Ionna Charging Stations: Lastly Making EV Charging Stations Make Sense

One of many important variations between EVs and fuel automobiles is the fuel stations. For fuel automobiles, despite the fact that they’re comparatively fast to replenish, many fuel stations are related to mini marts the place you may get meals, drinks, and stuff to learn whereas your automobile is filling up and going to the lavatory. Up till not too long ago, EVs solely had chargers, and whereas they have been usually positioned close to purchasing malls or massive superstores, that usually created extra issues.

Effectively, Ionna is placing in charging stations which have mini-marts related to them, and it is a much better strategy than both stand-alone charging stations (the place you usually don’t even have loos) or these related to superstores or particularly malls. 

Why Public Charging Stations Have a tendency To Suck

My first expertise with an electrical automobile was round 2009 in a Tesla Mannequin S, and never solely didn’t I’ve a Stage 2 charger at residence, however the closest Tesla additionally Quick Charger was at an outlet Mall round 25 miles from the place I lived. And I discovered that the complete time I had that automobile, I used to be trying to find chargers and located them largely disappointing. Most public chargers again then have been solely Stage 2, so if we charged whereas consuming or going to the flicks, we solely obtained a number of miles of vary from the cost. After we went to the outlet mall, some individuals had parked their Teslas to cost and determined to spend the day purchasing as a result of their automobiles sat within the charger areas, totally charged, for hours.

Since then, I’ve seen individuals in fuel automobiles at malls park within the charger areas as a result of the opposite areas have been complete or to be jerks and expertise the enjoyable of making an attempt to get a quick charger to work when it didn’t appear to need to and there was nobody round from which to get assist. In distinction, I’ve a efficiency fuel station close to me with a posh pump, which regularly requires assist, however there’s all the time somebody round to supply that assist, so getting efficiency gas isn’t an issue.

Over time, I’ve watched EV homeowners attempt to put fuel of their automobiles, determine the place the socket is for the charger, and need assistance to get the charger to activate, with numerous frustration from distant help individuals who usually don’t appear to have any extra clue about how these things works than the confused EV driver did.

What was wanted is a charging expertise much like a fuel station, the place you may get assist in case you want it, have a rest room useful, and if you’d like a snack, you may get it however not someplace the place you would possibly need to keep for hours or the place a fuel automobile person would possibly need to park.

Ionna Charging Station

The Ionna Charging Station is similar to a Fuel station; it’d even have restore bays (electrical automobiles get flat tires and may want easy fixes, too). It has loos, plenty of chargers, and locations the place fuel automobiles can park in the event that they need to benefit from the services with out taking over a charging spot. They may even have meals vans at them, pulling in a good broader viewers of people that don’t must be there for lengthy and would possibly need to try simply how a lot better EVs have develop into with these stations.

They’ve pet-friendly facilities on the station as a result of Fido additionally wants a rest room break, and several other automobile firms, together with BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis, again the trouble. They plan to construct out 30K high-power EV chargers by 2030, and their facility is a pure alternative for current fuel stations, permitting a possible path for fuel station operators higher than going out of enterprise as soon as EVs are dominant.

It is a much better strategy than the EVgo effort, which offers lined charging however not the facilities that Ionna is constructing out.

Wrapping Up:

One of many huge issues with EVs is public charging as a result of the expertise isn’t as handy as filling up with fuel. Ionna is on the proper path, constructing charging stations that mirror fuel stations and supply the type of providers we’re used to with fuel automobiles, making the swap to EVs much more painless.

Given how lengthy we’ve had fuel automobiles, it’s spectacular that it took this lengthy to appreciate that EV homeowners would possibly need the identical expertise.

Rob Enderle is a expertise analyst at Torque Information who covers automotive expertise and battery growth. You possibly can be taught extra about Rob on Wikipedia and observe his articles on Forbes, X, and LinkedIn.