EVgo Opens First Tesla Supercharger Station, a 12-Stall Site in Chicago
EVgo opened its first station built on Tesla Supercharger hardware, 12 stalls in Chicago for NACS and CCS cars. What it means for EV drivers.
EVgo has opened its first charging station built with Tesla Supercharger hardware, a 12-stall site in Chicago, the company announced. EVgo said hundreds more Supercharger stalls will follow across the country, InsideEVs reported.
The Chicago stalls work with cars that use either the North American Charging Standard (NACS) plug or the older CCS plug. Tesla’s Magic Dock, an adapter built into the charger, handles the CCS connection.
What it means for EV drivers
Owners of most electric cars can use the new stalls. Drivers with NACS ports plug in directly, and drivers of cars with CCS ports use the Magic Dock. That matters during the current transition, when some models on the road use one plug and newer ones use the other.
Tesla owners get an extra benefit. EVgo’s Supercharger sites show up in Tesla’s in-car navigation, according to InsideEVs. If the “third-party charging” option is turned on in the navigation app, a Tesla driver can route to an EVgo site and charge much as they would at a Tesla-run station.
The hardware is Tesla’s V4 Supercharging cabinet, which Tesla sells to any commercial customer. It can deliver up to 500 kW. Tesla says its network has 99% uptime, and in a recent survey of EV drivers cited by InsideEVs, EVgo ranked second for reliability behind Tesla.
Where the next stations go
The first group of EVgo stations with Tesla hardware will be built at grocery stores and shopping centers owned by Regency Centers, a real estate company that has worked with EVgo for years. Regency already planned 400 more charging stalls with EVgo.
The partners gave a reason for starting in Illinois: EV registrations there grew 60% over the past two years, according to the report.
“Deploying our first EVgo Supercharger marks an important milestone,” EVgo CEO Badar Khan said, adding that it supports the industry’s shift to NACS.
EVgo’s wider NACS plan
Separate from the Supercharger stalls, EVgo says it is on track to reach 500 charging stations with NACS plugs nationwide. Over the next two years, the company wants every existing station it built after 2023 to have at least one NACS connector.
The move follows a broader change in how Tesla does business. The NACS plug started as a Tesla design and is now the standard port on many new electric cars. After SAE certified the plug’s shape, other charger makers added it to their equipment, so Tesla is no longer the only company with hardware that charges NACS cars natively. Tesla now also sells its charging cabinets to rival networks such as EVgo.
What to watch
EVgo did not give dates or a full list of cities for the next Supercharger sites in its announcement. Drivers can watch for new locations to appear in EVgo’s app and, for Tesla owners, in the car’s navigation once third-party charging is enabled.
