EV charging infrastructure provider XCharge North America has deployed two high-powered EV chargers at a Gateway Fleets depot in southern California.
The new EV charging site will allow Gateway Fleets customers, which include medium-duty logistics firms and independent FedEx contractors, to charge their vehicles while on their delivery routes. Gateway Fleets specialises in last-mile delivery operations and has increasingly been working to electrify its operations in recent years.
Located in Riverside, California, the site has been provided with two dual-dispenser GridLink chargers, which include onboard battery energy storage systems which charge during off-peak energy periods and can supply a 430kWh charge during that day.
Aatish Patel, co-founder and president of XCharge North America, stated that the partnership “exemplifies how far EV charging has come”. Patel added: “By transforming these sites into dependable charging hubs, we’re making electrification more practical and cost effective.”
Expanding EV charging in California
The state of California had previously set a mandate banning petrol and diesel fuelled vehicles from its roads by the year 2035; the mandate also set a requirement for EVs to make up at least 43% of an auto maker’s sales by 2027 in California, rising to 68% by 2030 and 100% in 2035. However, the US House of Representatives recently voted to repeal California’s right to set its own EV mandate, leaving EV policy in something of a limbo.
Despite this, efforts to increase EV charging availability across California in spite of grid constraints continue at pace. Earlier this week, EV charging infrastructure firm Skycharger announced that it had inked a deal to develop a 24-port fast charging hub at San Francisco airport, primarily serving the growing number of Uber and Lyft drivers using EVs for work.
Meanwhile, in April, US utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced a new service which will allow more EV chargers in California to connect to the grid without needing to wait for grid capacity upgrades.
This system uses PG&E’s cloud-based Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS), which was developed alongside Microsoft and Schneider Electric and automatically adjusts the energy supply to a site based on when electricity supply is readily available. This means that a new charging project seeking a 2MW connection could connect to an area of the grid that can supply 2MW most of the time but receive a lower 0.5MW supply at times of peak grid strain, until grid improvement works are completed to allow for a full 2MW connection at all times.
