Electrify America appears to have begun installing ultra-fast DC charging stations in at least two locations, according to entries on the charger database site PlugShare.com.
One location is at the sprawling Market of Wolfcreek shopping center east of Memphis, Tennessee at US-64 near I-40. It appears to consist of 4 dual-cable Signet chargers. It isn’t clear from the photo what connectors are supported but most likely each charger pedestal supports one CHAdeMO and one CCS plug.
A pair of Electrify America ultra-fast DC charging pedestals in Fincastle, Virginia are visible in the middle of the image.
Another location is at a corner parking area of a large rural Exxon station known as Brugh’s Mill Country Store in Fincastle, Virginia just off US-81 about 20 miles north of Roanoke.
Two ABB chargers are visible and are likely dual-cable but the angle of the photo only makes one cable visible. It’s hard to tell, but these chargers might not yet be installed in their final location and there could be others nearby that are not in the photo.
See also: Electrify America reveals new DC chargers
Electrify America has said that highway locations would have a minimum of 4 charging pedestals each and as many as 10.
The pedestals are typically dual-cabled and support a 50 kW CHAdeMO plug (while will be software upgraded to 100 kW in the future) and a 150 kW CCS plug. Some locations may also have one or more 350 kW CCS pedestals.
Categories: Charging
Electric Revs 
For Memphis Signet chargers, are you confident that they are >50kW? Have any idea if Signet makes 50kW chargers using the same cabinet as the 150kW versions?
Also, why use and encourage the “ultra-fast” marketing BS? They’re DC Fast Chargers. There’s enough confusion about DC fast charging speeds without resorting to individual manufacturer marketing terms.
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P.S. If you think 150kW is “ultra-fast”, you should try filling a car with gas!
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It’s all relative… 🙂
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I’m confident they are Electrify America chargers (although I have an email to them asking confirmation).
All highway locations are supposed to be CCS 150 kW or better.
It could be less than 150 kW if counted as a community charging plaza rather than as a highway corridor charger plaza but Memphis is not one of the 17 metro community areas. Therefore, it must be a highway stop and I-40 is close by.
As far as I can tell, this is a totally new pedestal design for Signet. Their previous design was a frumpy looking short box.
I don’t think ultra-fast is a marketing term tied to a single manufacturer. I think that’s an industry term. Is it BS? Not to future Mission E owners. These things are all relative to something else and an appropriate car plugged into one these can charge quite a bit faster than into a 50 kW “fast” charger. I don’t think using “fast” for both 125A and 350A is useful either since that is quite a difference even before 800-Volt charging comes along.
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Thanks for taking the time to write this up. I can’t really find much information on these Signet chargers on the web. Really makes me wish I had friends in the Memphis area to go out and snap a few pictures of the Machine Plate to get the specs from the devices themselves.
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Their website is:
http://www.signetsys.com/eng/main.php
However, it looks a bit out of date much like BTCPower.com (which is working now but was dead a few days ago).
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Thanks for the additional perspective on the likely Signet units.
WRT, to “ultra-fast”, I agree that better terms are needed to distinguish the capabilities. Do you think that “ultra-fast” refers to anything above 50kW (125A, 400V)? If so, what would be the distinguishing term to refer to 800V units, which will have twice the power of these 150kW units? (I think both are 350A, so the actual power multiple is dependent on actual battery voltage, ~400V vs ~800V.)
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I’ve taken ultra-fast to be anything over the old CCS spec limit of 200A. I’ve seen definitions out on the web but don’t remember where. Maybe from CharIN?
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My point exactly. There’s confusion and no agreed upon reference to distinguish the capabilities. When traveling, I don’t want to go to a 24kW site, half the capability of the 50kW units. I want to be able to distinguish those easily. The same will happen with 150kW and 350kW units. There currently seems to be about four tiers of public use DC charging capability (25, 40-50, 120-200 and 350-500kW) and I don’t think treating them as two tiers allows adequate filtering during route planning.
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This comment was intended to respond to Jeff’s last, but the nesting capabilities of the comment software leaves something to be desired…
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PlugShare needs to do a much better job of filtering for different power levels.
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Yes. at kW filter feature would be helpful. I certainly agree that when I want a 50 kW charger a 24 kW one will not do.
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I agree. That would be a great filter. Plugshare is very dependent on the users for feedback. If enough would send that suggestion to them, I’m sure they’ll seriously consider it….though it may take some doing to retroactively determine the kW rating for a lot of stations, as that currently isn’t one of the requested data fields when setting up a new station on their site. Plugshare is dependent upon users for the descriptions and data of many of the stations. Also, as station features become more complex, with different ratings for Chademo and CCS at the same station, the filtering becomes even more challenging.
Below is the link for instructions to submit suggestions and concerns.
https://recargo.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/29000012532-where-can-i-submit-suggestions-and-concerns-
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I’ve been quite the PlugShare guy in the past and still am. A couple years ago in my communication with them I brought the idea up about kW ratings for filtering and categorizing fast chargers. They said that that is something they plan to implement, so it’s just a matter of time til they do it. I’m thinking they want to be sure how they want it and how it will work best before they implement it.
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