The red-hot play in EVs is figuring out how to get them charged up
Big financing deals are being struck across the country to charge up electric buses and cargo trucks
One of the hottest plays in the electrification of mobility is charging. Smallish startups, big legacy companies, and private equity investors are crawling over the U.S. in a goldrush atmosphere surrounding the rise of electric vehicles. Their main advantage: hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to help cash-strapped cities, counties and states go electric.
Among them is Alphastruxure, a joint venture between The Carlyle Group and Schneider Electric. In an announcement yesterday, Alphastruxure said it will design, finance and build an electrified bus terminal in the Washington, DC suburb of Silver Spring. The terminal will contain charging infrastructure for 44 new electric public ride-on buses, which amount to a 15% slice of the county’s 300-strong bus fleet, said Chris Brown, chief of the county’s Office of Energy and Sustainability. The buses are to be delivered by 2023. The county will pay Alphastruxure about $2 million the first year, payments that will double to about $4 million a year by the end of the contract.
In signing the 25-year, multi-million-dollar contract, Montgomery officials were haunted by…
