Instant EV Charging Stations: Just Add Freewire

CleanTechnica – The US electric vehicle market hit a couple of speed bumps in recent weeks, but that doesn’t seem to be bothering General Motors. The company has been pushing forward with a multi-year plan to electrify whole fleets of vehicles, and the next step involves a hookup with a startup that has a solution for the EV charging station bottleneck.

An EV Charging Station For Every Fleet

To be clear, not all fleets are equal. Hertz, for example, was all over the EV trend just a couple of years ago, only to shock and sadden EV fans all over the world just last week, when it sold off 20,000 relatively new electric cars from its fleet. The company cited high repair and insurance costs. Driver reluctance to rent an EV also appears to be a factor, as CleanTechnica’s Jennifer Sensiba noted in December. Uncertainty about the availability of public charging stations is among several factors that can scare drivers away from renting an EV.

In contrast, the EV charging station issue is not necessarily a factor for fleet owners and their drivers. If a garage or depot is part of the business, a charging station can be located there, and routes can be planned around it. The US Postal Service, for example, is in the middle of making over 400 of its facilities to accommodate EV charging stations for its new fleet of 66,000 electric vehicles.

The Postal Service owns a total of about 230,000 vehicles, so there’s still a long way to go. However, it’s a start. The hub-and-spoke concept will allow for enough overnight charging to complete a route the next day, if all goes according to plan.