Electric Era, America’s leading retail-first EV charging company, today unveiled RetailEdge™ – the industry’s first next-generation fast charger designed to extend the retail experience and unlock new revenue opportunities right in the parking lot. Immersive, intelligent, and significantly sleeker, the all-new EV charging platform made its debut at the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) Show in Chicago.
RetailEdge marks the industry’s first true next-gen EV fast charger, featuring built-in HaloAI™, the company’s AI platform purpose-built for retail-integrated charging, and a sleek, retail-ready design. This platform delivers a smarter, more reliable, and immersive EV charging experience for both retailers and drivers alike.
Combining unmatched reliability with a modern, visually compelling form factor, RetailEdge introduces two breakthrough innovations—RetailEdge Experiences and HaloAI™—giving retailers powerful new tools to differentiate, win customers, and drive loyalty. It is intentionally designed as an open platform, allowing retailers to easily connect and extend their existing retail systems within the charger platform.
RetailEdge enables innovative retailers to unlock three key priorities: implementing ROI-positive EV charging, enhancing omnichannel retail strategies, and leveraging AI for business growth. Electric Era is now accepting orders for RetailEdge stations.
“DC fast charging began with speed and incentives, but its future lies in transforming the charger into a fully monetized, omnichannel marketing solution,” said Electric Era founder and CEO Quincy Lee. “This is what the next generation looks like, as today marks the beginning of the electric era.”
Smarter and More Engaging with RetailEdge Experiences and HaloAI
Today’s leading retailers are embedding omnichannel strategies to adapt to shifting consumer preferences, better target customers, and elevate shopping experiences. In this competitive retail landscape, Electric Era’s RetailEdge platform offers two breakthrough capabilities to help retailers differentiate and seamlessly extend offerings into the parking lot.
- RetailEdge Experiences unlocks the full value of the EV charge kiosk’s premium touchscreen by allowing retailers to configure the screen to deliver loyalty program signups, membership validation, and retail media campaigns. Crucially, it can even conduct retail transactions by linking with point-of-sale systems. Electric Era supports both turnkey experiences and integrations with existing retail digital infrastructure, ensuring a seamless path from driver to shopper.
- Electric Era’s RetailEdge platform also includes HaloAI, the industry’s first AI platform purpose-built for retail-integrated charging. Embedded into every RetailEdge Station, HaloAI combines charger, vehicle, and session data with contextual awareness to be a digital station attendant (and multi-lingually), resolving issues and providing helpful tips in real-time.
When paired with RetailEdge Experiences, HaloAI becomes an extension of the retail environment itself. As an AI agent, it will deliver personalized promotions and product recommendations—and soon—enable direct commerce from the kiosk or even the vehicle. Similar to the evolution of ‘The Internet of Things,’ HaloAI’s use cases will expand over time, supporting new functionality such as product comparisons, shopping guides, or local accommodations.
“RetailEdge with Experiences and HaloAI will enable drivers to make the best use of their time, while our reliable, high-power charger helps them get more range from their charge,” Lee said. “I’m excited to see where retailers take this to create their own intelligent, branded experiences to further build out their omnichannel marketing programs.”
Faster, More Reliable, Better Connected
Electric Era built the RetailEdge using first principles engineering to be faster, more reliable, and better connected than any other charger on the market. The company’s patented battery-backed charging technology increases reliability, reduces operating costs by as much as 70%, and enables rapid installation times by significantly reducing—and often eliminating—the need for major electric utility upgrades.
This foundation has already led to feats such as 54-day start-to-finish installations, 99.8% per-port uptime, and an overall 96% positive driver rating on PlugShare. The company also previously launched the Electric Era Charging Network to help loyal users find their favorite chargers on the road.
With RetailEdge, Electric Era builds on this foundation by making unified hardware and software decisions to optimize performance for charging, retail, and AI use cases.
- Charging Capability: The system offers 400kW standard EV charging capability (equating to 10+ miles of range per minute).
- Touchscreen and Audio: Each kiosk has a bright all-weather touchscreen with two-way audio that cuts through background noise.
- Ultra-Low Latency AI: To ensure ultra-low latency, the integrated HaloAI features a combination of technology that runs in the cloud and on the device.
- High Uptime: RetailEdge’s deep hardware and software integration furthers Electric Era’s capability to deliver exceptional charger uptime and session reliability using predictive alerting, self-healing automations, and over-the-air software updates.
With real-time access to deep telemetry and session-level data, HaloAI can assist first-time EV drivers and seasoned owners, guiding them through the charging process and enabling immediate, intelligent troubleshooting when needed.
Designed for the Forecourt with a Sleek, Modern Kiosk
When DC fast chargers first appeared in parking lots, they were often repurposed electric utility systems with poor connectivity and were frequently located at the back of lots—hardly inspiring confidence.
“The days of hiding chargers in the back of the lot are over,” Lee said. “We designed RetailEdge to be an artistic expression of the future—something retailers are proud to showcase at the forecourt, where it enhances the customer experience from the moment they park.”
RetailEdge’s sleek, modern kiosk design solves this. It is a thin, compact kiosk with a 27-inch touch and voice-enabled screen and prominent retailer branding. The design is an innovative leap forward, engineered to attract affluent EV customers at the front of the store and enable retailers to extend retail revenue opportunities into the parking lot.
Built with EV drivers in mind, RetailEdge’s charging kiosk integrates an ergonomic charge cable neatly routed under the station (available with NACS or CCS1 connectors), intuitive tap-to-pay card payment, and voice-guided HaloAI support. The result is a charger that complements storefronts and elevates the EV charge customer experience.
Doubling Down on Strengths
Electric Era is scaling up production to meet unprecedented demand. The company is re-examining every aspect of the industry, from user experiences and finite reliability to processes and supply chain management—including moving the production of key systems in house for greater reliability and quality control.
The company is also tapping its founder’s experience in satellite engineering to add optional Starlink-based connectivity to further improve communications and remedy potential faults remotely before they become customer issues at the site, ensuring even greater reliability.
“At SpaceX, we realized you can’t send a repair van to outer space when a satellite breaks down, so we engineered our systems to detect and correct errors on our chargers before the customer even sees them,” Lee said. “We’re closing those final gaps in performance and dependability, placing EV charging on-par with any mission critical service we rely on today.”
The Next Generation of EV Charging Begins Today
Today, the EV industry is entering a new phase: market-driven, customer-focused, and ROI-minded. Fast chargers are becoming reliable and powerful by default. What matters next is how well they integrate with retail operations, engage customers, and generate new revenue.
As a disruptor, Electric Era was founded on the idea that a market-driven, retail-first approach, built on a foundation of highly reliable and powerful EV charging will enable the growth of the nation’s public EV charging infrastructure to break down a significant barrier to EV adoption.
“Today, the EV industry is taking a significant step forward to solve the single largest hurdle to growth of zero-carbon emissions transportation in America—and throughout the world,” Lee said. “Today, the next-generation of EV charging has arrived, with RetailEdge we are breaking down the barriers and leading the industry forward.”
