Furniture retail company IKEA US has announced a collaboration with infrastructure providers Electrify America and Electrify Commercial to install ultra-fast electric vehicle (EV) and fleet charge points.
According to IKEA, the new chargers will be implemented at more than 25 of its retail locations across North America.
The retailer hopes the collaboration will enable it to quadruple its current number of EV chargers to support its zero-emission home delivery goal for 2030 and to halve relative emissions from customer and employee travel by 2030.
“At IKEA, we believe that we must work together with our partners to tackle climate change and create solutions for a greener future,” said Javier Quiñones, CEO and chief sustainability officer at IKEA US.
“This collaboration with Electrify America will not only bring ultra-fast public chargers to our stores for the first time but it will also help us take a big leap as we work towards our targets to become circular and climate positive.
“We look forward to continuing to innovate around new ways we can make our everyday lives more sustainable.”
There will reportedly be more than 200 individual ultra-fast chargers, offering speeds of 150kW to 350kW, at retail locations in 18 states. The first charging stations are expected to open by late 2022 and be operational by the end of 2023.
For its delivery fleet, IKEA chose Electrify Commercial to help provide turnkey EV charging solutions and to supply more than 225 individual chargers across its facilities.
Currently, Electrify America claims to have more than 800 stations and 3,500 individual chargers across the nation, and has ambitions to increase this number to 1,800 charging stations and 10,000 individual chargers in the US and Canada by 2026.
