The future of public EV charging, if you ask the folks at Rove EV, looks a lot like a well-run airport lounge. It has clean bathrooms, free Wi-Fi, a fresh market, a car wash, and a staff member to help if a charger acts up. The company, founded in 2021, is building and operating large-format charging centers across Southern California, each packing up to 40 DC fast chargers and a suite of amenities you won’t find at a lonely bank of Electrify America stalls [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. It’s a hospitality play, wrapped in a capex-heavy infrastructure bet, and it’s quietly backed by Newlight Partners [CB Insights]. The question isn’t whether drivers want a better charging experience,everyone who has waited in a queue knows the answer,but whether they’ll pay enough for it to cover the cost of the lounge.
A bet on the charging destination
Rove’s model is straightforward: build a charging center so pleasant you might not mind the 20 to 30 minutes it takes to fill your battery. Their flagship location in Santa Ana, open 24/7, features a 3,000-square-foot ‘ReCharge by Gelson’s’ market, a lounge with workstations, a dog walk area, and window-cleaning stations [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. A second site in Corona is operational, with centers in Costa Mesa, Long Beach, and Torrance either recently opened or planned for 2025 [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief][Costa Mesa Today, 2026]. The hardware is agnostic, with a mix of CCS, CHAdeMO, and Tesla V4 stalls with Magic Dock compatibility, aiming to serve every EV on the road [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. The wedge is simple. While competitors focus on deploying chargers as fast as possible, Rove is betting that the unit of competition will shift from the kilowatt-hour to the experience.
The team from oil, gas, and finance
The founding team brings a mix of backgrounds that reads less like a classic Silicon Valley story and more like a group that understands heavy infrastructure and customer service. Nathan McDonnell, listed as CEO, is a longtime construction contractor and renewable energy developer [Energy Tech]. Co-founder Michael Lumbley is a former oil and gas executive, now Vice President of Corporate Development [Apollo, retrieved 2026]. Brian Kearney, another co-founder, has a diverse background spanning portfolio management at SECOR Asset Management, investor relations at Oatly, and entrepreneurial ventures [Bloomberg Markets]. It’s a group that seems built for the grind of real estate development, utility interconnection, and operations, rather than for building a viral app.
The capital-intensive road ahead
Scaling this model is not for the faint of wallet. Each site requires a significant land lease, costly electrical upgrades, dozens of expensive chargers, and the build-out of retail and lounge spaces. Newlight Partners is on board as an investor, though the size of the check is undisclosed [CB Insights]. The company’s stated goal is ten centers across Southern California by 2026 [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. Hitting that target will require not just capital, but flawless execution on a complex operational checklist.
| Rove EV Planned & Operational Centers (Southern California) | Status | Key Details |
|---|---|---|
| Santa Ana, CA | Operational | ~40 chargers, ReCharge by Gelson’s market, 24/7 lounge [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief] |
| Corona, CA | Operational | Open Rove center [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief] |
| Costa Mesa, CA | Opened April 2026 | 40 chargers, partnered amenities [Costa Mesa Today, 2026] |
| Long Beach, CA | Under Development | Listed as ‘coming soon’ [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief] |
| Torrance, CA | Planned for 2025 | Address listed, development underway [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief] |
Where the unit economics get real
The risks for Rove are as tangible as the awnings over its charging stalls. The model introduces several layers of cost that pure-play charging networks avoid.
- Real estate and build-out. Securing and developing parcels large enough for 40 stalls plus a building in Southern California is a capital-intensive endeavor with long lead times.
- Amenity overhead. Staff, maintenance for lounges and markets, and utilities for a 24/7 operation add persistent operational costs beyond the chargers themselves.
- Pricing power. To justify the added expense, Rove must convince drivers to pay a premium over the rates at a bare-bones fast charger nearby. Early reports suggest the experience is compelling, but the long-term willingness to pay is unproven.
The company’s answer is that a superior, reliable experience will command customer loyalty and higher utilization, ultimately driving better lifetime value per site. It’s a bet on quality over pure quantity.
The next twelve months
2025 is a building year. With the Costa Mesa site now open and Long Beach and Torrance locations in the pipeline, the focus will be on proving the model can be replicated. Key milestones to watch will be utilization rates at the newer sites, any announcements of additional funding to fuel further expansion, and whether the company begins to detail its financial performance. The quiet backing from Newlight suggests institutional patience for a build-out phase, but the clock on demonstrating a path to profitability will start ticking louder with each new center opened.
A back-of-the-envelope calculation is illustrative. If a standard fast charger might earn $50 in revenue per day, a Rove site with 40 chargers needs to generate at least $2,000 daily just from electricity sales to cover its base costs,before accounting for the lounge, staff, and market. The premium for the experience, and any revenue share from the Gelson’s market, must cover that substantial delta. It’s a high-wire act, but one that could redefine the standard for public charging if it works. For Rove to succeed, it doesn’t just need to be better than a broken Electrify America station; it needs to become the Starbucks of charging, a destination you choose even when a cheaper, purely functional option is closer.
Sources
- [CB Insights, retrieved 2024] ROVE CEO, Founder, Key Executive Team | https://www.cbinsights.com/company/rove/people
- [Energy Tech, retrieved 2024] Bringing Order to Charging: PXiSE Controllers Prepare Rove Centers | https://www.energytech.com/distributed-energy/article/21269421/bringing-order-to-charging-pxise-controllers-prepare-rove-centers-for-grid-uncertainties
- [Costa Mesa Today, 2026] Costa Mesa charging station by Rove teams with Gelson's | https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/story/2026-04-08/costa-mesa-company-teams-with-gelsons-to-recharge-ev-cars-drivers
- [Apollo, retrieved 2026] Michael Lumbley profile | https://www.apollo.com/
- [Bloomberg Markets, retrieved 2026] Brian Kearney, SECOR Asset Management LP: Profile and Biography | https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/18937259
- [Bloomberg Markets, retrieved 2026] Brian Kearney, Oatly Group AB: Profile and Biography | https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/20116501