Gravity 500kw EV Charger Could Add 200 Miles Of Range In 5 Minutes - Article

[Tooney]

Google-backed start-up Gravity intends to add thousands of DC fast chargers in the U.S. annually.

Gravity, a Google-backed start-up that began as an electric taxi fleet operator back in 2021, inaugurated what it claims to be the fastest DC charging station in the U.S. today. The chargers are located in a parking lot in the heart of Manhattan, just a block away from Times Square at 401-471 West 42nd Street.

“We have a mobile kiosk held by the lot attendant who handles [the payment]. Authentication depends on the car model, but the first time you charge we’ll register your details (if it doesn’t automatically come from the car). It assigns the car a unique ID and every time you return it will recognize the vehicle and link to that profile,” a Gravity spokesperson told InsideEVs.

What’s Next For The Start-Up?
Gravity ultimately wants to install one-megawatt chargers as well. But there’s no timeline for that yet. “It will require a new set of UL tests, based on making some minor modifications to the equipment. We can quickly undertake that once we see a need in the market,” a Gravity spokesperson told InsideEVs. But for now, the company wants to “install thousands of [DC fast chargers] every year.”

“If you look at why Tesla Superchargers are easy to install, it’s because Tesla does everything by itself,” Moshe Cohen, the CEO of Gravity, told InsideEVs. “We do everything ourselves as well, we don't need installers,” Cohen added. “Previously, we tried to buy other people’s equipment and realized that it was terrible. So we’re building this stuff ourselves. We are going to have six different versions. From now on it’s going to be just deploy deploy deploy.”

https://insideevs.com/news/711108/gravity-500kw-fastest-dc-fast-charger-nyc/

Sponsored

 

[WasserGKuehlt]

Tbf, the more completely integrated a charger is, the better. (Paging @whitex to keep me honest.) These are appliances, with minimal needs for “evolving” (new features, upgrades etc.) All they need to do is handle charging/car protocols, and otherwise can be dumb proxies forwarding stuff like auth/payment requests to a backend. (I’ve argued differently a while ago, on a different thread, but there is a case to be made for a dumb “edge computing “.)

I can see why EA went about it differently- as our friend @Jonathan S. keeps pointing out, EA was set up not as a technology company, but as one for managing funds (or, more precisely, for expending a fixed capital). But for everyone else/any new network - build your own appliance, plop it down, minimal interop on well-defined standards (with failsafes).

Oh, and as for that 1MW charger - you just know you’re going to find a Bolt plugged in. (Don’t they realize their charging speed is always the same?)

 

[WasserGKuehlt]

(And before @whitex calls me really bad, I don’t mean to say that “dumb appliance” implies the firmware/hardware itself is “dumb”. Any charger would still need to implement/run a lot of complex software.)

Sponsored