EVgo, Electrify America partner for cross-company charging station use
One account will grant access to both services.
Hooray for more simplicity!
Drivers are used to stopping at any fuel station, selecting a fuel grade and filling up. For electric car owners, things are different when it comes to public charging. Each company typically requires a separate account with a different member card to scan and load funds onto. It's frustrating, to say the least.
However, Electrify America continues to help consolidate things and announced in a Thursday release that one account will provide access to both Electrify America charging stations and EVgo units. The news follows a similar agreement between Electrify America and ChargePoint -- another major charging station company in the US.
The synergies are welcome considering charging stations aren't quite like a typical fuel pump. EV owners will not need to create a separate account, thus foregoing the need for yet another membership ID, registration and payment method. Between both companies, the agreement unlocks 3,000 DC fast chargers and 1,000 standard charging stations across the country.
The agreement still isn't as simple as paying with a credit card on the spot (some companies will allow payments over the phone to unlock a station) but it's a welcome streamlining in an industry that many automakers will lean on heavily in the years to come. Aside from EVgo and ChargePoint, Electrify America also has cross-company charging agreements with Greenlots, Sema Connect and EV Connect. Most of the latter companies only provide access to Level 2 charging stations and not fast chargers. For a pure battery-electric car, DC fast charging remains the way to go.
Electrify America said it hopes more agreements like these will continue as EV adoption increases. For the sake of simplicity, we do too.
