Electrify America has introduced its most advanced electric vehicle (EV) charging station yet in Santa Barbara, California, featuring 20 ultra-fast charging stalls capable of delivering up to 350 kilowatts to each vehicle. This new large-format hub includes the company’s largest battery energy storage system to date, designed to improve charging availability and reduce grid strain.
Located at the former Greyhound Bus depot on West Carillo Street, the station’s 1.9-megawatt battery stores energy during periods of low demand and discharges it during peak times. This strategy not only increases the station’s charging throughput but also helps stabilize the local power grid. It represents a significant step forward in EV infrastructure by marrying high-power charging with integrated energy storage technology.
Electrify America has deployed similar large-format stations in other California cities such as Santa Monica, San Diego, and San Francisco. These locations serve as models for planned expansions nationwide. Stations of this size, with at least 20 individual bays, are aimed at reducing EV driver wait times substantially by accommodating multiple vehicles simultaneously at hyper-fast speeds.
Currently, the Santa Barbara station only offers CCS1 plugs, which means EVs equipped with the North American Charging Standard (NACS), like Tesla and others, require an adapter to charge. However, Electrify America plans to begin retrofitting NACS connectors later this year as part of its ongoing pilot program to increase compatibility across charger types.
Electrify America operates more than 1,100 DC fast charging stations with over 5,700 charging ports across 47 states and Washington, D.C., according to the Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center. The introduction of battery-aided, large-format stations signals a shift toward more resilient and higher-capacity EV charging solutions, critical for wider electric vehicle adoption and urban integration.