BP Pulse announced that it plans to build in the US a series of large, EV fast-charging hubs - called Gigahubs - designed to serve ride-hail and taxi fleets near airports and high-demand locations.
The first BP Pulse Gigahub will be located at one of Hertz’s sites near Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), which does not surprise us considering that the two companies recently announced an EV charging partnership in the US market. Hertz is also quickly expanding its electric car rental fleet, which includes Tesla and Polestar models and in the future will be expanded with General Motors' models (up to 175,000).
The first project near LAX has been selected also because it's partially funded by California Energy Commission (CEC) grant ($2 million) - as part of the California Clean Transportation Program’s Charging Access for Reliable On-Demand Transportation Services initiative.
"The CEC is providing a $2 million grant award to support the proposed project near LAX, and would have bp pulse leading the installation and management of the charging infrastructure, including the use of its proprietary ‘Omega’ charge management software that optimizes the cost of charging."
According to media reports (News NCR), the first BP Pulse Gigahub might get up to 48 fast chargers over a few-year period - most likely, depending on demand, which is forecasted at 6,400 ride-hailing fleet EVs by 2027.
Jeff Nieman, Senior Vice President of Operations Initiatives at Hertz said that already more than 25,000 Uber drivers have rented EVs through Hertz to date.
BP Pulse says that its goal is to accelerate the adoption of EVs through reliable and convenient fast charging at high-demand locations. By 2030, the company would like to expand its global network to 100,000 chargers.
The company does not say how many Gigahubs will be deployed in the US, but we can guess that there is a big chance for one per every large airport/city. If each would have 5-10 chargers initially (just a guess to operate an EV fleet), we are talking about hundreds of new chargers.
There is no info about the power output, but it might be in the 150-350 kW range in order to keep the cars charged and ready for work as much as possible.
