EV Charger Manufacturer from Italy Opens HQ in This State

• Alpitronic officially opens headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, having begun its expansion to the US after years of operations in Europe.

• The company plans to build its DC fast chargers stateside, rated at up to 400 kW and able to charge two EVs at once with two cables.

• A handful of European automakers have been investing in their own branded charging hubs, after years of witnessing slow progress in the charging sphere, which continues to be plagued by charger downtime and insufficient station layouts.

We are still in the early years of the DC fast-charging era, and by now many EV owners can certainly name half a dozen charging networks present in their area, each with its own maddening user interface quirks and approach to payments.

But not that many EV owners can name a handful of charging station manufacturers.

Alpitronic is a name we'll be hearing more frequently in the coming years, after the Italian maker of DC fast chargers has opened its US headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, this month.

Launched in 2009, Alpitronic has recently struck a deal with Mercedes-Benz High-Power Charging to provide the automaker with its Hypercharger 400 units, rated at up to 400 kW. The chargers will be built in the US, set to offer CCS and NACS cables, and will also be able to charge two EVs at once at up to 200 kW.

The company's new US headquarters in Charlotte, which has seen a tech boom in recent years like a number of other cities in the South, will include a diagnostic lab, a spare parts warehouse, a repair center, and a training center for up to 300 employees.

And the company will also run its own service operation.

"While adoption is increasing, one of the main reasons some Americans hesitate to purchase an EV is the lack of a reliable network of chargers across the country," said Mike Doucleff, Alpitronic Americas CEO.

Alpitronic's launch stateside comes amid not one but several major milestones for the nation's charging networks, just one of which is the nearly universal adoption of Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) by a number of automakers and third-party charging networks alike.

Plenty of car makers have blamed the reliability and pace of expansion of several charging networks for keeping the EV adoption rate at a crawl, contrary to industry expectations just half a decade ago, with frustration over infrastructure still seen as a major issue for EV owners. A related issue is the slow pace of evolution in station design, with many private owners of EV stations still seen as investing too little in upkeep and user-friendly layouts.

Yet another issue are the advertised speeds of DC fast chargers, when they're available at a given station at all, and the speeds they actually deliver during a given visit.

The ongoing issues with the pace of EV charging infrastructure in the US have prompted a handful of automakers, including Mercedes-Benz, to invest in their own branded stations, featuring charging hardware from Alpitronic.

VW Group brands like Audi and Porsche are building its own network of luxury charging hubs in Europe for now. Eventually, we expect to see them here as well.

But it will still be a while before all-DC stations like the one opened by Mercedes-Benz near its HQ in Atlanta will become a familiar sight around the country.

Will faster and more accessible EV stations prompt more car shoppers to consider EVs, or are issues like battery range and EV price more important at the moment? Let us know what you think in the comments below.