• EVPowerPulse
  • Posts
  • #59: Charging infrastructure expanding at record pace

#59: Charging infrastructure expanding at record pace

Charger speed and reliability are increasing, DOT R&T nominee moves ahead, fleet payment software scales

Author

Steve Taylor
October 25, 2025

The Business and Policy of Charging Infrastructure

The 3 big stories

  • Paren CEO, Florent Breton, shares insights from their Q3 Industry report

  • Seval Oz’s nomination to be Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Research & Technology clears first Senate hurdle

  • Rightcharge raises £1.6M to streamline fleet charging reimbursement

Plus, featured jobs and news.

Steve

Industry News

Paren’s latest State of the U.S. Fast Charging Industry Report: Q3 2025 shows the national network continuing to expand and mature. Utilization rates rebounded across most states, reliability increased nationwide, and pricing held within a narrow range. 

The findings point to a more stable and regionally balanced charging landscape.

With a nationwide average of 16.7% in Q3 2025, fast-charger utilization increased in 45 states, supported by summer road-trip demand and stronger corridor coverage. Maine, Montana, and New York saw the highest gains, while the District of Columbia posted the steepest decline as seasonal travel patterns shifted.

Florent’s take

Deployment growth slowed slightly, consistent with 2024 quarterly trends and we expect a rise in Q4 to meet or beat our projection of 16,700 ports for calendar 2025. 

Operators added 699 new stations (down 12% from Q2) and 4,061 new ports (down 7.7%), bringing the cumulative total to 64,486 DCFC ports nationwide. 

Similar to 2024, Q3’s moderation likely reflects summer construction pauses and project phasing, with momentum expected to pick up again in Q4 as networks work to meet deployment commitments.

Average pricing edged up to $0.49 per kWh nationwide. Most states remained between $0.48 and $0.54, though Hawaii ($0.85) and Nebraska ($0.42) marked the extremes. 

Price changes were modest overall, with most states moving just one to two cents from the prior quarter.

As reliability improves and coverage gaps close, the focus is shifting toward utilization efficiency, competitive pricing strategies, and the quality of driver experience — the next phase in fast-charging network maturity.

Policymaker Spotlight

Seval Oz, President Trump’s nominee to be the Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Research & Technology, cleared an important Senate hurdle this week.  On Tuesday, October 21, the Senate Commerce Committee favorably reported out her nomination.  She now moves to the full Senate for a final confirmation vote. 

Oz has a deep background in automotive technology and innovation, particularly in the autonomous vehicle space.  From 2011 to 2014, she served as Head of Global Strategic Partnerships for Google X’s Self-Driving Car Program (which later became Waymo). From 2014 to 2018, she served as CEO of the intelligent transportation systems business of Continental AG (specifically its ITS division), where she led advancement of connected vehicle technologies. From 2017 to 2018, she was CEO and founding partner of Aurima, Inc., a startup developing AI-powered multi-sensor awareness platforms for autonomous vehicles.

During her Senate testimony in July, she advocated for a national framework for transportation technologies (including autonomous and connected vehicles), rather than a patchwork. She stressed the U.S.-based innovation and technology stack, emphasizing that U.S. leadership must not be ceded to competitors such as China.

Oz’s testimony framed autonomous vehicles (AVs) as a major safety opportunity: eliminating most driver-error fatalities, increasing mobility, improving efficiency. She acknowledged the need for research, data, infrastructure and standards to make AVs and connected mobility systems safe and effective.

Takeaways

Oz’s emphasis on saving lives via technology signals that her agenda (if confirmed) would prioritize research and deployment of AVs, connected infrastructure, sensors/AI platforms, and mobility innovation within DOT. 

The dual focus on innovation and safety/trust indicates she sees not just technology deployment, but public acceptance and regulatory frameworks as critical. 

Her background in AV/connected mobility means that she may push DOT to be more proactive in emerging technologies, rather than reactive, aligning research, evidence-based policy, cross-sector partnerships. 

Her emphasis on U.S. global leadership, technology stacks, and national frameworks suggests that issues like standardization, interoperability, sensor supply chains, regulation vs state-by-state variations would be central.

Emerging Tech

London-based Rightcharge has secured £1.6M in seed funding to build a unified EV charging payment platform for fleets operating across Europe.

The platform consolidates payments for home, workplace, and public charging into a single tax-compliant invoice. It connects directly to driver energy accounts and uses automated anomaly detection to flag billing irregularities removing the need for manual receipts and expense claims.

For fleet operators, this means less administrative overhead, more accurate reimbursements, and better visibility into charging costs across distributed drivers and sites.

Steve’s take

Fleet electrification doesn’t scale unless the back office scales with it.

Rightcharge is going after the messy intersection of driver reimbursement, energy billing, and compliance. While charging networks focus on uptime and throughput, fleets face a different pain point in billing reconciliation across multiple charging scenarios.

This kind of platform doesn’t just reduce cost exposure. It turns charging into a predictable operating expense.

While the initial focus is on Europe, the pain is universal. Hopefully, U.S. operators are paying attention. As public charging becomes commoditized, the software stack and how well it integrates into enterprise workflows will increasingly define the winners.

For network operators, that means rethinking how they package APIs, payment integrations, and fleet-facing services. Hardware is the entry point. Software creates the stickiness.

You can find more EV industry jobs here.

Reach 19,555 executives, policy professionals, founders, and investors in the EV charging space across email and social. Reply to join our sponsor waitlist.

Share your feedback 

Reply with what you loved about this issue or want more of – we read every message.

Connect with us

Follow EVPowerInsights on LinkedIn.

See you next time!

⚡️Steve and Rob

Have friends or colleagues interested in the evolution of America’s EV charging infrastructure? Hit the share button below! If you were forwarded this, you can subscribe here.