Revel reemerges in San Francisco with its first EV fast chargers on West Coast
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Mayor Daniel Lurie participates in a ribbon-cutting ceremony of Revel's first fast charging hub on the West Coast. Photo: Nadia Lopez/Axios.
Revel, a New-York based EV charging startup, launched its first network of high-speed chargers in San Francisco on Monday, with plans to expand rapidly across the Bay Area by the end of the year.
Why it matters: Building a robust network of public EV chargers is crucial to helping San Francisco meet its ambitious climate goals of electrifying 25% of all private vehicles by 2030 and 100% by 2040. The city also hopes to reach net-zero carbon emissions by that year.
Driving the news: The company — mostly known in the city for its discontinued electric moped service — opened its first West Coast-based EV charging hub in the city's Mission District with 12 publicly-available DC-fast chargers.
Between the lines: San Francisco has one of the highest EV ownership rates in the U.S, with more than 35% of new vehicle sales being electric in 2024. Nationwide, the average hovers around 8%.
What they're saying: "Our goal is to build urban fast charging that all EV drivers can rely on," Paul Suhey, Revel's co-founder and COO, said at Monday's ribbon-cutting ceremony.
- "San Francisco is open for business and I'm excited to be here with Revel, a company that shares our vision to electrify transport and reduce emissions in our city," Mayor Daniel Lurie said, who added that the chargers will help speed up adoption of EV ownership.
How it works: Each charger has a 320 kW capacity, with the ability to charge a car to about 80% in about 20 minutes to an hour.
- Charging prices start at 59 cents a kilowatt hour.
The big picture: The company's announcement follows a two-year hiatus in San Francisco since 2023 after which it re-pivoted its business towards building out large public fast-charging networks.
- Revel currently operates 100 EV chargers in New York.
By the numbers: The city currently has 1,152 public EV chargers with plans to expand to at least 1,750 by 2030, according to Joseph Piasecki, a spokesperson at the San Francisco Environment Department.
- 962 of those are slower level two chargers, while the remaining 190 are DC fast chargers. That means the city will need to build 158 more fast chargers and 450 more level two chargers to get to the 2030 goal, Piasecki added.
- In total, SF has more than 3,400 public and shared private chargers, according to state estimates.
What's next: The company plans on building six more charging stations across the Bay Area this year, with South San Francisco, Oakland and downtown San Francisco each receiving two.
- The goal is to build 125 new chargers by the end of 2025, said Jake Potent, the company's vice president of corporate affairs.
If you go: The new hub is open to the public 24/7 at 199 Erie St.