Author: EVAI

• GM-Pilot stations with EVgo now cover more than 130 locations
• The automaker also has GM Energy projects with ChargePoint and EVgo
• GM is also part of Ionna, seeking 30,000 fast-chargers by 2030

Automakers beyond just Tesla have been committing to the EV infrastructure buildout; and among them, General Motors remains one of the most diversified in this push. 

Tuesday, GM and Pilot Company, with the charging network EVgo, confirmed in an update that it’s been pushing ahead with its installation of electric vehicle fast-charging stations, with more than 130 locations now available in over 25 states. 

The three partners originally announced plans in 2022 to install up to 2,000 EV fast-charging stalls at 500 different travel center locations, where road-trippers can also enjoy lounges, free wi-fi, various food and beverage options, modernized restrooms, and 24/7 staffing. The GM-Pilot network, with CCS connectors up to 350 kw, now covers I-75 from Michigan to Georgia, as well as several other regional corridors in the South and Midwest. 

Pilot, GM, and EVgo build out EV fast-charging network

That was before the formation of the U.S. EV fast-charging network Ionna. That network has been backed by General Motors, BMW Group, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, and Stellantis from the time of its inception in 2023, with Toyota since joining. The proposed scale of that network—targeting 30,000 chargers by 2030, or roughly the same number Tesla has today—appears like it might be the first true rival to Tesla and its Supercharger network. Each piece of Ionna hardware can charge at up to 400 kw for one vehicle or split that for up to 200 kw for two vehicles and is plug-and-charge compatible.

GM and Pilot Company’s EV charging network

Tuesday’s announcement and the deployment with Pilot and Flying J don’t encompass all that GM and EVgo are doing together. As part of plans to install 2,850 charging stalls together, GM and EVgo also last September revealed plans for gas-station-like urban “flagship” EV charging sites with 350-kw connectors, in major U.S.-metro areas starting in 2025. Meanwhile, GM and ChargePoint are rolling out 500 DC fast-chargers at up to 500 kw each, utilizing ChargePoint’s OmniPort adapter encompassing CCS and NACS standards. Both of those latter efforts will be co-branded with GM Energy. 

As a recent Consumer Reports survey suggested, drawing from good and bad feedback from thousands of charging sessions, users of third-party networks such as EVgo, Blink, and Shell Recharge encounter more than ten times the issues vs. Tesla and its Supercharger network. But with automakers more closely involved—like GM with these efforts—we look forward to seeing them smooth things over. 

A German startup believes it has the recipe for electric vehicle battery cells that are cheaper, more energy dense, and less problematic for the environment than current lithium-ion cells. But commercialization seems a long way off.

Theion announced Thursday in a press release that it is close to completing a 15 million euro (approximately $16.2 million at current exchange rates) Series A round to development of its sulfur-crystal battery chemistry. It’s based on proprietary anode technology that Theion hopes will extend battery life—one of the main obstacles to sulfur-based chemistries.

Theion sulfur-crystal EV battery development

With this chemistry, Theion is aiming for energy density of 1,000 Wh/kg, which is about triple that of leading-edge nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) cells today, including the 4680 cells used in the Tesla Cybertruck. Such energy density would allow for much lighter cells without sacrificing range, or increased range from the same volume.

Theion claims it can achieve this without using nickel or cobalt, addressing environmental and human-rights concerns associated with the mining of those metals. Overall, Theion claims its cells could have a one-third lower carbon footprint—and cost—compared to conventional cells. That’s because, as the firm notes in its release, sulfur is the 16th most abundant element on Earth, and costs much less than the raw materials of NMC cells.

Stellantis STLA Medium platform

But as Theion emphasizes, longevity in cycle life will be the challenge for sulfur-crystal batteries. The startup believes its batteries need to maintain performance over 1,000 charge/discharge cycles to be commercially viable, a target it aims to build up to, after initial testing of 500 Wh/kg cells at 500 cycles, before starting production.

Research into lithium-sulfur batteries for EVs goes back at least a decade, and we’ve seen impressive claims about their ability to boost EV range before. Stellantis has even partnered with not one, but two startups—Lyten and Zeta Energy—that aim to commercialize the tech, perhaps by the end of the decade. But it remains to be seen if any of these efforts—Theion’s included—will overcome the hurdles and get sulfur batteries into production EVs.

• In 2024, public charging in California expanded at record levels
• The state has double the publicly accessible chargers versus 2022
• Nearly 30% of U.S. EV sales go to California customers

In California, drivers are now much more likely to encounter an electric vehicle charging connector than a gas pump nozzle.

The state reached 178,549 public chargers in 2024 (including shared private chargers), Governor Gavin Newsom’s office announced Thursday in a press release. That gives California 48% more publicly accessible chargers than gas pumps, according to the California Energy Commission (CEC), which estimates about 120,000 gas pumps in the state.

Installation of new chargers has increased significantly over the past few years. California now has twice as many publicly accessible chargers as it did in 2022, and it added 26,193 chargers since the last official update of the total in August.

Electric vehicle chargers in California in 2024

While California continues to devote funds to building more charging stations, part of the increased total for 2024 is due to keeping better track of ones that already exist. Of the 73,537 chargers added to its data set in 2024, 35,554 were installed before that year but were newly identified through additional data sources, according to the CEC.

Publicly accessible chargers are mostly Level 2 AC, at over 162,000, with nearly 17,000 DC fast-chargers, according to the CEC. The commission also estimates that more than 700,000 Level 2 chargers are installed at single-family homes in California for private use.

