The ADS-TEC ChargeBox at Stivers Ford in Birmingham is genuinely impressive hardware — 320 kW battery-buffered charging in a dealership parking lot. Getting a working stall is the part that needs improvement.
Stivers Ford of Birmingham is one of the oldest Ford dealerships in the state — founded in 1918, still family-owned, and now home to four ADS-TEC ChargeBox DC fast chargers alongside eight Autel Level 2 stations. It's an unusual spot for serious EV charging infrastructure: a Southside Birmingham dealership parking lot, not an interstate corridor or a purpose-built charging hub. But the hardware ADS-TEC brings to the site is genuinely top-tier, and the location fills a real gap in Birmingham's fast-charging map.
The ADS-TEC ChargeBox is not a conventional DC fast charger. Most fast chargers pull directly from the grid — which means to deliver 320 kW of charging power, they need a 320 kW grid connection, expensive infrastructure upgrades, and they slam the utility with massive demand spikes. The ChargeBox sidesteps all of that with an integrated battery buffer.
It continuously draws only around 100 kW from the existing grid, storing energy in its onboard battery. When a vehicle plugs in, it discharges that stored energy at up to 320 kW — more than three times what it's pulling from the grid at any moment. The result: a dealership like Stivers Ford gets genuine ultra-fast charging capability without tearing up its parking lot for a transformer station or paying for a massive grid upgrade. It's genuinely clever engineering, and it's why ADS-TEC has deployed this hardware across 500+ sites in Europe and North America.
For the driver, this translates to speeds that rival the best non-Tesla public chargers anywhere in the South. On a working stall, 250–320 kW is legitimately fast — we're talking 10–80% on an 800V vehicle in under 20 minutes in real conditions.
That caveat is doing a lot of work. On our visit, stalls were down on arrival. With four ChargeBox units on site, you'd expect at least three to be operational at any given time — that's the basic redundancy promise of a multi-stall deployment. Instead we had to work through the stalls to find one that would initiate a session. That's a frustrating experience regardless of how good the hardware is when it finally connects.
When we did get a working stall, the session itself was excellent. Speeds in the 250–320 kW range, clean initiation, no mid-session drops. The ChargeBox delivered exactly what the spec sheet promises. The gap between what this hardware can do and what the on-site experience actually looks like right now is the whole story of this station.
Dealership charging deployments introduce a maintenance dynamic that purpose-built charging hubs don't have. A dedicated Ionna Rechargery has staff focused on keeping chargers operational. A dealership service department has its core business to run — selling and servicing vehicles — and charging hardware maintenance often gets deprioritized unless there's a dedicated operations agreement with the charger manufacturer or network operator.
ADS-TEC claims 98% uptime for its ChargeBox globally. Our experience at Stivers Ford suggests the US deployment picture, at least at this location, doesn't yet match that benchmark. Whether that's a maintenance responsibility gap, a firmware or connectivity issue, or something specific to this site is hard to say from the outside. What's clear is that the hardware is capable and the execution needs work.
Stivers Ford sits in Southside Birmingham — reasonably accessible from I-20/59 and the broader metro, and filling a legitimate gap in Birmingham's fast-charging coverage away from the highway corridor. It's not a natural road trip stop, but for Birmingham-area EV drivers needing a quick top-up during the day, the location works. Hours are tied to dealership operations rather than 24/7, which limits its utility as an evening or weekend charging option — confirm hours before making a special trip.
The ADS-TEC ChargeBox is genuinely impressive technology and when it's working, the Stivers Ford station is one of the fastest public charging options in Birmingham. The battery-buffered architecture is smart, the speeds are real, and the hardware itself isn't the problem.
The problem is getting a working stall. Until reliability improves at this location, treat it as a secondary option rather than a primary stop — especially if you're time-sensitive. Check PlugShare check-ins before you head over, have the Electrify America station or Tesla Supercharger loaded as a backup, and if you do get a working stall, enjoy some of the fastest charging speeds available in this city.
The potential here is high. The execution needs to catch up.