Xcel Plans to Expand Mobile Fast Charging From Its Fleet to Customers During Grid Work

Xcel Energy plans to expand its use of battery-backed mobile fast charging from its own fleet work sites to a temporary customer-facing role during grid-improvement projects in Colorado.¹²

Xcel Energy–Colorado president Robert Kenney said the additional Xos Hub systems will support the utility's growing electric fleet while also giving customers flexible charging options during grid work.¹ Xos, which announced the follow-on order Wednesday, says Xcel ordered three additional Hubs: two for fleet charging at company service centers in Arvada and Grand Junction, and one for a Denver-area transmission project where affected residential customers may be unable to charge personal EVs at home for several hours.¹

The customer use is the important change. Xcel had already publicly described using the Xos Hub as a mobile fast-charging trailer for its fleet. In a September 2025 company story, Xcel said fleet employees were testing the equipment to provide flexible charging at work sites.²

That makes the newly announced Denver use less a debut of mobile charging than an expansion of what Xcel plans to do with it: use movable, battery-backed DC fast charging as temporary infrastructure for customers while planned electric-system work interrupts home charging.¹²

One Hub is planned for a customer charging gap

The detailed deployment plan currently comes from Xos, the equipment supplier. Its Aug. 26 announcement says the Arvada and Grand Junction units are intended for Xcel fleet vehicles, while the third will be used by a transmission team upgrading the grid in the Denver area. Xos says that unit is intended to give residential EV customers a charging option during the several-hour period when electricity is unavailable at home because of the work.¹

The announcement uses future deployment language. It does not establish that the three newly ordered systems have already been delivered, commissioned or made available to customers.¹

Xos's current Hub product page lists a family of 210, 420 and 630 kWh battery capacities, with DC fast charging rated at up to 150 kW per charge head.³ But neither the order announcement nor the other public materials reviewed for this story identify which capacity or connector configuration Xcel ordered. The specific hardware going to Arvada, Grand Junction and the Denver project therefore remains unconfirmed.¹³

Access and pricing are still unclear

The public announcement does not identify the Denver-area project location, construction dates, charger operating hours, customer-selection process or whether charging will be free or paid.¹ It also does not provide a delivery or commissioning schedule for the three new units.¹

There is also no public basis in the reviewed materials to say this order is being recovered from customers through Xcel's Colorado Transportation Electrification Programs Adjustment rider. Xcel's current Transportation Electrification Plan page says TEP investments and expenditures are generally recovered through that rider, but the page does not identify Xos or this mobile-charging deployment.⁴

Those missing details matter because the Denver project is the part of the order that could directly affect ordinary EV owners. For now, the confirmed shift is narrower: Xcel had already used mobile fast charging for fleet work sites, and its Colorado president now says the utility plans to extend that flexibility to customers during grid-improvement projects, with Xos identifying one Denver-area transmission project as a planned customer-facing use.¹²

Sources

Footnotes

1. Xos Secures Follow-On Xos Hub Order from Xcel Energy to Provide Expedited and Flexible Fast Charging Opportunities for EVs in Colorado — Xos, Inc. via GlobeNewswire, Aug. 26, 2026. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/08/26/3351705/0/en/xos-secures-follow-on-xos-hub-order-from-xcel-energy-to-provide-expedited-and-flexible-fast-charging-opportunities-for-evs-in-colorado.html. Interested-party announcement establishing the announced three-unit order, Xos's intended Arvada/Grand Junction/Denver uses, and the named statement from Xcel Energy–Colorado president Robert Kenney. Detailed deployment claims remain attributed to Xos. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

2. Innovation in Motion — Xcel Energy, Sept. 29, 2025. https://stories.xcelenergy.com/stories/innovation-in-motion. Xcel's own public description of fleet employees testing the Xos Hub for flexible mobile fast charging at work sites before the 2026 follow-on order. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. Xos Hub — Mobile Charging Solution — Xos, Inc., current product page observed Aug. 26, 2026. https://www.xostrucks.com/autonomous. Lists the current Hub family's 210/420/630 kWh capacities and up-to-150-kW-per-head specifications; it does not establish which configuration Xcel ordered. ↩ ↩²

4. Transportation Electrification Plan — Xcel Energy–Colorado, current program/filing page observed Aug. 26, 2026. https://www.xcelenergy.com/company/rates_and_regulations/filings/transportation_electrification_plan. Establishes general TEP/TEPA treatment; does not identify this Xos order or Denver deployment as a TEP-funded or rider-recovered project. ↩