Kempower, a Finish-based electric vehicle charging equipment manufacturer, announced that it will include the North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector as an option for all North American deliveries.
The decision was announced earlier this month, following Ford's and General Motors' announcement to use NACS, and mirrors what many other manufacturers announced in regard to NACS, which indicates a snowball effect.
In the case of Kempower, this year, the company will open a charging station production facility in Durham, North Carolina, and will start the production of National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) compliant DC chargers (eligible for public funding - see official info here).
CEO of Kempower, Tomi Ristimäki said:
“We want to offer reliable and smooth charging for all electric car drivers in North America. One of our strengths is our ability to respond quickly to customer and market expectations – we are adding NACS to our portfolio to continue to offer the best charging experience for all EV drivers across the globe.”
At the recent EVS36 exhibition in California, the company presented its modular and scalable Kempower Satellite charging system, which consists of a centralized Kempower Power Unit and up to eight individual outputs - four dual-plug satellites or eight single-plug satellites. The total DC power output is up to 600 kilowatts, and it can be dynamically distributed between the stalls (with 25 kW granularity because this is the power of a single power electronics module).
If stations are equipped with both, NACS and Combined Charging System (CCS1) plugs (and maybe a CHAdeMO unit just in case), then all new battery-electric vehicles will get charging opportunities and optimum power supply.
We truly believe that this type of station - multiple stalls, connected to a central charging unit - is the way to go in most applications. Tesla uses it on Superchargers.
Interesting is the cable management system on the Kempower satellite:
Production at the Durham facility is expected to start production by the end of 2023. The total investment at the site is expected to reach roughly $40 million over the next five years. To date, Kempower's main market was Europe.
