Summit Charging is a “full-service EV charging station developer and operator” that was founded in 2026. The company currently holds NEVI grant awards for eight sites in Washington DC, Texas and California, representing 40 DC fast chargers and 56 charging ports, and is simultaneously developing four self-funded sites in California, and planning five additional sites in New York and Pennsylvania.
EV charging system manufacturer BTC Power has announced its role as a key technology partner with Summit Charging. The two companies have worked together on the technical specifications, Build America, Buy America (BABA) documentation, and site economics behind Summit’s expanding charging network.
Each Summit Charging location is planned to feature at least eight DC fast charging ports supporting both CCS and NACS connectors, along with restrooms and other customer amenities.
BTC Power says its support has helped Summit build stronger business cases for its NEVI applications. BTC Power’s All-In-One DC fast charging platform (available in 180 kW, 240 kW and 320 kW configurations) allows Summit to match charger output to the specific power requirements, traffic patterns and economics of each location. The companies are incorporating Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) into site designs to help manage peak power demand and reduce demand-charge exposure.
“Summit Charging is demonstrating what is possible when you combine the right locations with the right charging technology and business model,” said Seung June Oh, Chief Revenue Officer at BTC Power. “They are identifying locations where people already park, shop, work and travel, and developing those locations into public EV charging destinations. We have been developing and deploying public EV charging technology in the US since 2012, and we understand the equipment, site requirements and operating challenges that come with building a reliable charging network.”
Rather than evaluating sites solely by traditional gas station or travel center criteria, Summit assesses each potential location individually, weighing parking, traffic, accessibility, electrical capacity, nearby competition, customer demographics and utility infrastructure before selecting equipment and configuration.
“BTC Power is more than a charger supplier to us. They understand what it takes to turn a location into a viable charging station—from equipment selection and technical requirements to the economics of the project,” said Bruce Lee, founder and President, Summit Charging. “Our experience shows that EV charging can be built in many different types of locations. If a business has the right parking, traffic, and customer demand, there may be an opportunity to add EV charging and create a new revenue stream. Having a technology partner with the experience and product range of BTC Power gives us the flexibility to develop each site based on what that location actually needs.”
The ai Corporation has been providing fleet card issuance, processing and fraud management solutions to the fuel industry for over 28 years. Now the company has signed a long-term agreement with Visa to expand the integration of Visa Fleet 2.0 in Europe with The ai Corporation’s flagship card issuing and payment management platform, aiEazyFuel.
Visa’s Fleet 2.0 program helps technology partners to ensure that their solutions meet Visa’s standards for functionality, integration and security. ai’s enhanced partnership with Visa will fast-track the availability of its offerings to fuel retailers and fleet operators.
aiEazyFuel is a white-labelled card management and processing platform that’s designed to help fuel retailers, banks, EV, leasing and fleet companies simplify and future-proof their payment systems, either by replacing legacy payment infrastructure or by launching new payment offerings. The platform supports a range of issuing, acceptance, acquiring, switching, processing, risk and analytics functions, and is integrated with proprietary fraud management platform aiRiskNet to protect mobility payments.
aiEazyFuel offers a hybrid card option which incorporates the benefits of the Visa network. Clients’ cards that are issued and managed by the platform are accepted worldwide and can access a broad range of services, including EV charging.
Neil Halls, Head of Fleet, Mobility and Benefits at Visa Europe, said: “Innovation is reshaping the way fleet and mobility payments are managed. By combining ai’s expertise in the fuel, EV and mobility payments space with the capabilities of Visa Fleet 2.0, this collaboration will help bring greater choice and modern payment experiences to fleets and mobility providers.”
Piers Horak, The ai Corporation’s CEO, said: “By leveraging our flagship issuing and processing platform, aiEazyFuel, we are driving targeted penetration of Visa Fleet 2.0 across various segments of the fuel, EV and mobility payments market in Europe. This long-term agreement empowers our partners and future-proofs their operations, ensuring they stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving industry.”
