’t whole-heartedly be a part of within the near-industry-wide jubilation at Tesla’s latest triumphs. We feared it may not be clever to present a lot management over the general public charging expertise to anybody firm—particularly one with a poor report of assembly deadlines and a grandstanding CEO.

Properly, if this new charging initiative pans out as marketed, I believe we’ll need to mark these considerations as answered. We’ll get loads of new state-of-the-art chargers, all open to all EV drivers, and nobody automaker shall be king of the charging hill.

The brand new community seems to tick all of the packing containers, no less than going by what the magnificent seven have informed us to date (hedged with the standard weaselly “anticipated to” and “meant to” phrases).

The brand new charging stations will help each CCS and Tesla’s NACS, and are “anticipated to satisfy or exceed the spirit and necessities of the US Nationwide Electrical Car Infrastructure (NEVI) program.” Every website shall be outfitted with a number of high-powered DC chargers (350 kW for a starter), powered by renewable vitality. Stations will provide all of the anticipated facilities (canopies, restrooms, eating places and retailers). The community will use Plug & Cost know-how, and shall be built-in with collaborating automakers’ in-vehicle and in-app experiences.

Every of the seven CEOs made the type of assertion you’d count on: carbon emissions are unhealthy, charging is vital, they’re proud to be concerned. Two of them had been pretty eloquent:

“What we’d like now’s pace—throughout political, social and company boundaries,” mentioned Mercedes-Benz Group CEO Ola Källenius. “To speed up the shift to electrical automobiles, we’re in favor of something that makes life simpler for our clients.”

“A robust charging community ought to be obtainable for all—underneath the identical situations—and be constructed along with a win-win spirit,” mentioned Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares.

As normal, a number of questions stay unanswered. The businesses did present just a few extra particulars to Inexperienced Automobile Stories.

• What is going to the brand new community be known as? In all probability one thing foolish, however who cares?
• Will it help Tesla’s NACS V4? 800-volt structure? In all probability—GM and Mercedes are among the many automakers that plan so as to add Tesla’s NACS port to their automobiles.
• How a lot funding are we speaking about? The automakers plan to leverage each private and non-private funds, and are open to funding from different automakers or different firms in or out of the auto {industry}. Contemplating {that a} typical quick charger can value within the neighborhood of $100,000, {industry} execs informed Reuters that the JV’s finances will probably run into a number of billions. “The funding shall be far much less by this partnership than constructing particular person charging networks,” mentioned Akshay Singh, a accomplice at consultancy PwC Technique.
• GM and Mercedes have each already introduced vital investments in North American quick charging networks—are these plans affected? No. GM mentioned the brand new enterprise “received’t change GM’s current commitments or collaborations.”
• Is there an antitrust problem? Andre Barlow, an antitrust lawyer with Doyle, Barlow and Mazard, informed Reuters that the Justice Division would probably overview the deal. Nevertheless, the White Home has already issued a robust assertion of help.

Sources: BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes, Stellantis; Inexperienced Automobile Stories; Reuters