The U.S. DC fast-charging industry is currently defined by a significant paradox: an aggressive, federally-backed deployment boom is occurring even as national charger utilization rates experience a temporary dip. This deployment surge, driven by programs like NEVI and large-scale private sector investment, reflects deep, long-term market confidence. Specifically, the Paren Inc. report forecasts a 19% jump in charger deployments in 2025, indicating robust optimism from infrastructure developers who are strategically building out a comprehensive network ahead of the accelerating demand curve.
To reconcile aggressive strategic expansion with current market volatility, EV Charging Magazine engaged with Mike Calise, CEO of Tellus Power, a global EV charger manufacturer specializing in U.S.-based production. As the head of a company committed to resilient local supply chains and intelligent energy management, Calise offers critical insight into the industry’s necessary shift. In this exclusive Q&A, Calise moves beyond discussions of basic charging to what he terms “Charging 3.0”—a reliable and profitable network built on advanced energy management systems like Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G).
The Interview: Mike Calise on Market Dynamics and Future Strategy
The Paren Inc. report cites a 19% jump in DC fast-charger deployments for 2025, but also points to a declining national utilization rate. How do you, as a CEO, reconcile this apparent contradiction, and what does it tell you about the current state of the U.S. EV market?
It’s important to note that a decline in utilization rate isn’t the same thing as an absolute decline in usage, and separating the two is integral to accurately understanding the near and long term EV charging landscape. The truth is, the U.S. had an early headstart to fast charger deployments, but there has been a slow down corresponding to reliability and hardware failures in-field.
Those attempts produced outcomes counter to their initiative by causing the entire charging industry to wait for things like matched building funds or favorable state programs. Now that we’re seeing programs like NEVI and CALeVIP come back in full force and with fewer restrictions, the industry is on its way to increasing EV sales. It’s an exciting time! We’re building out the proper infrastructure for those new and existing drivers, so naturally utilization rates will dip as drivers have access to more charging stations. This is a good thing — the better the user experience (shorter wait times, more options for stopping along a route), the faster the rate at which EVs gain market share on the whole.
The report highlights a shift towards larger charging stations. What are the key drivers behind this trend from a manufacturer’s standpoint, and what are the specific challenges in scaling up production and deployment to meet this demand?
From a manufacturing standpoint larger stations are ideal, especially with favorable technology advancements like silicon carbide power semiconductor chips (SiC), load shifting and emerging AI-based predictive software.
There’s also a lot of optimism throughout the charging industry right now — and customers are choosing to future-proof their investments through scaling. As EV sales continue to gain a larger and larger percentage of the light duty and commercial fleets, charging station operators feel secure in building out their sites with robust energy management, dispensing, and larger charging depots for redundancy options.
Our recent 600kW distributed product, coupled with an integrated energy storage system is a great example of why we’re seeing a shift towards ‘bigger is better.’ Site hosts want all revenue stream options available to them, whether that be direct charging profits, added concession sales, or the reduction of utility bills through tapping into on-site energy storage with vehicle to grid architectures for fleets.
Robustness and the ability to remain dynamic and agile is where profit can be made in the world of energy, and that type of extra capacity only happens when you’ve scaling up in your power rating and out in your charger count.
Despite a reported 5.3% improvement in reliability, many consumers still express “range anxiety” and frustration with broken chargers. What is the most critical factor, in your opinion, to achieving widespread consumer trust in the public charging network?
The most critical factor is ensuring a seamless process wherein the consumer has full confidence that when they arrive at a charging station they will be able to charge their vehicle in a timely and familiar way. Ultimately, the network must deliver on the basic promise of “it just works,” transforming a frustrating and unpredictable experience into one as simple and dependable as refueling a gasoline car.
Traditional automotives and the gas station model are able to achieve an extremely high-level of reliability due to the impeccable service and repair industry that has long supported the hardware in the field. When a refilling station goes down, techs are sent out to a site quickly and the downed pump is up and working before consumers are impacted. Paired with the ubiquity of the American gas station, drivers never have to worry about the quality of their experience outside of price or available amenities.
Consumers must see proof that charging can be reliable and that range anxiety is not an issue. We’ve seen Tesla have great success with their Supercharger network. Their customers have confidence that the chargers are reliable, the payment is automatic, and the car’s navigation system accurately predicts charging stops and charger availability.