EV charger design consultancy Versinetic is launching two charge controller boards for manufacturers of AC chargers. CongaEEL is a power controller board and MinnoRay is a communications and controller board. Two CongaEEL boards can pair with a single controller to build a dual-socket charger, so each socket doesn’t need its own controller.
CongaEEL is intended for public and commercial AC charging. It puts the three-phase mains contactor, an onboard residual direct current detecting device (RDC-DD), current measurement and the ISO 15118 interface on a single board, which Versinetic describes as IEC 61851 compliant. The board stacks with either MinnoRay or MantaRay, the company’s other controller board.
MinnoRay is a compact board designed for cost-sensitive applications. It combines 10/100 Ethernet, an LTE Cat 1 bis modem, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and the company says it is OCPP 1.6 compliant. MinnoRay handles communications, while the CongaEEL board it pairs with handles power and safety functions, including the ISO 15118 interface for Plug and Charge.
A manufacturer can use the two boards to build a single- or dual-socket, three-phase AC charger from fewer separate components. According to Versinetic, that cuts the assembly, wiring and compliance testing a charger design would otherwise need to complete from scratch.
MinnoRay is available directly from Versinetic or under license for high-volume manufacturers that build it into their own charger designs.
“CongaEEL and MinnoRay let a manufacturer start from two boards that are already engineered to work together, so the integration work is done before the design even reaches the bench,” said Dunstan Power, Versinetic’s Managing Director.
“They want a connected, compliant charger without carrying the cost of features they don’t need. MinnoRay gives them that option alongside MantaRay, so the choice depends on the build, rather than what we happen to offer,” said Power.
Amazon has taken delivery of 27 Mercedes-Benz eActros 600 battery-electric trucks in Germany, the first part of a total order of 50 units that will be delivered by the end of 2026.
In early 2025, Amazon and Mercedes-Benz Trucks signed a contract for more than 200 eActros trucks. In the UK, where the majority of the fleet is being deployed, deliveries began in late 2025.
In total, Amazon is investing more than a billion euros to electrify its transportation network in Europe, including more than 400 million euros dedicated to operations in Germany. The transition includes the installation of hundreds of heavy-duty EV chargers at the company’s European facilities.
Amazon is deploying the eActros 600 on middle-mile routes, transporting goods between fulfillment centers and urban areas.
The eActros 600 has three LFP battery packs, each with 207 kWh of capacity. The total capacity of 621 kWh supports a range of up to 560 kilometers in long-haul transport with a gross train weight of 40 tons. With a standard semitrailer in the EU, the eActros 600 has a payload of around 22 tons.
Mercedes-Benz Trucks recently added additional variants to the eActros 600 lineup. Customers can choose between two cab variants, two or three battery packs, numerous wheelbases, and new axle configurations. In total, the second-generation of the eActros offers over 40 variants of the base vehicle.
“The eActros 600 was developed for demanding long-haul transport,” said Stina Fagerman, Mercedes-Benz Trucks’ European President. “The fact that Amazon relies on our vehicles underscores the confidence in our technology and also shows that the electrification of heavy-duty transport is increasingly becoming reality.”
“The handover of these vehicles is a milestone for the electrification of our transportation network,” said Andreas Marschner, VP of Worldwide Sustainable Operations at Amazon. “Electric solutions have already been widely used for some time in last-mile package delivery to customers. With the high-performance electric trucks from Mercedes-Benz Trucks, we can now make even longer transport routes between fulfillment centers and urban areas more sustainable.”
Indian power electronics manufacturer Hirect has completed the acceptance regime for its 6,000 hp (4,475 kW) electric locomotive propulsion system, which hauled loaded freight in a WAG-9 locomotive under what the company describes as severe duty cycles and a demanding thermal operating environment. Hirect designed, engineered and manufactured the system in-house, including its liquid-cooled IGBT traction inverters and converters and its own control software. The qualification opens one of the world’s largest locomotive markets to its complete propulsion package, Hirect says, and establishes a modular subsystem platform for new-build, retrofit and hybrid locomotive programs internationally.
