Walter tours Ionna's new driver's lounge at the Forest Park, Georgia station, immediately off I-75 and adjacent to Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport. The station runs Alpitronic hyperchargers under a canopy. Inside the lounge: Corian countertops, commercial-grade carpet, swivel seating with solid back support, outlet-equipped workstation counters, drinking fountains, vending machines with Red Bull, and air conditioning that was actively running. Walter's take: better than the BP lounge at LAX, and the furniture holds up in actual use, not just on camera. Local viewer Scott Owens joined for the walkthrough.
The weekly DC fast charging roundup starts in Wisconsin, where Kwik Trip's Kwik Charge network opened five stations on April 1st, jumping from 10 to 15 in Wisconsin plus one in Minnesota for 16 total. Jay Williams of the Wisconsin EV YouTube channel joined to walk through the build. Kwik Charge stations are funded partly through the federal NEVI program and run four stalls per site with chargers capable of up to 400 kW, though NEVI certification requires 150 kW minimum. Most sites have 750 kVA transformers. Each charger has both a CCS and an NACS cable, though only one works at a time per unit. An open house is scheduled at Kwik Trip #184 at 2001 Golf Road, Pewaukee, Wisconsin on Sunday, April 26th, noon to 2 p.m., hosted by Wisconsin Clean Cities.
Pilot Flying J was spotted shutting down multiple existing charging stations, not abandoning them but expanding them. Several locations that opened with four stalls are being upgraded with additional hardware, starting with a location on Interstate 77 and 81 in Wytheville, Virginia. This appears to be happening at multiple locations in their network.
Tesla Supercharger opened 10 new stations and two Tesla Supercharger for Business locations. Red-E opened six stations in the week, including two at Aldi locations. Electrify America added three stations. ChargePoint opened two notably large stations in California, one with 16 stalls in Redding and one with 10 stalls in Visalia, both suspected to be part of a California partnership with In-N-Out Burger. Walmart opened seven new charging stations across Texas, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and New Jersey.
BYD demonstrated its flash charger in Europe at an off-site event, with William from Out of Spec Roaming attending. The flash charger pulled from battery storage rather than the grid directly, allowing it to be deployed anywhere. The demo car went from a low state of charge to 97% in under 10 minutes. BYD rates the system at up to 1.5 megawatts peak. A separate video covering that demo is available on the Out of Spec Roaming channel.