Japan’s Toyota has become an eight partner in the North American charging joint venture (JV) Ionna. The firm joins Germany’s BMW and Mercedes, US legacy automaker GM, Japan’s Honda, South Korea’s Hyundai and Kia and US-France-Italy conglomerate Stellantis in the partnership.
Ionna plans to install at least 30,000 DC fast charging ports in North America by 2030, with the first arriving later this year. Stations will include both NACS and CCS connectors. Toyota’s participation means that drivers of both its eponymous brand and Lexus will be able to use Ionna facilities.
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Toyota, known for its chairman Akio Toyoda’s public hostility to all-electric vehicles, nonetheless hails Ionna as a step to “promote the adoption of BEVs and increase customer confidence in the technology”, in the words of Toyota Motor North America CEO Ted Ogawa.
“We are delighted to welcome Toyota to our growing Ionna family,” says the charging JV’s CEO Seth Cutler, also opting to gloss over the Toyota leadership’s lack of enthusiasm for the technology. “Their vision for the future of electric mobility in North America aligns perfectly with our mission to push the boundaries for the highest standards of quality, reliability, and customer experience.”
It remains to be seen whether investment in charging is a good move for legacy automakers or an unnecessary distraction from their core e-mobility challenge. It is certainly difficult to see a clear strategy, as some are doing, in investing in JVs, also trying to build out own branded networks and yet at the same time using cash that could be spent on charging infrastructure to fund share buybacks instead.
For BMW, Mercedes and Hyundai, one obvious potential G&A synergy would be to merge Ionna with Ionity, the European OEM JV in which all three are also partners. But Ionity shareholders also include Germany’s VW Group, which had to set up the Electrify America charging network as part of a settlement of a US diesel emissions testing scandal and thus may have legal hurdles to folding its US arm into Ionna in any sort of trans-Atlantic merger.
The European arm of US legacy automaker Ford and investment heavyweight Blackrock are also partners in Ionity but not Ionna, Honda, GM, Stellantis and Toyota are in Ionna but not Ionity. The one advantage that both firms have is, unlike OEJM’s own charging subsidiaries, they at least have dedicated independent managements and mission statements focused on charging, meaning they soak up OEM money but not time and attention.
The US charging scene has also seen oil major BP sign a deal to install and operate hubs on 75 sites owned by the Simon property group, a real estate investment trust focused on shopping, dining and entertainment sites. The agreement will deliver over 900 ultra-fast charging bays, with the first locations due in early 2026.
“The Simon portfolio aligns with BP Pulse’s strategy to deploy ultra-fast charging across the West Coast, East Coast, Sun Belt and Great Lakes,” says Richard Bartlett, CEO of the firm’s BP Pulse charging subsidiary.
“As a committed long-term infrastructure player with a global network of EV charging solutions, BP Pulse intends to continue to seek and build transformative industry collaborations in real estate required to scale our network and match the demand of current and future EV drivers,” adds Sujay Sharma, CEO of BP Pulse Americas. The firm is installing EV charging across BP’s own-brand convenience stores and its Travelcenters of America network, as well as signing partnership deals such as with rental firm Hertz
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