carys98
Well-known member
- First Name
- Cary
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2022
- Threads
- 24
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- 625
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- 920
- Location
- Raleigh, NC
- Vehicles
- 2023 Lightning Lariat SR
- Thread starter
- #1
Ionna is a new joint venture between 8 car makers including GM, Mercedes, Hyundai, Kia, Stellantis, Honda, Toyota, and BMW. When they announced the startup in February they said they planned to roll out 30,000 chargers by 2030. At the time is sounded like a stretch but after attending the soft opening of their first location on Thursday they just might pull it off.
Ionna is branding their sites “Rechargeries” and the first location is in Apex, NC. Apex is a formerly small town that is now a suburb of Raleigh. The Apex site is located in an old gas station near the downtown area. They have installed 5 Alpitronic 400kW units, each equipped with two ports. These units are capable of 1000V up to 600A on each cable so they are better at power sharing than units that are current limited. I shared a charger with a Hummer and since I was close to 80% I was only pulling about 80 kW and he was able to pull about 250 kW. When I unplugged he went up to about 275. There are 4 NACS cables and 6 CCS. They are located under a canopy but there aren’t any pull throughs.
On Thursday they partnered with Kyle Conner’s Out of Spec group to host a Cars & Coffee. Part of the goal was to stress test the site so they had people sign up for 20 minute charge sessions. They charged 2 cents a kWh so that they could test the whole system all the way through the back end payment processing. They kept all 10 stalls full for the whole 5 hours and they probably charged around 150 vehicles. It seemed to go flawlessly except for about 10 minutes when one charger went down. The Ionna and Alpitronic folks jumped on it and after a reset it came back online. It was apparently heat related.
The charging experience was awesome. They plan to have an app in the future but for now you pay on a credit card terminal just like a gas station. There is a charging detail screen that lists all the relevant charge parameters and displays a charge curve. They are plug and charge capable but so far it only works with BMW and Mercedes (if I remember correctly). Hopefully Ford will work with them to add them to the Blue Oval network. The cables are very long but their cable management system is the best I’ve seen. The cable is supported from above which takes most of the weight off. If you need extra length an arm swings out. You can take the cable across the vehicle and it will be held in the air, not touching your truck. I could reach the charge port on the Lightning from either side of the charger, whether I backed in or pulled in forward.
The old gas station building has been converted into a lounge. The building was a traditional mid-20th century service station. There is an office section and then two service bays with garage doors. The office section has been turned into a lounge with vending machines and seating and a set of restrooms. It will be open 24 hours a day. The service bay has a counter that will be operated by a local bakery offering sandwiches, pastries, and coffee. There is additional seating in this area plus two small conference rooms that you can reserve to work in. There is also a video game machine on the wall that has a bunch of retro games like Pac-Man and Galaga. Ionna plans to partner with local operators to do something similar in most of their sites. The service bay area will be open during normal business hours. The old canopy where there were 2 pumps is still there and they have additional outdoor seating there. It’s possible they could add a pull through charger in that area in the future.
They broke ground on this site just over two months ago and plan to go live on 12/27. Apex was one of the original 6 sites and after the event they announced that 4 additional sites were already under construction. These guys aren‘t messing around like EA does. They have also partnered with Sheetz to build at least 50 sites. I’m looking forward to seeing these pop up along the highway.
I made a short video located here: Here are some images from the day.
Ionna is branding their sites “Rechargeries” and the first location is in Apex, NC. Apex is a formerly small town that is now a suburb of Raleigh. The Apex site is located in an old gas station near the downtown area. They have installed 5 Alpitronic 400kW units, each equipped with two ports. These units are capable of 1000V up to 600A on each cable so they are better at power sharing than units that are current limited. I shared a charger with a Hummer and since I was close to 80% I was only pulling about 80 kW and he was able to pull about 250 kW. When I unplugged he went up to about 275. There are 4 NACS cables and 6 CCS. They are located under a canopy but there aren’t any pull throughs.
On Thursday they partnered with Kyle Conner’s Out of Spec group to host a Cars & Coffee. Part of the goal was to stress test the site so they had people sign up for 20 minute charge sessions. They charged 2 cents a kWh so that they could test the whole system all the way through the back end payment processing. They kept all 10 stalls full for the whole 5 hours and they probably charged around 150 vehicles. It seemed to go flawlessly except for about 10 minutes when one charger went down. The Ionna and Alpitronic folks jumped on it and after a reset it came back online. It was apparently heat related.
The charging experience was awesome. They plan to have an app in the future but for now you pay on a credit card terminal just like a gas station. There is a charging detail screen that lists all the relevant charge parameters and displays a charge curve. They are plug and charge capable but so far it only works with BMW and Mercedes (if I remember correctly). Hopefully Ford will work with them to add them to the Blue Oval network. The cables are very long but their cable management system is the best I’ve seen. The cable is supported from above which takes most of the weight off. If you need extra length an arm swings out. You can take the cable across the vehicle and it will be held in the air, not touching your truck. I could reach the charge port on the Lightning from either side of the charger, whether I backed in or pulled in forward.
The old gas station building has been converted into a lounge. The building was a traditional mid-20th century service station. There is an office section and then two service bays with garage doors. The office section has been turned into a lounge with vending machines and seating and a set of restrooms. It will be open 24 hours a day. The service bay has a counter that will be operated by a local bakery offering sandwiches, pastries, and coffee. There is additional seating in this area plus two small conference rooms that you can reserve to work in. There is also a video game machine on the wall that has a bunch of retro games like Pac-Man and Galaga. Ionna plans to partner with local operators to do something similar in most of their sites. The service bay area will be open during normal business hours. The old canopy where there were 2 pumps is still there and they have additional outdoor seating there. It’s possible they could add a pull through charger in that area in the future.
They broke ground on this site just over two months ago and plan to go live on 12/27. Apex was one of the original 6 sites and after the event they announced that 4 additional sites were already under construction. These guys aren‘t messing around like EA does. They have also partnered with Sheetz to build at least 50 sites. I’m looking forward to seeing these pop up along the highway.
I made a short video located here: Here are some images from the day.
Will be curious to see how viable the Apex location is as it's away from i-40/95 so it'll get mostly local traffic unless you happen to be traveling on US64/1 or 540.
