On Harrison Street in the middle of San Francisco, charging stations are in high demand in the early afternoon. In a former warehouse, just a few blocks from the financial district and Chinatown, twenty fast-charging stations are lined up, and hardly any of them are free. A Jaguar I-Pace, a Volkswagen ID.4 and several Mercedes and BMW models hang on the cables; The drivers sit behind the wheel and scroll through their smartphones while the hustle and bustle of the city rages outside. There’s time in here for a short break until the batteries are full. Electromobility seems very commonplace – and there is nothing to remind us that the operator of this covered charging park had its origins in the scandal surrounding manipulated emissions values. Electrify America is the name of the company that operates a “flagship station” here, a showcase location in urban areas. It belongs to the Volkswagen Group and was founded almost ten years ago as a direct result of the diesel scandal. After it became known that VW had deceived American buyers with manipulated emissions levels, the company and the US authorities agreed on billions in fines and extensive requirements. This also included the development of a nationwide fast-charging network for electric cars, intended as a signal for clean mobility. The focus is on urban areas. Today, Electrify America continues to grow, although the euphoria surrounding electric drives in the United States has long since waned and Trump’s government wants to focus everything on combustion engines. The company is expanding its network and continuing to build “as large locations as possible” to meet the high demand, says Rachel Moses, head of sales and marketing at Electrify America, in an interview with the F.A.Z. on Harrison Street.Electrify America now operates more than 5,000 fast charging stations at around 1,000 locations in the United States and several provinces in Canada. In the USA, the company is the second largest operator of public fast chargers – behind Tesla, which originally built its network of superchargers only for its own brand of vehicles and only later opened it up to other manufacturers. Electrify America’s first station went online in 2018 in front of a shopping center in Massachusetts, a state that supported electric mobility with early political programs. There, for the first time in the United States, fast chargers with certified charging power of 350 kilowatts went online, making it possible to recharge the battery with a range of around 100 kilometers in five minutes. After the expansion of many stations along expressways, the focus is now on urban areas, says Moses. Anyone who lives in the middle of a big city and has an electric car needs easily accessible columns. The demand is still much greater than the supply, even if sales of battery cars in America are now slower than expected. A security employee is more important than snacks. Along the way, the company has learned a lot about customer behavior. For a long time, the industry assumed that drivers found the longer charging process compared to refueling to be a disruptive factor that had to be overcome with amenities. In Germany, for example, Audi experimented a few years ago with luxury charging stations that offer upstairs lounges with snacks and coffee. The Harrison Street location also has a lounge with lounge chairs and vending machines for Coke and candy bars. Most customers, reports Moses, stay in the car and use the time for other purposes. It has proven to be much more important that an employee from a security company is on site around the clock. The hall is located in the middle of the South of Market district, which is known for culture and nightlife, but at the same time for a large, open drug scene, a problem that many metropolises are struggling with.More on the topicThe deciding factor is of course the price. Electrify America works with many regional electricity suppliers in the United States, some of whose tariffs differ significantly. To ensure that this does not become a jungle of tariffs for customers, the company combines its prices nationwide into a few levels. For customers without a contract, these are usually between 46 and 64 US cents per kilowatt hour, the equivalent of around 39 to 54 euro cents. Anyone who uses the app with a monthly membership fee pays around a quarter less. This means that Electrify America is in the typical price range of the American market, which is on average below the German level. According to ADAC, customers in this country rarely pay less than 50 cents per kilowatt hour when traveling; Without a contract, prices are often 80 cents or more.Critical size exceededAccording to the agreement with the US authorities after the diesel scandal, Volkswagen will invest a total of two billion dollars in the project by 2027. What began as a compulsory exercise that the authorities forced the company to undertake has developed into a business that is self-sustaining and profitable, as Moses emphasizes. However, they do not provide specific earnings figures. Another investor has also been on board for several years: the German technology group Siemens. In doing so, Electrify America may have anticipated a strategy that other parts of the Volkswagen Group are still working on. Europe’s largest car manufacturer is in crisis and has to hold on to its money; new co-owners are being sought for several parts of the company, for example for battery production. The American charging business, on the other hand, has already established such a structure and currently feels well positioned. From Moses’ point of view, the range of charging stations has long since exceeded a critical size. The network is so dense today that the worry of being stranded with an empty battery is hardly a concern for many drivers, the manager emphasizes. She has just tested it herself: on an almost 1,800 mile long coastal route across 14 states – traveling in the electric VW van ID.Buzz.
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