Tellus Power’s Unique Position
Tellus Power has made a strong commitment to U.S.-based production and American-made steel. In an increasingly globalized industry, what are the tangible benefits and potential drawbacks of this strategy? How does it affect your competitive advantage?
By strategically investing in U.S.-based manufacturing and supply chain control, we’ve been able to deliver high-quality, cost-effective solutions while mitigating the risks faced by companies reliant on overseas components. This has allowed us to have greater profitability and stringent quality control, as we are not as reliant on external economic factors like tariffs and geopolitical activity
There’s something to be said for having access to an American factory with localized support and manufacturing. We’re able to provide reliable and cost-stable products that can ride out changes in tariffs or sourcing requirements while also providing an in-person site for our American customers.
Additionally, our U.S. facility also provides customers with products manufactured outside the U.S. as needed. Our commitment to domestic based production is another feather in our growing global cap.
There are not any drawbacks as we’ve been able to expand our footprint cost effectively. Now that we’re seeing the industry scale as expected, we’re positioned well to provide cost-effective, high-quality, short lead-time manufacturing and effectively deliver policy-resilient products and after-sales support to any and all of our worldwide Tellus Power family.
With expiring tax incentives and a changing regulatory landscape, how does having a local supply chain and manufacturing base insulate Tellus Power from some of the economic uncertainties facing the EV industry?
A changing regulatory landscape is part and parcel of the EV charging industry, and key players know that means that agility and redundancy are the path to long term success. Our local supply chain and manufacturing base means that we’re able to shift our manpower and money where needed, when needed. We aren’t just local to the U.S., we’re a global company with facilities and offices in the U.S., China, Dubai, and India, Europe, and Brazil. We can create any product for any customer at the price needed, where needed.
The economic uncertainties facing the EV industry aren’t truly uncertainties— they’re oscillations and opportunities. Ultimately, electrification and diversification makes more economic sense at the individual and commercial level. EV adoption and general energy trends in other countries have shown that this is the way of the future, so at Tellus Power we’ve built out our manufacturing, sales, and support capabilities accordingly.
Looking at the broader supply chain, beyond steel, what are the biggest challenges Tellus Power faces in sourcing key components, and how does your “made in America” philosophy help address these issues?
Prior support for ‘Build America, Buy America’ (BABA) programs requiring 55% domestic sourcing, encouraging many foreign suppliers to onshore products to secure or increase their BABA business. The EV charger industry saw components that have rarely been made in the U.S. begin production here. Items like displays, charging cables and connectors, computer motherboards, power modules, and other electronic components all moved some manufacturing into the United States due to the massive amount of funding made available under the previous administration.
Now, in 2025, Tellus Power and our down-line suppliers have established manufacturing capabilities in the U.S. and have created a localized economy of charger components. We’ve spent the last two years building out our network of these suppliers, so we— and the industry as a whole— are now benefitting from several years of factory and production plant buildout spurred on by early policy and funding initiatives. Our “made in America” philosophy is a choice of practicality, one made by embracing resilient business practices in an industry that has faced the heavy burden of politicization and vacillating policies.
The Business of Charging & Future Outlook
The report notes a decline in the national average price per kWh, partly due to the adoption of time-of-use (TOU) pricing. From a hardware perspective, how does Tellus Power’s technology enable charge-point operators (CPOs) to implement sophisticated pricing strategies like TOU, and what’s the long-term impact on their business model?
Tellus Power’s technology is built on an integration of sophisticated hardware and software solutions that enable advanced pricing strategies like TOU and others. From a hardware perspective, our chargers are equipped with embedded, intelligent software that processes real-time utility pricing data and load management commands, directly enabling CPOs to enforce dynamic pricing, display current rates to the driver, and mitigate costly peak demand charges. Furthermore, our vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capabilities transform the CPO business model from simple utility reselling to active energy management in bi-directionally. The long-term impact is a more flexible and diversified business model for the CPO, where revenue streams extend beyond charging fees to encompass energy services, ultimately making EV charging infrastructure more economically robust and scalable while simultaneously contributing to overall grid stability.
Long-term, we can look to TOU as likely becoming the standard beginning in markets with grid infrastructure issues or load management problems. TOU pricing already exists at the residential level for homes in those and other types of markets, so we’re likely to see those same areas make the shift to TOU for EV charging.
