Here's a look at the hard work of planning, site selection and city approvals - all before the first shovel hits the ground.
South East Michigan is home to IONNA founders GM, Stellantis North America, and major research centers for Toyota and Hyundai Group.
I’ve generally been pretty flexible about charging options on road trips but kids have changed that. Honestly, my kids’ bladders dictate when we stop more than the charge on the car.
With kids I like to plan my route so I know where I need to charge and to have an idea how much it will cost to charge. The ABRP has really helped with that (even if a lot of the price data is missing). But if there isn’t a bathroom (or if it’s too gross for my kids) we have to make an extra stop somewhere along the way. On my recent trip we stopped at an Ionna adjacent to a Sheetz. My kids were able to use a clean bathroom, get a snack, and run around in the grass while the car charged. It was such a pleasant experience I changed my plan and we took on extra charge so we could make it to another Ionna.
I’ve already started planning out my next road trip with only Ionna chargers.
Having well lit covered spots with a squeegee are simple but meaningful amenities that everyone else seems to ignore. Clean bathrooms are next level!
I notice this 6 charger station going up in Renton along Rainier Avenue at South Second Street. Looks like 2 plugs per charger. So far, it doesn't look like they will put in a canopy.
Hopefully this rechargery will be commissioned soon! So good to see the beginnings of DC charging competition in this town. This site is much closer to my parents' than the EA, which for some reason always has a queue when I need it.
I had a Turo rental Model S in Wisconsin this weekend. I had planned to use the two Ionnas in Janesville and Baraboo, but after three failed attempts in Baraboo I threw up my hands and went to the Superchargers across the street for 15 cents a kWh more.
I tried using my ChargePoint account on the app on two dispensers, then thought maybe it was looking for my Ioniq 5 and moved to a third dispenser and tried my credit card, but got the same result, communication failure. I was able to supercharge with the owner’s plug and play - is there something about that or some other problem that would prevent charging with Ionna? It was annoying, would have been more so if I’d had more driving to do.
Better? There we no cars on these side spots when I pulled in this time. Trailer is fully inside the edges of the parking line now!
I visited my trusty CircleK EV charging station… and it was down due to being converted into an IONNA charging stations.
Is there an ETA when will it be up and running?
Before setting off on your road trip, do you plan every charging stop in advance, or do you figure them out as you go?
We like to call it Team "Mapped Out" vs Team "Go With the Flow," but there are no wrong answers here.
Whether you're type A or type B when it comes to travel, you can rest assured that IONNA Rechargeries have your back with charging at just $0.39/kWh or lower.
Just wasn’t a trailer friendly location - the long cables made a reach around possible. There was plenty of room to drive around the rear of my caboose. That’s said - plug and charge worked flawlessly,
I noticed this screen on an IONNA charger recently, in a video posted by Scott Explains on August 2nd.
What is the "Autocharge" option for? Is IONNA adding an option to sign up for the same Autocharge protocol that EVgo uses?
Obviously Ionna has the stats for their users and I'm just an internet nobody, but as we enter MY27, there are going to be virtually no new EVs for sale that use the CCS plug.
Looking at the Ionna partners:
And then you have Ford (new Fathom truck), Subaru (all vehicles), Rivian (all vehicles), Nissan (all vehicles), Volvo (EX60, EX50), and Porsche (Cayenne Electric), Lucid (Gravity) and Tesla (all vehicles) all in the mix.
By my count, the only remaining CCS models are Lucid Air, Audi (all models), VW ID. Buzz, Ford Mach-E (TBD), Volvo EX90 (TBD), BMW i4 & i7, Mercedes EQB, EQE, EQS, and Porsche Macan & Taycan.
So new vehicles shipping with NACS cover like 90+% of sales volume for MY27. Seems like a miss to be building out a new charge network that is 60-40 CCS to NACS. Would it not be better to flip that to something like 60-40 or 80-20 NACS to CCS and encourage CCS drivers to carry an adapter?
Otherwise, you are going to need almost all drivers to carry an adapter. Imagine pulling up to an Ionna station in your new R2 next year and having to wait in line for one of the 4 NACS plugs while half of the CCS stalls sit empty.
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