Philadelphia has selected two companies to help install new electric vehicle chargers throughout the city over the next several years, writes Meir Rinde for Billy Penn at WHYY.
If approved by Philadelphia City Council, local electric vehicle owners could see more than 900 chargers and ports installed throughout the city over the next decade.
The goal is to address what has been a relatively longstanding challenge for electric vehicle owners.
“We’ve just heard story after story of people who either own an EV and they don’t have access, or they have to get up at six in the morning to go to that one charger in their neighborhood,” he said.
The companies — PositivEnergy and It’s Electric — plan to install the EV chargers on curbs and city-owned parking lots, making them more accessible to bigger groups of people.
Most of the chargers will be Level 2, which usually fully charges a vehicle in 6 to 8 hours. Meanwhile, some of the chargers that PositivEnergy will be installing at city-owned lots will be Level 3 or DC Fast chargers, which can get a car to about 80 percent charged in about a half-hour.
The priority, however, is underserved neighborhoods without PPA lots or public chargers.
Read more about Philly’s plan to drastically increase its EV chargers and the impact it will have at Billy Penn at WHYY.
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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on PHILADELPHIA Today in May 2026.
