Ionna

Ionna is a HPC charging network for electric vehicles to facilitate long-distance travel across North America. With a concept to put its locations along highways it is similar to the Ionity network in Europe.

History
The American government recognized that a key element in expanding electromobility is the establishment of public charging points. From 2022 it started to fund the construction of fast charging stations ($7.5 billion for 500,000 charging points). Tesla responded to this in advance and began opening its superchargers to third-party brands in 2021. They also made their previously proprietary charging plug available for standardization under the name North American Charging Standard (NACS).

After opening, the Tesla Superchargers developed a dominant position in fast charging. In addition to the number of charging points, availability, the ease of activation also played a role. In mid-2023, many manufacturers began licensing Tesla's technology and the access to Tesla's Supercharger network - at which point the ratio of NACS to CCS charging points in North America's fast charging landscape was already 60 to 40 percent. The Volkswagen Group, as the main shareholder of Electrify America, also announced that its vehicles will have access to superchargers from 2025.

In this market environment, Mercedes, BMW, GM, Stellantis, as well as Honda, Hyundai and Kia announced in July 2023 that they would combine their plans in order to build an independent network of HPC fast charging stations in North America. In February 2024, the IONNA LLC company began operations of the network under the name Ionna. The goal is to set up 30,000 HPC charging points. For comparison, there were 12,000 charging points in operation at Tesla and 4,000 at Electrify America at that time.

The first new charging location is expected to open at the end of 2024. Headquarters will be moved from Torrance, California to Durham, North Carolina. 10 million will be invested into the new site along with the creation of over 200 jobs; over the next ten years 725 million of investments are expected.

Charging stations
The Ionity charging stations have been designed from the beginning to allow for at least 350 kW at 800 Volt output (with a 500 A liquid-cooled cable). In contrast, even the Supercharger V4 had problems delivering 800 V for the new Cybertruck in 2023.