Ionna Is Turning Its Attention To The People Who Sell EVs, Not Just The Plugs

Building a charging network is one thing. Making sure the people standing across the desk from a curious shopper can actually explain it is another. Ionna, the charging venture backed by a long list of automakers, is now moving into the second part of that equation by training dealership sales staff on how electric cars really work in daily life.

CEO Seth Cutler told Business Insider that his company intends to run training sessions for dealer employees at several hundred locations in major U.S. cities. His reasoning is straightforward: a salesperson who cannot answer basic questions about range or charging speed can quietly kill a sale, and Ionna sees educating those frontline staff as part of its own mission. Cutler framed the effort in blunt terms, saying that if the company has not helped shift the needle on EV adoption by the end of the decade, it will have failed.

The rollout is slated to begin in early 2027, and it will target dealerships tied to Ionna’s backers: General Motors, Stellantis, Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Honda, BMW and Mercedes. Those same manufacturers give the network its financial muscle, which has fueled a rapid build-out. Ionna now counts 191 charging stations in operation, roughly a hundred more than it had when the year started, with its 200th site due to open in October. The long-term target is ambitious: 30,000 plugs across North America by 2030.

Scale, though, is relative. Walmart already runs more than 300 stations, and both trail Tesla, which has well over 3,000 Supercharger locations nationwide. Ionna is betting that the experience at each site will set it apart. Many of its locations are designed to feel closer to a conventional fuel stop, with convenience stores, restrooms available around the clock and windshield squeegees on hand. Some even host Amazon Just Walk Out shops. The pitch is that public charging does not have to mean an hour trapped in your seat, and once drivers grasp that, the idea of going electric may land differently.

There is also a self-interested logic at work. Every person who buys their first EV could eventually become an Ionna customer, so smoothing the path from showroom to plug serves the network’s own growth. Stories of dealership staff who are unequipped or simply unwilling to walk buyers through EV ownership are common enough, and that knowledge gap is exactly what this program is meant to close.

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