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Electrify America Installs First DC Fast Charging Station in California

California, the American state with the biggest appetite for electric and autonomous cars, is finally getting the long-promised fast-charging stations for electric cars.
First Electrify America fast charging stations coming to California 1 photo
Photo: Electrify America
Volkswagen’s company in charge of setting up the needed infrastructure for electric vehicles, Electrify America, announced on Thursday it has installed the first DC fast charging station in the area. It is to be just one of the 160 such locations which will be rolled out across California by the summer of 2019.

This first station is located at the Country Hills Shopping Plaza in Torrance and will be followed by others in locations like Montebello, Elk Grove, La Mirada or Sacramento. Most of them will be installed at various business  partners of Electrify America.

The California network of chargers is part of the nationwide one Electrify America is working on for some time. All such stations will be located along high-traffic corridors in 42 states, no more than 120 miles apart, and will accommodate between four to ten chargers with power levels that can go up to 350 kW.

Using these charges, a car’s battery could get over the course of a single minute around 20 miles of range. That’s seven times faster than an average 50 kW charger.

“The fast chargers that we are installing have the capability to charge an EV up to 20 miles of range a minute to a vehicle,” said in a statement Brendan Jones, Electrify America COO.

“Providing this kind of range confidence can be a game-changer in accelerating ZEV adoption in the U.S.”

As for the locations these charges will call home, the company’s biggest deal to date is the one with Walmart. Starting last April and going well into 2019, a hundred Walmart locations across 34 states will be fitted with fast charging stations.

Electrify America plans to invest $2 billion in infrastructure by 2027, $800 million of which in the state of California alone.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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