General Motors might have scaled back its electric vehicle ambitions in favor of more hybrids, but it's still accelerating its plans to build out EV charging infrastructure. Today, together with ChargePoint, GM revealed that it will deploy "hundreds" of new DC fast chargers under the GM Energy brand in 2025.
"The transition to electric mobility continues to be driven by leaders such as General Motors offering innovative EVs and committing to make chargers as ubiquitous as possible," said Rick Wilmer, CEO of ChargePoint. "Our collaboration with GM represents a significant investment in the infrastructure to enable fast and easy charging for all. Together, ChargePoint and GM will deliver a seamless fast charging experience via reliable charging hardware managed by our industry-leading software platform."
Many (but not all) of the new chargers will be capable of delivering up to 500 kW, a higher power level than any EV currently on the market is able to charge. Many of the chargers will also feature ChargePoint's "Omni Port," which has both CCS1 and NACS (J3400) plugs, allowing almost all EV drivers to make use of them. (Sorry, Nissan Leaf owners.)
Chandrashekar supports carpooling and rainwater harvesting to deal with infrastructure issues in the city.
Photo courtesy of Divya Balasubramanyam, Tyler Le/BI
When Vikram Chandrashekar was growing up in Bengaluru, it was quiet and full of natural beauty.
Chandrashekar said urbanization is a good thing, but it changed the city too quickly.
He enjoys living in a tech hub, but said locals are struggling with the pressure on infrastructure.
This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Vikram Chandrashekar, 50, who was born in Bengaluru, India, about how the city has changed over his lifetime. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Bengaluru has become known as the "Silicon Valley of India," but it was once known as a "Garden City."
I was born in Bengaluru and have lived in J.P. Nagar, a neighborhood in the south of the city since I was seven. Back then, it was a remote area with a lot of trees and gardens.
There was a huge lake with a guava and mango orchard across from it. We used to get off the school bus, grab a mango, wash it in the lake, and eat it.
Now, there are houses where the lake used to be, and the majority of the orchard is gone. As the tech sector developed in Bengaluru over the decades, there was a lot of urbanization. As a result, there's less greenery on the streets and more high-rise buildings.
Urbanization is good, but it transformed Bengaluru too quickly and too soon — the city's been catching up ever since. It's left some people feeling frustrated about things like traffic, housing costs, and this year's water crisis.
I've witnessed Bengaluru's transformation into a tech hub
Bengaluru used to be a place where retirees wanted to live. It was a quiet place with a relatively moderate climate.
There's a long history of science and tech development in Bengaluru. The Indian Institute of Science and Raman Research Institute is here. We also have a decadeslong history of aerospace research and electronics manufacturing.
In the 80s and 90s, IT companies like Infosys, Wipro, and Texas Instruments moved into Bengaluru. In the mid-2000s, the startup ecosystem grew as it became more accessible and normalized to start a business.
IT created a lot of job opportunities, just like it did in Silicon Valley. Today, there's a large startup ecosystem and community of venture capitalists. It's probably the best place to launch a startup in India, which means more people have come to the city, creating a need for more space, public transport, and residences.
It also created a lot of urbanization, which gave people more access to resources. We had a larger airport, restaurants with various cuisines coming into the city, and affordable internet access due to more competition between companies.
Because of the startup ecosystem, we get new services and products faster than other Indian cities. I've benefited positively from urban development in these ways.
There are benefits and drawbacks to Bengaluru's transformation
I'm employed in the IT sector. I've been working at Oracle for the past 27 years, and my current role is solutions architect.
People in Bengaluru have undoubtedly benefited from the job opportunities created by the tech boom, but I think local people are split on the effects of urbanization.
It's common to see negative comments about Bengaluru on social media or people complaining to their friends. I think the three biggest issues they raise are the water crisis, housing prices, and traffic.
Traffic is definitely an issue. Public transport isn't sufficient as it stands. Before the pandemic, I'd take the metro to work four days a week because it made me less angry than driving in traffic.
