First 24/7 Manhattan EV fast-charging site vies for Uber drivers

Revel on Thursday opened what the company claims is New York City’s first electric vehicle fast-charging site open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Located at Pier 36 in the Lower East Side section of New York’s Manhattan borough, the site features 10 320-kw DC fast-chargers from Finnish company Kempower, according to a Revel press release. The site, which brings Revel’s total number of New York City fast chargers to 64, is off FDR Drive, the main highway running along the east side of Manhattan.

Revel claims the 320-kw chargers “will offer the fastest charging experience in New York City,” but a Manhattan site opened by Gravity earlier this year west of the Revel location claims to provide charging at up to 500 kw.

While the Gravity site may see more mixed use, the Revel fast-charging site at Pier 36 will likely be used primarily used by ridesharing drivers, both from Revel’s own service and Uber. Earlier this year, Revel and Uber launched a partnership that gives Uber drivers a 25% discount at Revel chargers, while Uber guarantees a minimal rate of utilization at existing and future Revel charging sites.

Revel has had a confusing trajectory, shifting from electric mopeds under its original iteration five years ago to rideshare a couple years ago and now earlier this year just charging. The company now aims to expand its New York City charging network to 300 chargers by the end of 2025, including a 60-charger site in the borough of Queens and a 48-charger site at LaGuardia Airport, also located in Queens.

Revel rideshare service

Revel claims utilization of its charging sites has increased tenfold in the last year as a result of New York City’s Green Rides initiative, which aims to make the city’s rideshare fleet fully electric by 2030. Uber also targets all-electric rides wherever it operates by that year.

The opening of Revel’s new fast-charging site follows an announcement by New York’s largest parking operator just this past month of plans to equip 5,000 parking spots with Level 2 charging. These slower chargers will likely prove more useful for residents’ private cars rather than rideshare vehicles, though.

New York City had electric taxis in the ’90s—the 1890s, that is—but with last decade’s taxi of tomorrow push shunning EVs, it’s been a surprisingly long adoption curve for one of America’s densest cities. More public fast chargers could lay the groundwork for making the fleet of yellow cabs greener.