Recently, Electrify America announced to expand its charging network in the United States and Canada. Electrify America said it would double its current EV charging network by installing more than 1800 stations and 10,000 individual chargers by the end of 2025.
Giovanni Palazzo, the CEO of Electrify America, said, “We are making this commitment to support the plans by major automakers and the U.S. and Canadian governments to help the transformation to an electric mobility transportation system.”
At present, Electrify America has around 635 charging stations in America. It plans to increase this to around 800 stations and 3500 individual chargers by the end of this year. Eventually, the number will increase to more than 1700 stations and 9,500 individual chargers by the end of 2025.
In addition, Electrify America seeks to expand its operation to states like Hawaii, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Vermont. This will make the DC fast-changing provider set its foot in 49 states of the U.S.
How Electrify America Can Eat Up Tesla’s Market Share?
Electrify America is the largest open DC fast charging provider in the US. It provides 150 kW and 350 kW DC fast chargers. The company started its operations back in 2018 in the US and 2019 in Canada. Since then, Electrify America has installed around four stations per week on average in the United States.
While Electrify America expands its network, it can actually affect the market share of the EV king Tesla. Let’s understand how:
Before the recent announcement, Electrify America confirmed to invest an amount of $2 billion over the next 10 years.
Electrify America is a subsidiary of German auto giant Volkswagen. Hence, it’s an official charging network provider for all the brands under the VW group. For reference, Volkswagen Group owns big names like Porsche, Audi, Skoda, Bentley, and many other luxury brands.
In addition, Electrify America also has an alliance with big automakers like Ford, Hyundai, Lucid Motors, and more.
The majority of automakers are going to join hands with Electrify America and use its network. All the above-mentioned brands have already made some imposing electric cars worthy of challenging Tesla.
If these brands get a strong charging network, then they can easily acquire Tesla’s market share. Hence, we can say the bigger the charging network gets, the more it’ll affect Tesla.
As of March 2020, Tesla had around 908 charging stations in the U.S, which is far more than that of Electrify America. A bigger and better-charging infrastructure is also a major factor that buyers consider before buying an EV.
However, if this margin gets negligible, Tesla will lose one of its advantages in the EV space.
Source: Electrify America
