This week, the ChargePoint network reached a milestone as driver number 50,000 joined up. Unsurprisingly, the 50,000th ChargePoint member resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. Less than an hour after signing up, the new user plugged in a Tesla Model S to a ChargePoint station at the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael.

ChargePoint now has over 14,000 public charging spots, and its members have driven some 64 million miles, saving over 2.6 million gallons of gas and 20 million pounds of CO₂ emissions.

“This is a testament to how rapidly EV adoption is happening across the nation,” said Dimitrios Papadogonas, ChargePoint’s Vice President of Marketing. “We are seeing extraordinary growth within the EV market, and ChargePoint is proud to help lead the way.”

Why is ChargePoint thriving, while its colleague Ecotality is in bankruptcy proceedings? Mr Papadogonas, speaking with Charged at this week’s LA Auto Show, said it’s because of his company’s holistic approach. “We really thought about the driver, the experience, the right partners,” he said. “Property owners want to own their charging stations, and they want the flexibility to do what they want in terms of access control, and in terms of setting pricing policies. When it’s their station, they get to choose what they want, and make it right for their business. We have the most advanced hardware, which offers more features than anyone else, and we have the largest and most sophisticated network, and that offers all the flexibility, control and scalability that any property owner needs.”

Source: ChargePoint