This 1.5 MW Truck Charger Just Got the Green Light for North America

If you think your car's 250 kW Supercharger session is quick, hold onto your charging cable. A Portuguese company called i-charging just cleared a major regulatory hurdle to bring a 1.5-megawatt truck charger to the US and Canada — that's roughly six times the peak power most passenger EVs can pull today.

The company's i-light heavy-duty charger has received Intertek's ETL certification, confirming it complies with the electrical safety standards that govern DC fast charging equipment on both sides of the border. Specifically, that means UL 2202 and UL 2231 in the US, plus CSA C22.2 No. 346 in Canada.

Why Certification Matters More Than the Headline Number

Megawatt numbers make for great headlines, but the ETL stamp is the part that actually moves hardware into the ground. Fleet operators and site developers need independent safety validation before they'll install equipment this powerful — no one is running 1,500 amps through a parking lot on a promise. Local permits and inspections still apply, of course, but this clears the biggest gate.

It's the same logic that applies to the gear in your own garage, just scaled way up. Third-party safety certification is what separates equipment you can trust from equipment that's merely spec'd well on paper.

Two Connectors, One Cabinet

The i-light is built for medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicles, and it can be configured with both CCS and MCS outputs:

• CCS: up to 800 kW, using either a 600-amp continuously cooled cable or an optional 700-amp continuously cooled cable that peaks at 800 amps. That covers electric trucks already running North American roads today.
• MCS: up to the full 1.5 MW at 1,500 amps continuous. The Megawatt Charging System is being developed specifically for large commercial EVs whose batteries dwarf anything in a passenger car.

The dual-connector approach is the smart play. Fleets can charge their CCS trucks now and be ready for MCS-equipped models as those arrive, without ripping out and replacing infrastructure. Anyone who lived through the CCS-to-NACS shuffle in the passenger EV world knows exactly how valuable that kind of futureproofing is.

There's also a 37-inch transparent display positioned so drivers can read charging info from the seat, plus a separate 10-inch touchscreen. A 37-inch screen on a charger is a little wild, but when you're parked in a semi cab high above the pavement, a normal charger display is basically invisible.

Charge During the Break, Not Instead of It

The whole point of MCS is time. Commercial drivers already have mandated rest breaks built into their day. If a truck can take on a meaningful charge during that window instead of sitting plugged in for hours, electric freight starts to pencil out operationally rather than just environmentally.

"ETL certification is a decisive step in bringing i-light to North America. Fleet operators demand charging infrastructure that meets the mission critical duty cycles of the medium and heavy-duty (MHD) vehicles on the road today and is ready for MCS as the standard matures." — Jeff Cohen, CEO of i-charging USA

What This Means for Passenger EV Owners

You will never plug your Model Y into one of these. But heavy-duty charging buildout matters to you anyway, because it drags the whole grid-side ecosystem forward — bigger service upgrades, more on-site battery storage, more utility experience with high-power sites. Truck corridors and passenger charging corridors tend to end up in the same places, and the electrical infrastructure that gets trenched in for one often makes the other cheaper to add later.

It's also a useful reminder about how charging actually works: cable cooling, connector amperage, and thermal management are the real limits, not just the number on the marketing sheet. That's true at 1,500 amps and it's true at 48 amps in your garage — which is why cable gauge, connector quality, and heat handling are worth paying attention to when you're picking out home charging gear, travel adapters, or an extension setup for road trips.

The Fine Print

i-charging was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in Porto, Portugal, with a US base in Atlanta. The ETL certification pushes its expansion into the North American fleet market forward, but the company hasn't yet named its first US or Canadian customers, and it hasn't announced deployment dates. So this is a green light, not a ribbon cutting — worth watching, but there's nothing on the ground yet.