Electric vehicle charging startup Revel is in talks to scoop up four charging sites planned by Tesla in New York City after the Elon Musk-led company on Tuesday abruptly backed out of leases for the locations.
Tesla shocked the automotive industry Tuesday by laying off roughly 500 employees tasked with the build-out of the company’s electric vehicle charging stations. The company has quickly made moves to scale back plans for new Supercharger sites. Two people with knowledge of the situation told Crain’s that Tesla has backed out of leases for four upcoming charging locations: one planned for Maspeth and another in College Point, Queens, a site in the South Bronx and an additional location in East New York, Brooklyn.
Tesla’s new Superchargers were meant to address long wait times and skyrocketing demand for fast charging after a surge of new electric for-hire vehicles rolled onto city streets. Now competitor Revel aims to pick up where Tesla left off, and is in talks with the site owners to negotiate leases, a Revel spokesman confirmed to Crain’s.
“Tesla left some really nice sites on the table,” said Revel spokesman Robert Familiar. “Three of these locations are power ready so they’re essentially ready to go. Those kinds of sites are super rare, and we are actively looking to pursue them.”
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wildflower, a New York City-based developer focused on urban infrastructure, owns the Maspeth location, which is the sole site that still requires utility upgrades. Real estate juggernaut Related Companies owns the three remaining sites.
Tesla had planned at least 60 chargers throughout the four locations. The locations, if Revel manages to ink deals for the sites, would add dozens of new chargers to the startup’s network.
Revel currently operates three public fast-charging stations with more than 50 chargers
in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Williamsburg, Brooklyn and in Long Island City, Queens, and has expansion plans in the works for a handful of other city locations. The locations of Tesla’s planned Supercharger sites dovetail with the company’s goals, Familiar added.
“These are all outer borough sites in neighborhoods convenient for rideshare drivers,” he said “We are interested because the locations and our missions align.”
Over the past year, Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has doubled down on electric vehicles.
In October, the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission began accepting an unrestricted number of new license plates for electric vehicles. The permits were designed to support the city’s Green Rides Initiative, which requires New York’s fleet of roughly 81,000 Uber and Lyft vehicles to convert to zero-emission or wheelchair-accessible rides by 2030.
City data shows that by early February more than 9,500 licenses for electric for-hire vehicles were in circulation — roughly 7,800 of which, or 82%, were issued over the last year. The Adams administration has since emphasized the need to rapidly expand New York’s network of chargers to support taxi drivers along with private citizens making the switch to electric.
TLC press secretary Jason Kersten said the agency was disappointed to learn of Tesla walking back its plans for New York City chargers, but is hopeful that other companies will step up.
“It’s never great to hear about charger plans being canceled, but Tesla is not the only game in town,” Kersten told Crain’s in an emailed statement. “One provider backing out of a lease is a great opportunity for another to snap it up, especially if a site is power ready.”
Caroline Spivack , 2024-05-01 18:10:25
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