New York City Picks It’s Electric to Replace 88 Curbside Ports and Add 600 More
- EVs Infrastructure & Grid Connection News
Marin Holt
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- 8 minutes read
- Curbside points after buildout: Nearly 700
- Existing pilot ports replaced: 88
- New curbside points: More than 600
- Installation start: First quarter of 2027
- Operating term: At least five years
- City target set in 2021: 10,000 curbside chargers by 2030
New York City has hired It’s Electric, a Brooklyn company, to build a permanent curbside electric vehicle charging network across all five boroughs. It’s Electric announced the award on September 15, 2026. The company will replace the 88 Level 2 ports already on the street and install more than 600 new ones, for a network of nearly 700 points. Installation starts in the first quarter of 2027, after the Public Design Commission finishes reviewing the hardware design. The contract covers at least five years of operation after that, with the exact term still being finalized. Maverick Corporation handles engineering and construction. SWTCH Energy supplies the software platform. The New York Power Authority procures and installs. The chargers themselves will be manufactured in Queens. Electrek reports a funding round led by Halogen Ventures brought the company’s total funding to $15 million. DOT set out the shape of the program on August 4, 2026 under the PlugNYC name. That plan also covers 92 fast chargers and 180 Level 2 ports at municipal lots and garages over three years.
What the City Bought
The 88 existing ports came out of a pilot that started in 2021 and went permanent in 2025 with FLO hardware. DOT named the target neighborhoods in August. They include Soundview and Unionport in the Bronx, plus Rego Park, Forest Hills and Far Rockaway in Queens. The Brooklyn sites are Red Hook, Carroll Gardens and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Manhattan gets the Upper West Side and Washington Heights, and Staten Island gets Stapleton.
Each PlugNYC site gets at least two posts with two plugs apiece, so four points is the floor per location. Pricing is not set. The city has not disclosed the contract value either. Neither the DOT announcement nor the trade coverage of the award carries a dollar figure.
Why It Matters
Curbside Level 2 charging is the only option for drivers with no driveway and no garage, which describes most of the city. The pilot data argues the demand is real. Electrek reports the existing posts sit occupied more than 70 percent of the time. At some locations that figure approaches 99 percent. A charger that busy is not a demonstration. It is a bottleneck.
The award also carries a deadline that belongs to someone else. The Green Rides Initiative requires every Uber and Lyft trip in the city to be electric or wheelchair-accessible by 2030. Rideshare drivers park on the street. The curbside network is the refueling infrastructure that rule assumes, and the first new post under this contract goes in the ground in 2027.
The Gap Between 700 and 10,000
DOT set a target of 10,000 curbside chargers by 2030 in a 2021 report. The contract covers nearly 700 of those 10,000. A co-founder of It’s Electric told Streetsblog the 10,000 figure arrives somewhere between 2030 and 2040. That is the vendor discounting the city’s own goal by up to a decade, on the day the vendor won the work.
Not everyone wants the posts. Michael Sutherland of Open Plans objected to the land use. “Our curb space can be used for so much more than parking,” he said. “EV chargers are permanent, expensive infrastructure that permanently lock in public space for cars and make future improvements more difficult.” Jon Orcutt, a former DOT policy director, made the contractual version of the same point. “It also locks in a contract for a utility company to keep a fueling facility there in that parking space,” he said. Both objections survive the award, because a five-year operating term on 700 street locations is exactly the commitment they describe.
Critical Perspective
New York will end up with nearly 700 curbside ports, 600 of them new. Electrek reports the 88 existing posts sit occupied more than 70 percent of the time, so the pilot proved demand rather than capacity. That pilot started in 2021 and took until 2025 to become permanent, and the city’s own 2021 plan called for 10,000 ports by 2030. If four years produced 88 posts, what produces 600 in three?
Sources
- NYC DOT: Launches Expansion of Curbside Electric Vehicle Charging Across Five Boroughs (August 4, 2026)
- Streetsblog NYC: City Hires Company To Install E-Car Charging Posts In Public Space
- Electrek: This Brooklyn startup will put nearly 700 EV plugs on NYC streets
- Commercial Observer: New York City Taps It’s Electric to Install Curbside EV Charging Ports
