Blink Charging, an electric vehicle charger manufacturer, will be deploying EV chargers at General Motors dealerships across the U.S. and Canada, according to the company. The startup will be teaming up with facility solutions provider ABM to supply its new IQ 200 Level 2 chargers to GM.
While Blink is by no means a small EV charging company, it has historically had a smaller market share compared to companies like Chargepoint, EVBox, Tesla and even Shell. Blink said it has around 30,000 EV chargers set up across 13 countries, so this deal with GM might help the company as it aims to scale even bigger and gain more brand recognition.
This isn’t GM’s first deal with Blink, though. Last April, GM unveiled a plan to integrate the public charge plugs of seven different charging companies — including Blink, ChargePoint, EV Connect, EVgo, FLO, Greenlots and SemaConnect — into the GM mobile app so that customers could easily find a place to refuel. Now, as GM plans to scale up its EV production to the point of taking market share from Tesla, it looks like it’s taking Blink with it.
After receiving its first order from GM in May 2021, Blink has already started shipping chargers to certain GM dealerships via ABM, which provides EV installations, and is at the ready with additional charging stations as needed over the next several months, according to the company. There are no target charging station amounts for this agreement, nor is there a date for widespread deployment, because the purchase and installation are on a dealer-by-dealer basis. So far, Blink has seen “nearly 1,000 orders from GM dealers totaling 1,505 EV chargers,” according to a spokesperson for the company.
The deal with GM does not involve an investment from the automaker, says Blink. GM dealers are purchasing Blink outright through their procurement partner, ABM, which gives GM dealers equipment purchase rates.
Blink’s IQ 200 chargers are designed for fleets and built with local load management that can allow for up to 20 chargers on a single shared circuit without overwhelming the power grid. The 80-amp chargers provide fast Level 2 charging on a 100-amp circuit and get up to 65 miles of charge per hour with an output of 19.2 kW. It can be deployed in a wall mount, pole mount or pedestal mount.
At CES this year, Blink showed off its next gen MQ 200 Level 2 chargers, which will be available by the end of the first quarter. Blink did not respond to a request for information as to whether GM would be getting these new chargers when they’re ready to go to market. The MQ 200s are faster and smarter, with software that connects Blink chargers to the cloud and to the new Blink Fleet Management Portal, which would be ideal for dealership operations.
Update: This article has been updated to reflect new information from Blink Charging.
Comment