NYC Just Got the Nation's Fastest Public EV Charger

One of the biggest hurdles to widespread EV usage involves chargers — including how many there are, where they’re located and how quickly they can refill a given vehicle’s battery. Charging speeds have improved dramatically in recent years, to the point where there isn’t just fast charging — there’s also charging at a rate faster than the capacity of any cars to be charged. Which is where Gravity Mobility enters the picture.

As Reuters reports this week (via Autoblog), Gravity just opened a public charging station in New York City — specifically, midtown Manhattan, with an eye on providing service to fleet operators. Two dozen of the charging stations will be reserved for fleet use, as per Reuters.

What’s even more interesting about these chargers is how fast they can charge a given vehicle. These chargers have the ability to charge at a rate up to 500 kWh. By comparison, Tesla’s Supercharger V3 — when we generally refer to when discussing fast charging — can charge at up to 250 kWh.

You might read this and think, “Wait, are there even any cars that can even be charged at that rate?” Short answer: no, there are not. This is a move more geared towards the future than anything else. Gravity’s own website estimates that, at this speed, an EV could travel 200 miles on a single five-minute charge.

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As Gravity Mobility CEO Moshe Cohen explained to Reuters, the company’s next challenge will come in the form of expanding its network — which will take both time and money. “We will do more fundraising, of course, our goal is to expand nationally immediately, and so we have quite a bit of interest,” Cohen told Reuters. We’ll see if the company’s compact charger design gives them an advantage in their chosen field.