Residential pricing has increased from what it used to be, but so have housing prices in other cities. I'm living in a house that belonged to my parents, so I don't have to pay rent, and this isn't an issue for me.
People were consciously trying to conserve water, and the government brought in water tankers for people to get water at a price. I've never struggled with water supply in the past: I have access to a well, rainwater harvesting, and facilities to store water from the public supply. But this year, I noticed the public water supply was running out more frequently, so even I had to buy water a few times. It was a bad feeling which made me see how the city was changing.
Things have definitely improved since the summer, and hopefully, people will be more prepared for next summer.
I support carpooling, using public transport, and rainwater harvesting to address infrastructure issues in Bengaluru. We should also plant trees for the next generation. Tree roots can help absorb rainwater when there's flooding, so it's important to conserve every tree.
Creating other prominent tech hubs like Bengaluru is a good solution, but progress has been slow
Despite the concerns people have, I don't think people are leaving Bengaluru.
Jobs are a big reason why. There are opportunities in tech and other industries serving that community, such as schools, public transport, and cooking.
There are problems, but they're probably not as bad as social media portrays them to be. I'm frustrated by the traffic and water crisis, but I'll probably continue to live in Bengaluru.
For many years, people have talked about creating alternate cities to Bengaluru within the state, or cities like Hyderabad or Mumbai replacing it, but I feel progress on this has been small.
The solution probably lies in creating other cities like Bengaluru that can distribute the load across various places, but even in other countries, this doesn't happen. One or two cities always take most of the burden.
There are cities near Bengaluru, like Mysore and Mangalore, that could be developed and house more tech parks, but people have to be willing to move there. I think companies have to move first so that good infrastructure, like schools and jobs, can develop, incentivizing people to move. Why not create more Bengaluru's across the country?
It's going to take a long while for anything to change, so I still think Bengaluru will continue to be "India's Silicon Valley."
It would be like trying to move the capital city.
A whole ecosystem would need to be shifted, and that's not going to be easy.
Although there's been a whole lot of pessimism recently, electric vehicle sales continue to grow, even if it is less quickly than many hoped. That's true in the commercial vehicle space as well—according to Cox Automotive, 87 percent of vehicle fleet operators expect to add EVs in the next five years, and more than half thought they were likely to buy EVs this year. And where and when to plug those EVs in to charge is a potential headache for fleet operators.
The good news is that charging infrastructure really is growing. It doesn't always feel that way—the $7.5 billion allocated under the Inflation Reduction Act for charging infrastructure has to be disbursed via state departments of transportation, so the process there has been anything but rapid. But according to the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, the total number of public charging plugs has doubled since 2020, to more than 144,000 level 2 plugs and closing in on 49,000 DC fast charger plugs.
There are ways to throw off a planned timeline when building out a station with multiple chargers. Obviously you need the funds to pay for it all—if these are to come from grants like the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, that had to wait for the states to each develop their own funding plans, then open for submissions, and so on, before even approving a project, for example.
Today, Rivian announced that it is opening up the Rivian Adventure Network of fast chargers to drivers of all other makes of electric vehicles, beginning with its location in Joshua Tree, California. The Joshua Tree Charging Outpost, which has 12 DC fast chargers, is now accessible to any EV with a CCS1 charging port, as well as any Tesla or EV equipped with a native NACS (J3400) port using an adapter. A planned hardware upgrade in the future will add native NACS cables. (Rivian is switching the plugs on its own EVs from CCS1 to NACS in 2025.)
Rivian revealed its plans in early 2021 to build charging stations, a few months before it let us loose in the R1T electric pickup. The Rivian Adventure Network currently has deployed banks of fast chargers at 91 sites across the US, with another 12 in the works. (A separate Rivian Waypoint Network is building out level 2 chargers with J1772 plugs.)
