New York hands its curbside charging buildout to a Brooklyn startup

New York City has 88 public curbside charging points. That is not a typo. For a city where about half of car owners park on the street, the whole curbside network would fit in a single suburban mall parking lot. The city now plans to raise that to nearly 700 over three years, and it has picked Brooklyn startup it's electric to build the chargers.

If you drive an EV in the city without a driveway, or you are thinking about getting one, here is what is coming, where it goes first and what is still undecided.

NYC DOT announced the expansion on August 4. It will add 600 charging points to the PlugNYC network across all five boroughs. The first neighborhoods are Soundview and Unionport in the Bronx; Rego Park, Forest Hills and Far Rockaway in Queens; Red Hook, Carroll Gardens and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn; the Upper West Side and Washington Heights in Manhattan; and Stapleton on Staten Island. The agency picked areas with dense housing, little off-street parking, lots of drivers licensed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission, and low- and moderate-income communities where private charging companies have invested little. Residents can comment on proposed sites through DOT's project portal.

Each site will have at least two charger posts with two plugs each, so a minimum of four charging points. Where it is practical, crews will also install wiring for e-bike charging, electrified bike-share docks or cargo-bike hubs, so the sidewalk only has to be dug up once.

On September 15, it's electric said the city and the New York Power Authority had selected it to replace the pilot hardware and build out the permanent network. Heatmap reported that the contract is worth $60.2 million and covers five years of operation as well as installation. According to Heatmap, the first phase replaces the existing pilot chargers by early 2027.

Demand is already there. DOT says the current 88 points are occupied more than 70% of the time, close to 99% at some locations, and that they are delivering energy for most of that occupied time. The Next Web reported that the 2021 pilot started with 120 ports. The ones still working are in constant use.

Much of that demand comes from ride-hail drivers. The city's Green Rides rule requires every TLC-licensed Uber and Lyft trip to be electric or wheelchair-accessible by 2030. TLC Commissioner Midori Valdivia said drivers are "now conducting 3 million EV trips a month". it's electric says New York has more than 80,000 rideshare drivers, and that most of them park on the street.

it's electric co-founder Tiya Gordon told Heatmap that the lack of charging costs these drivers income. "They're losing a lot of their income in driving to the limited number of public fast charging stations in New York City — because there's just two in Brooklyn, two in Manhattan, and a few at the airports," she said. She also compared the city with London: "London has around 27,000 curbside EV chargers while New York City has just 88."

Uber's Josh Gold said: "Rideshare drivers cover significantly more miles than the average motorist, so expanding charging where they actually need it can deliver outsized benefits for air quality while strengthening the city's charging network for everyone."

These are Level 2 chargers, which are slow. They make sense when a car sits overnight in front of your building, and they are the wrong tool when you need 200 miles quickly. Gordon's case is that drivers can charge off-shift at the curb instead of spending working hours driving to a fast charger. The city is also adding faster options elsewhere. The Next Web reported plans for 92 DC fast-charging points and 180 more Level 2 plugs at municipal parking facilities.

Prices have not been set. DOT will control what drivers pay. Charging will be billed per kilowatt-hour, and drivers can pay through several apps or by tapping a credit card. The city says prices will be kept affordable while encouraging drivers to move their cars once they are charged. That points toward some form of idle fee or time-based pricing, although DOT has not said which. Heatmap noted that the pilot used time-differentiated rates to push charging into off-peak hours.

A curbside plug is also not a reserved space. With four points per site and tens of thousands of drivers in the target neighborhoods, the rollout will add capacity, but it will not guarantee anyone a plug on their block.

Boyce Technologies, which builds the subway's Help Point intercoms, will manufacture the chargers in Long Island City. Maverick Corporation is handling engineering and construction, and SWTCH Energy supplies the software. it's electric is best known for chargers that draw spare electricity from nearby buildings instead of needing a new utility connection. Heatmap reported, however, that the first New York tranche will use conventional utility-connected hardware, and that DOT may consider the building-power design in later phases.

it's electric co-founder and CEO Nathan King described what he wants the network to become: "Just as fire hydrants are on every street, our vision is for EV chargers to become that normal - infrastructure New York's kids simply grow up with."

That is a long way from 88 plugs. Nearly 700 is still a small number next to London, but for drivers in Soundview or Stapleton, a plug on their own street would be a real improvement.