EV Charger Hardware: ChargePoint, Blink and ABB Compared

The Comparison Only Works If the Products Are in the Same Class

Most published charger comparisons fail before they start, because they set a mid-power single station beside a far larger power cabinet and call it a head-to-head. An earlier version of this article did exactly that: a 62.5 kW ChargePoint station against a 360 kW ABB cabinet, alongside a Blink “Series 9” described as a 360 kW liquid-cooled flagship — a product that does not exist in Blink’s catalogue. Every conclusion from that table was worthless.

All three vendors genuinely compete, and choosing between them is a real decision. It only becomes tractable once you fix the class. There are three, and they are not substitutes:

• AC (Level 2) — wall or pedestal units delivering tens of amps at 208/240 V. A park-and-stay technology. Cheap to install relative to DC, useless for a corridor stop.
• All-in-one DC — a single cabinet containing power conversion and the dispensing face. Simplest to site, and the power available to a vehicle is limited by that cabinet.
• Distributed DC — a separate power cabinet feeding remote dispensers, with power dynamically allocated across them. Highest ceiling, most site work, best economics per port at scale.

Decide which class your site needs before you take a vendor call. Corridor DC fast charging under the federal programme lands in classes two and three; a workplace or long-dwell retail lot may be a class one problem.

Class One: AC (Level 2)

AC products cluster around the same electrical envelope, which is a sign the class is commoditised and you should choose on service and software rather than watts.

Two cautions. ChargePoint’s end-of-life notices put the CP6000 past end of sale, with its last customer ship date also behind it, so a CP6000 quoted now is coming from remaining stock — ask directly. And Blink’s IQ 200, which appears in older comparisons, is no longer in the Level 2 line-up.

Class Two: All-in-One DC Stations

This is the class most fuel forecourts start in, because it avoids a separate power room and a cable run.

• ChargePoint Express 280 — ChargePoint describes it as 80 to 160 kW DC fast charging in a small footprint, with a modular design and dynamic power sharing; two Express 280 stations can be paired for a shared output up to 160 kW.
• ChargePoint Express 250 (CPE250) — still catalogued but scheduled for end of sale on 31 January 2027, with last customer ship 30 April 2027 and end of life 31 January 2037. Note what the model number is not: this is a 62.5 kW station, paired to 125 kW, not a 250 kW unit. Reading a power rating out of a ChargePoint model number is how the original comparison went wrong.
• Blink All-in-One DCFC — Blink lists a High Power All-in-One at up to 120, 160 or 240 kW with single or dual cable and CCS1 and NACS cables available, and an All-in-One Station Charger spanning 50 kW to 400 kW with multiple outlets and dynamic power sharing.
• ABB A400 — ABB’s all-in-one, in 200, 300 or 400 kW configurations, peak 2 × 600 A, with 50 kW power granularity and dynamic power sharing when two vehicles connect. ABB quotes up to 97% peak conversion efficiency from its silicon-carbide power modules.
• ABB C50 — 50 kW continuous, 150 A, 25 kW granularity, on the smallest footprint in the range. Positioned for roughly an hour of retail dwell, not for a corridor stop.

What matters here is not headline kW but kW per vehicle when both cables are in use. A 400 kW all-in-one serving two vehicles is not a 400 kW experience for either; a cabinet splitting output evenly gives each roughly half. Ask every vendor the same written question: with two vehicles connected and both drawing maximum, what does each receive, and what is the allocation granularity?

Class Three: Distributed DC

Distributed systems separate the power electronics from the dispensing point, which is what makes four or more high-power ports economic on one site.

• ChargePoint Express Plus — the existing modular platform, listed at up to 500 kW as a distributed system with single-cable and dual-cable Power Link dispensers.
• ChargePoint next-generation Express, with Eaton — a redesigned architecture. Express Solo is a standalone station in 200, 400 and 600 kW variants with continuous 800 A liquid-cooled cables, charging two vehicles at once; two paired Solo stations charge four vehicles and can deliver up to 750 kW to any port. Express Distro uses a Power Block 2000 cabinet delivering up to 600 kW, with up to three cabinets paired for 1.8 MW and up to six PL2000 stations on one cabinet, charging twelve vehicles simultaneously. It also supports DC input from solar and storage and bidirectional V2X.
• Blink DC Distributed System — up to 600 kW total supporting up to eight dispensers, single or dual port per dispenser, with CCS1 and NACS. Blink separately lists a 60 kW to 360 kW dual-port DCFC at up to 360 kW and 1200 A with CCS1, NACS and CHAdeMO connectors available.
• ABB HVC360 with OM dispensers — a power cabinet configurable at 200, 300 or 360 kW, shared across one to four outlets, with dynamic power allocation granularity of 50 kW on the HVC200, 75 kW on the HVC300 and 90 kW on the HVC360, and a cabinet-to-dispenser range up to 150 m. Dispensers are the OM family; the OM Duo carries two outlets at up to 2 × 800 A with CCS and NACS, using liquid-cooled cable at 800 A or phase-cooled at 600 A.

Note what happens to the ABB comparison once the class is fixed: the 360 kW figure is a cabinet total shared across up to four outlets, which is roughly 90 kW per outlet when all four are busy. That is why comparing it to a single mid-power station was meaningless in both directions.

