The News: Peachtree Corners, a smart city pioneer powered by real-world connected infrastructure and 5G networks, announced that Siemens, a top-tier supplier of EV charging solutions, has joined the Curiosity Lab smart city ecosystem to support delivering 5G electrification to America. Read the Curiosity Lab Press Release here.
Siemens Joins Curiosity Lab to Advance 5G Electric Vehicle Charging
Analyst Take: Siemens’ American-built charging stations and infrastructure will be installed at Curiosity Lab using T-Mobile’s 5G Network as the company advances its EV charging infrastructure solutions portfolio. With both the Siemens eMobility R&D hub and the North American Headquarters for Siemens Electrical Products located in Peachtree Corners, Georgia, Siemens is the city’s largest employer and is actively supporting the community with six EV charging stations already deployed. These chargers contribute to Peachtree Corners having the largest EV charging hub outside of Metro Atlanta within the state of Georgia.
I see the move as reinforcing Peachtree Corners’ status as a smart city pioneer. With Siemens joining the Curiosity Lab ecosystem, Peachtree Corners gains a robust charging implementation distributed throughout the Curiosity Lab charging infrastructure and supplemented by T-Mobile’s 5G network. Curiosity Lab is a 500-acre technology park with city streets, providing a well-suited proving ground to innovate EV infrastructure including autonomous vehicle development. Additional infrastructure includes dedicated fiber, intelligent traffic cameras and traffic signals, smart streetlights, and a 25,000 square foot innovation center.
From my view, Cellular Vehicle to Everything (C-V2X) technology requires the lower latency and greater bandwidth capabilities of 5G to ensure optimal outcomes, especially related to public safety. As background, Peachtree Corners had partnered with Sprint to support Curiosity Lab’s pre-5G mobile networks. T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint ultimately resulted in the deployment of the first nationwide 5G Standalone (SA) network in the US, making T-Mobile best suited to provide the 5G network essential to C-V2X applications and augmenting EV charging infrastructure expansion.
I expect that Siemens’ efforts to broaden EV charging infrastructure capabilities can play a more instrumental role in expanding the EV charging footprint in the US. According to the US Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center, there are currently about 50,000 public EV charging stations in the country, with a total of nearly 130,000 individual (EVSE) charging ports.
The total number of charging stations includes about 44,000 Level 2 stations with more than 100,000 charging ports. Level 2 charging operates at 240 volts and typically at three to four times the amperage of a lesser Level 1 unit. As such, most Level 2 units add electricity to the EV’s battery pack at a rate that is roughly six to eight times faster than Level 1 setups, equating to 12–32 miles of driving range for each hour of charging.
Siemens’ VersiCharger AC Level 2 EV chargers are designed for both commercial and residential environments. For commercial applications, VersiCharge AC series are well-suited for workspaces, retail, hospitals, parking garages, airports, universities, hotels, multi-residential dwellings, and low-medium duty fleets. For smart home EV charging applications, the series is designed for both indoor and outdoor installation.
Through the Curiosity Lab alliance, I anticipate that Siemens can play a more integral role in the buildout and improvement of the EV charging infrastructure throughout the US as well as advancing C-V2X capabilities using T-Mobile’s nationwide 5G SA network.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
He is a recognized authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends within the service enablement ecosystem, including a wide range of topics across software and services, infrastructure, 5G communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue management, and regulatory issues.
Prior to his work with The Futurum Group, Ron worked with GlobalData Technology creating syndicated and custom research across a wide variety of technical fields. His work with Current Analysis focused on the broadband and service provider infrastructure markets.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
