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• Ionna is investing millions of dollars in California to expand its U.S. public fast charger footprint.
• California’s EV adoption reached a new record in the third quarter.
• The consortium’s EV charging stations are located at sites with amenities such as restaurants and driver lounges.

Ionna, the public fast-charging consortium backed by eight major automakers including General Motors, Stellantis and Toyota, said Thursday it will increase its investment in California over the next three years to serve the state’s growing number of EV owners.

The joint venture plans to invest $250 million in California through 2029, and has now contracted more than 1,000 charging bays there. That means California will account for nearly a quarter of Ionna’s planned 4,000 chargers nationwide, which is unsurprising for the country’s largest EV market, where a record 29.1% of new cars sold in the third quarter were electric.

Reliable, high-speed charging stations with basic amenities like food, restrooms and a place to decompress or work are less common but growing in the U.S. Ionna’s whole business model focuses on placing stations where drivers already tend to stop, including chains like Wawa and Sheetz. In some locations, it’s also building its own flagship “rechargeries” with pet-friendly lounges, Wi-Fi, bathrooms and vending machines.

That said, “contracted” sites mean the actual deployment of the chargers could still be months or years away. These are locations where the company may have already signed agreements with site hosts like shopping centers or gas stations, but construction may not have started yet due to local permitting processes and coordination with utility companies.

Even so, Ionna’s pace suggests the rollout may move faster than expected. Despite the usual bottlenecks in permitting and utility hookups, the company has expanded quickly: less than a year after opening its first Rechargery in Apex, North Carolina, it now operates 40 stations with 384 charging ports nationwide, according to the Alternative Fuels Data Center.

I tested one of Ionna’s newer stations in Scranton, Pennsylvania, this summer, and it was the most seamless charging stop I’ve had this year. The 400-kilowatt chargers were located within a Sheetz gas station, with good lighting, clean restrooms and plenty of food options. Charging the 2026 BMW iX I was driving at the time was as simple as checking out at a shopping mall. I just tapped my card, plugged the cable in, and 15 minutes later, I had enough range added to get back on the road.

That experience is improving as five of the eight founding automakers now support plug and charge access at Ionna stations. Drivers of electric BMW, General Motors, Hyundai, Kia and Mercedes models can simply plug in without handling payment or authentication. Ionna says Ford and Rivian vehicles now get plug-and-charge access as well.

Even though EV sales may continue to grow unevenly with the rollback of the tax credits and end of the fuel economy rules, rest assured that the infrastructure to support them is growing stronger. With more such stations coming online every week, even your grandparents can soon become bona fide EV roadtrippers.

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