Yahoo Autos GM's First EV Stations Installed in Dealer Community Charging Program
Last year, GM announced plans to install up to 40,000 Level 2 charging stations for any and all EVs in underserved communities across the U.S. and Canada. This week, the automaker said the first stations had been installed in Wisconsin and Michigan and that many more are on the way.
While GM dealers (Chevy only until 2023) are involved with this program, it is not meant to only install units at dealerships. Instead, the plan calls for EV chargers to be installed at commonly used public locations.
GM also said it would partner with FLO, which will supply future units and build them in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
Electric vehicles need places to charge, and it doesn't hurt if the company that makes the EVs also provides charging options. Just ask anyone who's used a Tesla Supercharger. Last year, GM announced it would install a new network of up to 40,000 Level 2 stations as part of a "community charging program" in the U.S. and Canada. This week, GM said that around 1000 GM dealers have enrolled in the program and that local dealerships in Marshfield, Wisconsin, and Owosso, Michigan, helped determine where the first of these stations were installed in their local communities.
Currently, only Chevrolet dealerships have been invited to join the program, but other GM brands—Buick, GMC and Cadillac—can sign up starting in January 2023. Dealers in the Dealer Community Charging Program can get up to 10 19.2-kilowatt charging stations, and then GM will direct dealers to installation providers to get these stations up and working at "key community locations." These Level 2 stations are open to any EV driver and are meant as a next-step solution in so-called "charging deserts," where public EV charging infrastructure is rare or just doesn't exist there yet. Level 2 isn't the game changer that DC fast-chargers would be in these places, but they will be welcomed in the "underserved rural and urban areas" that GM is targeting with the program.
GM also announced it had selected EV charging company FLO to be its charging station provider in this project. FLO will build future charging stations for GM at its first U.S. manufacturing facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
When GM announced the Dealer Community Charging Program in 2021, it said that the project would bring EV stations to places like "workplaces, multi-unit dwellings, sports and entertainment venues, and college and universities, among others." GM said that the next batch of states to get stations installed will be Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Ohio, and Washington State.
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