Those chargers—public and private—support what remains the largest fleet of EVs in any U.S. state. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) estimates that nearly 30% of U.S. “zero-emission vehicle” sales go to the state.

Marengo Charging Plaza, Pasadena, California

California may also bring back its own version of an EV tax credit—minus Tesla—if the federal credit is cut, something the Trump Administration is reportedly preparing to do. The Biden EPA officially approved restoration of California’s EV sales mandate prior to an expected Trump attack on the state’s rights, but the new government may still hold California’s solo carpool-lane access for EVs hostage.

In the meantime, California is also pushing ahead with its charger buildout as Trump freezes federal charger funding. Last month California announced a $55 million project, overseen by the CEC, supporting the installation of DC fast-charging stations at retail sites throughout the state. It’s a small part of a $1.4 billion EV charging and hydrogen program announced in December.

“We’re embracing our clean car future and providing consumers more choices—no matter what ‘big government’ mandates come out of Washington,” Newsom said in a statement.

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The Bugatti Tourbillon’s standout feature is an 1,800-hp plug-in hybrid powertrain built around a high-revving V-16, but Bugatti didn’t forget about the aerodynamic work needed to make use of the immense power on tap. The goal was to surpass the Bugatti Chiron in slipperiness, Paul Burnham, chief engineer for the Tourbillon, said in a video posted…

• Owners report more than ten times the issues with Shell Recharge, EVgo, or Blink than with Tesla
• Rivian’s own charging network was second only to Tesla
• Hardware-related issues have become more prevalent than payment problems

Charging networks operated by Tesla and Rivian tended to have fewer problems than non-automaker efforts, according to a recent Consumer Reports survey.

Electric vehicle owners experience a problem in one out of every five public charging sessions, according to the survey, which draws from ongoing responses from CR’s EV Charging Community project.

In this edition, Consumer Reports includes information from about 5,700 total charging sessions, from 1,230 EV and plug-in hybrid owners. As CR notes to Green Car Reports, there’s not much variation in problems by U.S. region. But the rate of reported problems was certainly not uniform across all networks.

Survey respondents reported problems at Tesla charging stations 4% of the time, and 5% of the time at Rivian-operated chargers. In contrast, respondents said they experienced problems 48% of the time at Shell Recharge stations, 43% of the time at EVgo stations, and 41% of the time at Blink stations. It’s worth pointing out that all of these low-rated charging networks are third-party providers not directly owned or run by automakers

Tesla Supercharger

Rivian last year phased in a grading system for the charging experience via its route planner—so it appears that might be working. A J.D. Power study last year suggested Tesla Supercharging was losing its edge over other public charging, but this study suggests otherwise.

The most common reported problems were hardware-related, at 36%. “Other issues” accounted for 25% of the reported problems, followed by payment issues (23%) and charging power (15%). Payment issues used to be frequently cited as the most common issue EV drivers faced at public charging stations, so this is a notably different result.

Among the reported hardware problems, broken screens were by far the most frequent, at 76%. Other reported problems included damaged charging cables of connectors (10%), chargers that could not physically connect to a vehicle due to ice blockage, damage, or other issues (9%), and cables that were too short (5%).

2023 Toyota bZ4X at EVgo charging station

Of those EV drivers who reported payment issues, 56% said they were able to pay but then encountered another issue that prevented them from charging; 25% said they were unable to pay at a given charger and had to move to another one; and 19% said charging never started despite payment being accepted.

To help make public charging go more smoothly, Consumer Reports recommends having multiple accounts with saved payment information so that, if there’s a problem with the charger’s interface, payment can be completed on a network’s app.

Blink Level 2 charging station at Firestone service center

General charging best practices, such as only fast-charging to 80% and preconditioning the battery pack before arriving, can help as well, the publication notes. In various polls and surveys, consumers continue to emphasize that the absolute charge rate doesn’t matter so much, rather that they get some level of charge in a reasonable amount of time.

With automaker-funded Ionna expanding rapidly, we’ll see how it lands on the scale of consumer approval—perhaps in a future update from this same data set.

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Chinese researchers claim to have developed a process to recover nearly all of the lithium from used electric vehicle batteries for recycling.

The Independent (via InsideEVs) reports on study results first published in the German academic journal Angewandte Chemie claiming recovery of 99.99% of lithium from a used battery, as well as 97% of nickel 92% of cobalt, and 91% of manganese.

The process used, called “neutral leaching” also eliminates harsh chemicals, increasing safety and lowering environmental impact, researchers claim—and in laboratory tests it took just 15 minutes to separate out the desired battery materials.

Volkswagen battery recycling

Current recycling processes use amino acids, and here study researchers used glycine, which is the simplest stable amino acid, along with a follow-up process to avoid further chemical reactions once the lithium and other materials were extracted.

Laboratory research does not always scale to commercial viability, but battery recycling has attracted interest from automakers looking to avoid the cost and the environmental impact of mining new raw materials for batteries.

Toyota and Redwood Materials battery recycling

Toyota announced an agreement to utilize Redwood Materials, the battery-recycling firm founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, in 2022. The following year, it expanded that agreement, setting the stage for batteries from hybrids like the Prius to provide material for future EV batteries as those vehicles reach the end of their useful lives.

Other automakers, including BMW, Ford, and Volkswagen Group’s VW and Audi brands, have also signed on with Redwood. But the fleet takes a long time to turn over, and the relatively small number of EVs and hybrids on the road could translate to a long wait for a critical mass of recyclable battery materials—with one 2021 report predicting that the market for these materials won’t heat up until 2030.

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