The company has also secured a development order from Indian Railways’ Modern Coach Factory for complete propulsion systems for four Mainline Electric Multiple Unit (MEMU) trainsets. The 24-month program covers traction transformers, traction motors and the fully integrated propulsion system, including the Train Control and Management System (TCMS). Hirect describes it as its first development order for a complete trainset propulsion system. A MEMU carries its traction equipment distributed beneath the cars of the trainset rather than concentrated in a locomotive.
Hirect’s rail portfolio also includes traction transformers, IGBT converters, auxiliary power supplies, SiC battery chargers, traction motors and HVAC systems.
That equipment, the company says, supports the transition from diesel traction to hybrid, electric and alternative-energy traction, including hydrogen.
“Powering Indian Railways locomotives with a propulsion system designed and produced entirely in-house, and delivering the complete power and control systems for modern trainsets, demonstrates the strength of our R&D and our ability to take responsibility for the whole system—from the dielectric coating on our copper wire to the control software,” said Suramya Nevatia, Hirect’s Chairman and Managing Director.
You don’t plug it in, and it’s powered solely by gasoline. So why is the 2027 Rogue Hybrid an EV?
The 2027 Nissan Rogue Hybrid gives the company an entry it has lacked for a decade or more: a compact crossover SUV with a hybrid powertrain. With gasoline prices far higher than they were just months ago, hybrid utility vehicles—demand for which had grown steadily over the past several years—are suddenly THE hot ticket.
So Nissan’s new hybrid Rogue, the fourth generation of the small SUV that debuted in 2006, comes right in time. You can now buy hybrid models of the Toyota RAV4, the Honda CR-V, the Hyundai Tucson, the Kia Sportage, the Mazda CX-50, and the Subaru Forester. Nissan is late to the game, and it leaves the Volkswagen Tiguan as the sole entry in the segment with no hybrid option.
What Nissan has created, though, differs from all those other hybrids. They’re parallel hybrids, in which the engine can clutch into the powertrain to power the wheels alongside the electric motor(s) that do so at low speeds or light throttle. The Rogue is different: it’s a series hybrid, in which the engine serves solely as a generator to provide electricity. That power either charges the 1.67-kilowatt-hour battery pack or travels directly through the inverter to run the pair of motors that are the only way to turn the wheels.
For the 2027 model year, only this new e-Power hybrid version of the Rogue will get the fourth-generation body style. All other variants will carry on with the existing style through 2027, with their replacements arriving in 2028.
We drove a prototype 2027 Rogue Hybrid “e-Power” in the mountains around Park City, Utah, in late August. We only got two 10-minute loops, on private roads, though they included fairly step curving mountain roads. That demanded far more of a series hybrid system than flat arterial roads or even steady-state highway cruising. On the other hand, we had no chance to operate at sustained highway speeds, so we can’t speed to how the series-hybrid technology works under that duty cycle.
Our limited verdict: After doing the same loop first in a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, then in a Nissan Rogue Hybrid, we found the prototype series-hybrid Rogue to be smoother and markedly quieter under hard acceleration. It’s a more EV-like driving experience.
Development of the hybrid Rogue was massively by assisted by Nissan’s e-Pedal, which provides one-pedal driving with relatively strong regenerative braking all the way down to a stop. Drivers simply press a button to use e-Pedal, though the drive setting, gives a more conventional hybrid drive feel with some coasting and idle creep rather than auto-hold at stops. NOTE: We had no sustained freeway time, which arguably could have put enough stress on individual parts of the system to show unusual behavior. That will have to wait for our extended road test.
With an estimated combined fuel-economy rating of 38 mpg, we think the Rogue Hybrid should do fine. Especially if the salespeople at Nissan’s dealers call it a hybrid and just leave it at that. They should stress that it’s quieter and smoother than competitors’ hybrids, though we doubt they’ll go as far as to offer test drives of the competition. What they shouldn’t do, in our view, is try to explain the difference between their series hybrid and the conventional parallel hybrid setup used by every other maker. (To add confusion, Honda’s system can act as a series or a parallel hybrid depending on circumstances.)
