New York City Selects It’s Electric to Install Curbside EV Charging Ports

It’s Electric, a national leader in curbside electric vehicle (EV) charging, announced Tuesday that New York City has awarded it an exclusive contract to install and build out a permanent EV charging network across all five boroughs.

Based in Brooklyn, It’s Electric will replace the city’s current pilot infrastructure and install hundreds of new curbside chargers beginning next year. All the charges will be manufactured in Queens.

The contract with It's Electric and its engineering partner, Maverick Corporation, involves replacing 88 existing pilot ports and installing more than 600 new chargers, creating a total network of 700 curbside EV chargers citywide.

Installation is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2027 following the completion of a review by the city’s Public Design Commission. The request for proposals was issued through the New York Power Authority and managed by the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT).

“Curbside charging is a very niche space,” said Tiya Gordon, co-founder and chief operating officer of It’s Electric. “Other companies that had pre-qualified through the New York Power Authority had all done some level of EV charging installation for the state, but they were largely doing fast charging installations upstate on highways. Curbside is an entirely different animal. So the expertise that It’s Electric has brought to the table in that, just before this award, we were awarded a contract by the City of Philadelphia. We’re working with the City of Los Angeles, and we were the only successful company to pilot charging for Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Gordon calls it “soft power.” 

“We’re not 50 engineers that have left Tesla and are trying to build a supercharger network,” she said. “We are a team of government affairs, urban planners, architects and engineers that really understand what it takes to put a piece of permanent infrastructure into a city that fits the environment. Other companies design hardware, and they don’t really think about where it goes. We’ve designed our chargers literally from day one with the context of New York City in mind, including the industrial design and the permitting process. Our first adviser was Michael Replogle, former deputy commissioner for policy at the NYC DOT.”

The awarded contract length is being finalized, but Gordon estimates that it will be for a minimum five-year operational period.

Alongside the contract announcement, It’s Electric revealed Tuesday that it has closed an oversubscribed bridge fundraising round to support the company through this fast growth period. The company declined to confirm the amount of the latest raise.

Halogen Ventures led the round, with participation from Wisdom Ventures, Future Communities, E8 Angels, DiPalo Ventures, Alumni Ventures and Gaingels, alongside returning investors Uber, Failup, Gratitude Railroad and the Partnership Fund for New York City, bringing the company’s total funding raised to date to $15 million.

“The best infrastructure companies solve problems that seem inevitable in hindsight,” Jesse Draper, Halogen Ventures’ founding partner, said in a statement. “Halogen Ventures invested in It’s Electric early and remains bullish because the team cracked a fundamental challenge others could not, building an elegant and scalable solution to an enormous problem. The It’s Electric team is one of the greatest teams we’ve ever worked with — their determination, intellect, drive and organization are unmatched. New York is just the beginning.”

Today’s announcement follows one from DOT in August detailing the city’s Level 2 curbside EV charging expansion. The expansion will help support the city’s climate goals by facilitating the transition from fossil fuel-powered vehicles to electric vehicles. A better and more diverse use of curbs and sidewalks is part of the Mamdani administration’s vision to meet a wider range of public needs.

“The Mamdani administration is taking aggressive action to address the climate crisis and achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” NYC DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn said in a statement. “For the transportation sector, our main goal is making it easier and more affordable for New Yorkers to walk, bike and take transit. But for those who still drive, we need to dramatically accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles.”

The buildout is targeted at neighborhoods with high concentrations of taxi and rideshare drivers and limited off-street parking, areas historically overlooked by private charging companies. New York City is home to more than 80,000 rideshare drivers, the majority of whom park on the street rather than in a garage or driveway, according to It’s Electric. That reality has been the biggest obstacle keeping drivers from switching to electric vehicles, the company says.

“This contract will allow New York City to keep the revenue from these charging stations,” said Gordon. “They are going to work to set the pricing, and that’s a massive economic benefit for the city right there on the revenue side. Then in terms of economics, by manufacturing the chargers in New York City, we’re creating jobs that are around manufacturing to help bring that industry back into New York. The benefit also is up and down the chain for rideshare.”

New York’s Green Rides Initiative requires that the majority of rideshares by 2030 be in either wheelchair-accessible cars or electric vehicles. 

“But the problem is that all those Uber drivers live in Staten Island, the Bronx, Queens or Brooklyn,” Gordon said. “They do not have driveways — therefore they don’t have a charger at home to plug into at night. What they’re having to do right now is to drive to the limited number of fast chargers that are out by JFK, or two Revel stations in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan. There’s roughly around 50 public fast chargers in the city for what is going to be a body of 80,000 rideshare electric vehicles.”

In a separate announcement of the contract award, Diarmuid Clancy, president of Maverick EV services, noted “a symbiotic relationship” between his company and It’s Electric. “It’s Electric’s leadership in charging solutions for the burgeoning demand for curbside and on-street charging is coupled with Maverick’s full Make Ready design, construction, installation and utility coordination capabilities.”

Beyond Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., It’s Electric is pursuing additional municipal contracts globally — with every charger to be built in New York City.

Philip Russo can be reached at prusso@commercialobserver.com.