Move over, Tesla; there's a new EV charging leader in town.
Google Ventures-backed EV charging startup Gravity just opened its first public charging location, which the company claims will provide what Green Car Reports has labeled the "fastest EV charging in America."
The location is in a parking garage on West 42nd Street in Manhattan, and it sports 24 charging stalls that can deliver a peak power rate of 500 kilowatts. That kind of power can add 200 miles of range in just five minutes or 2,400 miles across an hour of charging — which would get you from New York to Phoenix.
We should mention that most EVs can't handle anywhere near a 500 kW rate while charging, and no current EV battery could go 2,400 miles on a single charge. However, that much power just means that your car will charge as fast as possible on these chargers, and the system is set up to handle advances in EV battery technology.
The new spot has on-site attendants seven days a week and a tap-and-pay interface with a convenient overhead charger cable setup.
At this point, Tesla's Supercharger network is the country's fastest, most expansive network. Charging times and range anxiety are two of the main reasons keeping people from switching to an EV, so adding more fast chargers that can have you in and out as quickly as a car filling up at a gas station is vital to continue the migration to electric vehicles.
While Tesla is miles ahead of the charging competition, Gravity's recent support from Google Ventures, which formally operates under the name GV, will allow the charging startup to quickly expand its network.
"If you look at how many (Tesla) Superchargers are added per year, we can add that many or more to grow our network," Gravity's CEO Moshe Cohen told Reuters. "There's nothing blocking that."
Mass EV adoption is one of the most significant ways to reduce air pollution. A typical gas-powered car produces over 10,000 pounds of carbon pollution yearly. Meanwhile, passenger vehicles spew out around 3.3 billion tons of toxic carbon dioxide worldwide per year.
Carbon dioxide and other planet-warming gases are the key drivers behind our drastically changing climate. As these gases act like a blanket warming our planet, the dramatically rising temperature is causing extreme weather events around the globe. Powerful storms, severe droughts, out-of-control wildfires, intense flooding, and other events are wreaking havoc on our lives, devastating our food supply, and endangering wildlife.
Progress made by Gravity, Tesla, Rivian, and other companies is crucial to reducing air pollution. Taking steps like buying an EV, using public transportation, or riding a bike are all excellent ways to help cool down our planet.
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