Earlier this year I received a nice offer regarding my new Polestar 2 – a company named Electrify America had joined with Polestar to offer free charging for the first 30 minutes of charge time for 2 years. Electrify America’s network is DC Fast Charging, so that’s a pretty nice offer given that you can get a substantial “fill-up” within those 30 minutes. I signed up and added the app to my phone, but didn’t give it much more thought; I figured this was a way for Electrify America to get more customers and Polestar to be able to offer a perk for new customers.
And while that may be true, there is a little more to the story. It turns out that Electrify America is owned by Volkswagen, and was established by VW in the wake of their emissions cheating scandal from a few years back. Yesterday the German industrial giant Siemens said that they are investing more than $100 million in Electrify America, as they seek to expand into the electrification market. That gives VW a partner with impressive resources as they build out this charging network, a network which was created to offset past misdeeds, and which ends up being a creative and innovative way to accomplish this goal.