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GM underway with plan to build U.S. electric-vehicle charging infrastructure

  • Magazine Article
  • 19AUTP09_10
Published September 01, 2019 by SAE International in United States
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  • English

Tesla has its coveted Supercharger network of high-voltage fast chargers, but despite a widely-discussed goal of contributing to a future with zero vehicle emissions, Mike Abelson, General Motors' vice president of EV infrastructure, admitted at the 2019 CAR Management Briefing Seminars conference that his company doesn't “wish to spend our capital to build (DC) fast chargers-we wish to spend our capital to build more electric vehicles.”

Abelson said an extensive and robust public EV charging network-one presumably populated mostly with high-voltage, direct-current fast chargers-is “the key to convince people the EV really can be their primary vehicle.” The company's VP of EV infrastructure (a relatively new position at GM, incidentally) said the nation still doesn't have nearly enough so-called “enroute” charging, citing the conference's northern-Michigan locale as an example. Abelson showed a map of the state's uppermost region that indicated not a single DC fast-charger to accommodate the company's Chevy Bolt, the only EV currently sold by GM.