Photos courtesy of Nissan.
How Nissan built a series hybrid sans plug
The e-Power system has been around in Japan for a decade, and Europe for the past several years. It took a third generation of the e-Power system, though, to provide sufficient performance to compete straight across with the most popular hybrid crossovers in the North American market.
Work started on what became the e-Power series hybrid drivetrain at the same time the first-generation Leaf was in development. It uses some components from Nissan’s EV lineup, including the two drive motors: 202 kilowatts (271 horsepower) up front, and 134 kW (TK hp) at the rear. Nissan knows a fair amount about powering wheels via electric motors at this point, so that wasn’t the most challenging part of the system. But like the gasoline Rogue, it remains front-wheel-drive dominant.
Instead, designing an internal combustion engine to run as efficiently as possible within the limited range of speeds required to power a generator required extensive work. While the Rogue Hybrid’s engine is a 1.5-liter turbocharged inline 3-cylinder, Christian Spencer, senior manager of powertrain engineering, told Charged it shares no parts at all with the 1.5-liter turbo three that powered the last generation of Rogues.
That engine can reach 42 percent thermal efficiency, Spencer said. That’s higher than the most efficient combustion engines from Toyota, Ford, and others. And with the smaller battery pack of a conventional hybrid, that matters even more. As far as we know, all previous series hybrids sold in the U.S. have been plug-ins as well, to wit the BMW i3 REx, and tisker Karma / Karma Revero.
Given that it runs entirely on gasoline, the crucial metric is not miles per kilowatt-hour but miles per gallon. Nissan estimates it will be EPA-rated at 38 mpg combined, with 40 mpg city and 36 mpg highway. Final figures will be released by the EPA.
IS it an EV? Yes … no … maybe?
If a car runs solely on electric power and its wheels are turned solely by electric motors, does that make it an electric vehicle? Does it have to have a plug so its battery can be charged from grid electricity? What if it has an internal combustion engine as well? And … what if that engine generates all the electricity to power the car?
You might as well ask how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. What different people view as an EV will differ. Which is why, to be frank, you’re reading a drive report on a car without a charging port in an outlet called Charged EVs.
The 2027 Nissan Rogue Hybrid will be priced from $37K to $45K. With AWD standard on all versions, the base Rogue Hybrid SV starts at $37,065. Adding $2,100 to that moves buyers up to the SV Premium, while the mid-range SL starts at $39,065, with an available Tech Package adding a further $4,000. Finally, at the top of the range is the Rogue Hybrid Platinum, starting right around $45,000. All prices include the mandatory $1,575 delivery fee. At launch, all e-Power Rogues will be exported from Japan, though it’s not unreasonable to expect Nissan is assessing U.S production in due course.
We look forward to getting a 2027 Nissan Rogue Hybrid for a full road test over a week or so, Meanwhile, you can think of it as an electric-car driving experience without the plug that lets owners use grid electricity to cut their gasoline expense and carbon footprint.
Nissan provided airfare, lodging, and meals to enable Charged to bring you this first-person report.
EV charge point operator Zapgo has opened its largest site to date—a new DC fast charging hub at Sowerby Wood Business Park in Barrow-in-Furness, a coastal city in Northern England.
The new charging hub features 10 charging bays, including 2 fully accessible bays, served by five 200 kW Alpitronic chargers.
Amenities at the charging hub include rest rooms, a coffee machine and a vending machine. Zapgo has partnered with local businesses to provide ongoing maintenance.
Barrow-in-Furness itself is an industrial port town, which is (perhaps unsurprisingly) underserved by public charging. However, the nearby Lake District National Park sees some 18-19 million visitors annually.
“We’re delighted to launch Zapgo’s largest site to-date: a much-needed ultra-rapid charging hub in Barrow-in-Furness which provides significant support to the growing number of local residents and visitors who are making the switch to EVs,” said Neil Mahapatra, CEO of Zapgo. “Our site’s proximity to the world-famous Lake District National Park makes it a key amenity for the millions of families who visit the area each year.”