All but one of the Adventure Network sites have at least six DC fast chargers, although until now, all have been the preserve of Rivians alone. In total, the automaker plans to have 3,500 DC fast chargers in the Adventure Network.
Siemens is helping companies in the industrial sector predict machine maintenance problems.
Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock
Siemens uses AI to tackle industrial challenges like safety and workforce shortages.
Siemens says its AI tools, such as Senseye, boost productivity and reduce costs for global clients.
This article is part of "CXO AI Playbook" — straight talk from business leaders on how they're testing and using AI.
Siemens is a German technology company that operates in many sectors, including industry, infrastructure, transportation, and healthcare. It has about 320,000 employees worldwide.
Situation analysis: What problem was the company trying to solve?
The industrial sector faces several challenges, including security and safety regulations, environmental sustainability, and a shortage of skilled experts. Peter Koerte, Siemens' chief technology officer and chief strategy officer, said the company aims to solve many of these issues with artificial intelligence.
"What's most important for AI is that in the industrial context, it needs to be safe, it needs to be reliable, and it needs to be trustworthy," he told Business Insider. Siemens, which has been investing in AI for about 50 years, offers several industrial AI products that help manufacturers across industries, such as automotive and aerospace, to predict maintenance issues and improve worker productivity using data.
"We believe if we can take data from the real world, simulate it, understand it in the digital world, we can be much faster for our customers, and our customers can be more competitive, more resilient, and more sustainable," Koerte said.
Key staff and stakeholders
Koerte said Siemens works with a number of tech partners on its industrial AI products and services, including Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon Web Services, and Meta. The company has about 1,500 employees with AI expertise who work closely with these tech companies, and Siemens' internal product development teams are also involved.
AI in action
Siemens' industrial AI work focuses on predictive maintenance, technology to assist workers, and generative product design.
One product is Senseye Predictive Maintenance, a tool that integrates with a manufacturer's data sources and uses AI to analyze the information. The company said the platform provides insights into how well machinery, tools, and other infrastructure are running. The tech can also help predict maintenance issues, which increases productivity and helps companies speed up the adoption of technology across their businesses.
Peter Koerte is the chief technology officer and chief strategy officer at Siemens.
Courtesy of Siemens
Recently, Siemens debuted Industrial Copilot, a generative AI-powered assistant for engineers in industrial environments. The assistant can generate code automatically, identify problems quickly, and provide advice to support engineering tasks, such as troubleshooting equipment maintenance. The company said the tool can boost "human-machine collaboration" and enable companies to address workforce shortages while staying competitive.
Koerte said that when Industrial Copilot notifies a worker of an issue with equipment or software, that employee can use verbal commands in any language to create a work order, which is automatically sent to a team in a different country to take action to solve the issue. "AI breaks down barriers and democratizes many of the technologies because we take the complexity out of them," he said.
Did it work, and how did leaders know?
Siemens found that companies using Senseye Predictive Maintenance have reduced maintenance costs by 40%, increased maintenance staff productivity by 55%, and decreased the amount of time a machine is unavailable for maintenance by 50%.
The Australian steel company BlueScope implemented the predictive maintenance platform in 2021 to minimize downtime across its plants, increase operating time, improve the rate at which it can produce products, and lower costs. Together, Senseye and BlueScope's IoT sensors can detect abnormal vibrations in equipment early, preventing maintenance problems and saving the company money.
Schaeffler Group, a German automotive and industrial supplier, augmented a production machine with Industrial Copilot. Its engineers are now able to generate code faster for programmable logic controllers, the devices that control machines in factories. Siemens said the technology is helping Schaeffler Group automate repetitive tasks, reduce errors, and free up engineers for "higher-value work."
What's next?
Koerte said Siemens continues to research and develop new use cases for AI.
The company is working on a project that feeds computer-aided design data, such as models and digital drawings, into large language models and prompts it to create products.
The project is still in the early stages of development, but Koerte said it could enable design engineers, particularly in the automotive sector, to create more product variations and produce higher-quality items faster.