Drivers may also be accustomed to similar billing practices should they choose to install a home charger, so we don’t expect much shock to the end user. If anything, TOU pricing gives drivers more control over their travel costs— they can choose when and where to charge knowing that they can save or spend a little more money at their discretion. That’s a luxury ICE drivers don’t have outside of a Costco membership.
Paren’s report hints at the beginning of a “Charging 2.0” era. In your view, what does “Charging 3.0” look like? What emerging technologies, such as battery storage integration or vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capabilities, are you most focused on for the next generation of chargers?
The next era of charging tech will hinge on utilizing EV charging stations and grid-connected energy storage solutions as an integrated, interconnected “energy transfer system.” This digitally enabled architecture system will connect and interact back and forth with the electric grid to provide stabilizing effects as needed, mitigate the effects of planned or unplanned outages, and reduce costs for all energy consumers.
The current grid is antiquated and fickle in certain markets under stress, and Charging 3.0 looks to those stressors as opportunities for agile technologies to prove their might in energy management practices, and even provide profit opportunities for energy managers due to a smarter, more robust grid.
We are focused on exploiting our leadership in vehicle-to-X bidirectional hardware and software technology. By removing transformers and DCSs, we can reduce hardware needs and create a ‘self-healing’ micro-grid that interfaces with the primary electric grid while minimizing hardware failures. Redundancy isn’t just what happens when things go wrong— it’s also a fundamental shift in how we control the placement and use of energy bottleneck points to prevent future hardware failures.
This shift to conceptualizing EV charging and energy storage solutions as load-bearing and tappable resources will be driven by three key technologies: 1) Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) and smart charging, which will turn EVs into mobile batteries that can send or sell power back to the grid during peak demand, load shedding, or outages; 2) integrated battery storage at charging stations, which will act as a buffer to reduce demand charges or overcome outages, enabling faster charging and greater reliability without requiring costly grid upgrades; and 3) standardized, ubiquitous EV charging infrastructure, where drivers can expect reliable, fast EV charging in every place that’s electrified— meaning EV infrastructure can easily exist in places gas stations can’t or don’t (oftentimes with integrated power generation technologies like solar panels).
These charging technology resources paired with more traditional models like solar panels and batteries create a network of ‘distributed energy resources’ (DERs) that are pre-emptively responsive to energy needs at the utility, local, or state level. Additionally, with innovative software and new hardware, the ability to aggregate the collective energy of these disparate resources known as VPPs will be a game-changer for massive EV DC fast-charging depot deployment.
Looking ahead to the rest of 2025 and into 2026, what do you see as the single most significant factor that will determine the health and pace of the EV adoption curve in the U.S.?
Price, cost performance, and accessibility will continue to be driving factors for buyers, naturally. Prices are steadily dropping as carmakers continue to iron out their own critical mineral supply chain and EV manufacturing issues. Just this week Tesla announced a Standard version of their models Y and 3, which now start at $39,990 and $36,990, respectively. The Chevy Bolt was also just announced at below $30,000. The more additions to the sub $45,000 EV lineup that automakers can introduce, the steeper the adoption curve will be.
The final factor we expect to bolster adoption is simply companies like us doing our jobs correctly. The EV charging industry has been around long enough that infrastructure is now needing upgrades as larger battery vehicles demanding higher charging rates are brought to market. Tellus Power’s ability to offer agile and future-proof products with robust in-field customer support is what will help create a positive feedback loop of EV adoption, wherein customers try an EV, have great charging experiences at minimal cost, and then consider purchasing an EV for a much lower total cost of operation. The better the infrastructure is to use, the more likely it is that drivers will want to get in on the electrified driver experience.
Conclusion
Mike Calise’s insights demonstrate that the current surge in DC fast-charger deployments is not a reckless gamble, but a strategic investment in a resilient, future-proof energy ecosystem. By prioritizing domestic manufacturing, embracing sophisticated energy management systems like V2G, and focusing relentlessly on the customer experience, companies like Tellus Power are laying the groundwork for the inevitable transition to “Charging 3.0.”
While vehicle affordability will always be a factor, the ultimate determinant of the EV adoption curve will be the reliability and intelligence of the public charging infrastructure that supports it. The industry is currently in an expansion phase, strategically overbuilding capacity to ensure that as EV sales accelerate, drivers never face the anxiety of an unavailable or broken charger.
