- Automaker-backed charging firm Ionna has opened its first “Rechargery” to the public in North Carolina.
- It’s got 100 more sites contracted, with some opening this week.
- Ionna says it’ll bring Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology to on-site convenience stores, allowing you to grab what you want and leave without needing to check out.
As a huge group of automakers prepares to take on electric vehicle charging headaches by teaming up, they’ll also allow you to grab some snacks while your car is recharging and then Just Walk Out.
The new Ionna Rechargeries will implement the AI-powered Amazon solution for automatic, cashier-less payments at some stations, the company announced Tuesday. The new tech rollout comes as Ionna begins the next phase of its nationwide charging network rollout.
The company is aiming to be one of the charging industry heavyweights, with direct backing from BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Kia, Stellantis and Toyota. It’s promised to have 30,000 charging ports across the country by 2030. That’s about as many plugs as the Tesla Supercharger network has today, and Ionna’s stations will support both Combined Charging Standard (CCS) and North American Charging Standard (NACS) vehicles, so you won’t need an adapter.
Ionna is also trying to solve some of the biggest pain points with charging. So its flagship “Rechargeries” will have canopies covering the charging stalls, on-site restrooms, lounges and food and drink options. It’ll also have partner Rechargeries, with concessions and lounges handled by a partner, like Sheetz. Finally, it’ll have “Relay” sites, which will be more bare-bones sites that only have restrooms, lounges, canopies and food options “when possible.”
Its first flagship location is now open to the public in Apex, NC, with more on the way. To celebrate, the company today announced that it has contracted for over 100 sites. Rechargeries in Houston, Texas; Abilene, Kansas and Willcox, Arizona will open this week. As the company expands, it’s also rolling out new technology, like Amazon Just Walk Out.
Just Walk Out allows customers to grab items from a store and leave without needing a cashier or self-checkout machine. Amazon’s technology uses an array of cameras and sensors to feed an AI program, which detects what items you take. Don’t worry, it isn’t like a hotel minibar sensor, either. You can pick up an item, look at it, walk around the store and put it back without being charged. I used an earlier version of the system back in an Amazon Go store in 2019, and it was impressive.
But the system has drawn some criticism for relying on workers in India to help monitor customers. Critics have said that Amazon essentially outsourced the cashier job.
Amazon vigorously denies this, telling the Associated Press and The Verge that it only used humans to annotate Just Walk Out shopping data to help train and improve the AI model. The model can flag situations where it’s unsure whether you bought something, and workers can help identify the issue. The idea that “people in India are watching you shop live in a store and figuring out what you bought is completely inaccurate,” Jon Jenkins, the vice president of Just Walk Out at Amazon, told the AP.
But he mentioned that when Amazon announced that it would phase out Just Walk Out technology in its own Amazon Fresh stores. The company was careful to note that it was not backing away from the technology. Instead, it said the future of the tech would be licensing it to third-party companies. Customers at full grocery stores expect some human help, and the model seems less apt for that. Amazon said it would license the tech to over 120 third-party vendors, and now we know who the latest is: Ionna.
It’s an application that makes sense. Recharging stations will be open 24/7, and you don’t really need a human to ring out your Fritos. Most people only buy a few things, and the compact size of a convenience store will make setting up the sensor network more cost affective.
But one of our main complaints about modern charging stations is that there is rarely, if ever, a person on-site to help with issues. Gas stations always have someone working, and that can be helpful if you need to override a busted payment system, or if something gets stuck. Hopefully Ionna’s Rechargeries will keep the human touch, but for now we don’t even know how many Rechargeries will get the technology. It’ll come to the Garner, North Carolina station first. As for whether it’ll come to all of the other stores, or just a few, we don’t know. I’ve reached out to Ionna for information, and I’ll update this story if we hear back.