One naming caution. ABB’s Terra models, including the Terra 184 and the Terra 360 that older comparisons name, do not appear in ABB E-mobility’s current product navigation, which now runs A400 and C50 all-in-ones, HVC power cabinets and OM dispensers. Do not specify a Terra unit without confirming availability and support with ABB directly.

What the Regulation Fixes, Whoever You Buy From

If you intend to pursue federal corridor funding, several specification choices are made for you. The NEVI Formula Program directs $5 billion to states through the Federal Highway Administration; plan approvals were suspended on 6 February 2025 and the programme restarted under interim final guidance issued 11 August 2025 that supersedes all prior guidance, so confirm your state’s status before designing to it. The technical rules are in regulation:

• 23 CFR 680.106 — at least four DC fast charging ports capable of simultaneously charging four EVs, each with a continuous power delivery rating of at least 150 kW; at least one permanently attached CCS Type 1 connector per port; a contactless payment method accepting major debit and credit cards; and installation, operation and maintenance by qualified technicians.
• 23 CFR 680.108 — OCPP 2.0.1, with conformance to ISO 15118-3 and hardware capable of ISO 15118-2 and -20. ISO 15118 is the Plug and Charge communication standard, not a payment-card standard.
• 23 CFR 680.116 — greater than 97% average annual uptime per charging port, calculated monthly across the previous twelve months, and the real-time price per kWh displayed before a session starts.

Read the four-port rule carefully, because it is where a class-two purchase quietly fails: four ports that must charge four vehicles simultaneously at 150 kW each means the site needs 600 kW available at the same instant. An all-in-one that shares 400 kW across two cables does not satisfy it however impressive the headline number is. That single sentence eliminates more products from a corridor project than any other consideration.

Uptime is the other clause with teeth. Ninety-seven percent per port, measured monthly on a rolling year, is a service contract obligation, not a hardware feature. Ask each vendor for their contractual response time, their spares logistics, and whether their uptime commitment is measured per port on the same basis the regulation uses. Vendors quote uptime on definitions that differ; make them use the regulator’s.

Check Availability Before You Specify

Charger catalogues turn over faster than forecourt equipment, and specifying a unit past end of sale wastes a design cycle. ChargePoint publishes an end-of-life page listing end of sale, last customer ship and end of life dates; the CP6000 and CPE250 both appear on it. ABB’s Terra line has been displaced by the A400, C50 and HVC families. Blink no longer carries the IQ 200.

Before a model number goes into a drawing or a grant application, do three things: pull the vendor’s current product page for that exact model, ask in writing for the end-of-sale and last-ship dates, and ask how long spare parts and firmware support will be available. A charger with a ten-year service horizon and a two-year sales horizon can still be the right buy — but you should know which one you are signing.

Running the Selection

1. Fix the class from the use case, not from a vendor deck. Corridor stop, retail dwell, or workplace — each points at a different class.
2. Get a utility capacity letter first. The available service, not the vendor, sets your ceiling, and it determines whether a distributed cabinet is even feasible.
3. Specify per-port power under simultaneous load, in writing, from every vendor. Compare that number, never the cabinet headline.
4. Ask about connectors explicitly — permanently attached CCS Type 1 where federal money is involved, and check what NACS options each vendor actually ships on the model you are buying.
5. Price the service contract alongside the hardware. The uptime obligation is an operating cost; a cheap station with slow parts logistics is not cheap. Feed the result into your charging pro forma.
6. Confirm weights and measures type evaluation for the exact model and firmware, because electricity sold as a vehicle fuel must be sold by the kilowatt-hour on a device that qualifies — see our guide to charging price structures.
7. Plan the forecourt integration separately. Charging is not a dispenser; it does not fold into your fuel POS the way a pump does. Confirm with your POS vendor — note that Gilbarco Veeder-Root’s retail solutions business has traded as Invenco by GVR since July 2023 — what, if anything, they support.

No vendor wins this on paper. What decides it is which one gives you the per-port power you need at your available service, with a support commitment that survives a rolling twelve-month uptime measurement, on a model they will still be shipping when your site opens. Ask those three questions and the shortlist writes itself. Costs are quoted per site and none of the three publishes them, so the only budget figure worth having is a written proposal — our installation cost guide lists the scope items each proposal should include.

Sources

Product names, ratings and availability were checked against each manufacturer’s own site on 2026-09-08. Vendor sources are cited by name rather than linked, because this site links only to a restricted set of hosts.

• 23 CFR 680.106 — NEVI minimum standards, connectors, payment and qualified technicians
• 23 CFR 680.108 — interoperability (OCPP 2.0.1, ISO 15118)
• 23 CFR 680.116 — charging port uptime
• FHWA, NEVI Formula Program Interim Final Guidance (11 August 2025)
• ChargePoint, Product End of Life notices (CP6000; CPE250 end of sale 31 January 2027)
• ChargePoint, Commercial AC and DC charging stations; Express 280; Express Plus; next-generation Express architecture with Eaton (Express Solo, Express Distro)
• Blink Charging, Level 2 EV chargers (Shasta, Series 8, Series 7)
• Blink Charging, DC fast chargers (High Power All-in-One, 60 kW–360 kW DCFC, All-in-One Station Charger, DC Distributed System)
• ABB E-mobility, A400 and C50 all-in-one chargers; HVC360 power cabinet; OM Duo dispenser
• ABB E-mobility press release — majority stake in its ChargeDot AC charging business (2025)
• Invenco by GVR — Gilbarco Veeder-Root retail solutions business rebranded (July 2023)