Gravity To Launch Manhattan EV Charging Hub

Gravity, an EV fleet and infrastructure company, plans to launch EV charging hub in 42nd Street garage between 9th and 10th Avenue

AutoMarketplace NYC Newsletter is written by Dawood Mian, Founder of AutoMarketplace (launching soon). He covers the NYC for-hire transportation industry and related news.

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Photo Credit: Gravity

“We’ll probably see five to 10 fast charging sites of different capacity in Manhattan over the next six months or so…We’ve gone with Con Ed to dozens of sites in the five boroughs. We’ve surveyed the power grid and have plans to scale because it doesn’t work as a one-off. It works with scale, with coverage areas.” - Moshe Cohen, Gravity’s Founder & CEO

Gravity Technologies, which is seeking TLC approval to run a Tesla Model Y yellow cab fleet under a new TLC EV Pilot program, continues to build momentum around its NYC EV ecosystem vision with the planned opening of a garage charging hub on 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Ave (the area is known as Manhattan Plaza). For Gravity’s Hell Kitchen Manhattan site, the company worked with energy company Con Edison to pull spare capacity power from two separate utility rooms on 42nd Street and 9th Avenue.

When the 29-space garage on 42nd Street, which Gravity is leasing from real estate firm Related Companies, opens in a few weeks, it will be Manhattan’s first dedicated scaled EV charging space. Similar to Revel’s plans for its newly opened Brooklyn EV charging hub, Gravity initially plans to utilize the space as an overnight charging location for its own fleet of Tesla Model Y yellow cabs. Previously, it appeared Gravity was approved for the TLC EV Pilot Program, but now it’s not clear if that’s the case according to TechCrunch reporting. The Company’s business model will be to make parking free, while cars are being charged (i.e., charge for electricity).

Currently 18 Tesla Model 3s and one Kia Niro EV are operating in NYC as yellow cabs, but none of them are run by Gravity, according to TechCrunch.

“Our vision is we are bringing infrastructure to all the places that cars are right now, so if you’re in our coverage area, you should never have to worry about charging your vehicle, because it’ll get charged where it’s parked…So if you think about dense urban areas like Manhattan or downtown Chicago, where are cars parked? They’re either on a curb or they’re inside parking garages, and they’re very space constrained. And so you have to design different equipment that deals with the space and power constraints in order to have charging happen in all those places.” - Moshe Cohen, Gravity’s Founder & CEO

Photo Credit: Gravity

Photo Credit: Gravity

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What are your thoughts on Gravity’s EV Charging Plans? Are you a TLC Driver thinking of switching to an EV? If so, would more charging stations push you towards an EV?

AutoMarketplace NYC Newsletter is written by Dawood Mian, Founder of AutoMarketplace (launching soon). He covers the NYC for-hire transportation industry and related news.