If seven automakers decide to join forces on something, you’d figure it’s got to be for a good reason. Today, it’s the need for a functional, accessible electric vehicle charging network that has united BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis. On Wednesday, the manufacturers announced a public charging joint venture that aims to pepper North America with 30,000 new chargers, fitted with both CCS and NACS plugs, in the coming years.
According to a press release courtesy of Stellantis, the effort will begin to show results about a year from now, in the summer of 2024, when the first stations are opened. Canada is slated for “a later date.” (Sorry, friends to the north. You always get shafted, except when it comes to buying Subaru BRZs. There, you got us beat.)
Based on the latest data from the U.S. Department of Energy cited by the unnamed joint venture, right now there’s about 72 EVs for every DC fast charger in the country, for a total of 32,000 chargers. It’s said that Tesla claims about 21,000 of those. The agency believes that number will probably need to rise six-fold to support all the EVs projected to be on American roads by the end of the decade. This plan gets us a little closer to the ideal, though there’s still clearly much more work to do.