KYLE, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 3, 2026--
XCharge North America ("XCharge NA"), the North American subsidiary of XCHG Limited (Nasdaq: XCH) and a provider of high-power EV charging and battery-integrated solutions designed to strengthen the North American electrical grid, and JOJO Superfast EV Charging today announced a strategic partnership to deploy a high-power electric vehicle charging network across Illinois. Beyond manufacturing the chargers, XCharge NA will oversee every site from concept to completion through its comprehensive turnkey solutions team.
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The partnership will bring 800kW of ultra-fast charging capacity to nine initial locations, strategically positioned at Menards—the Midwest’s premier home improvement chain—across the state, providing reliable, high-speed infrastructure where Chicagoland drivers shop and travel. Each site will feature four C6 Smart DC Fast Chargers, providing a total of eight charging ports per location, including:
To celebrate the network’s launch, JOJO Superfast held a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday at the Menards in Crestwood, the first site to go fully operational. Attendees included Joe Sheehan, CEO of JOJO Superfast; Alex Urist, Co-founder and Senior Vice President of Marketing at XCharge North America; Ken Klein, Mayor of Crestwood, Illinois; Daryl Richardson, New Business Manager at ComEd; and Dennis Esquivel, Electric Vehicle Policy Advisor at the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.
The successful deployment of this new network serves as a prime example of how state and utility incentives—coupled with manufacturers, operators, and state agencies—can turn subsidies into immediate, impactful community assets. The project was made possible through the coordinated efforts of:
“As an Illinois native, I am incredibly proud to bring this level of infrastructure to my home state,” said Aatish Patel, President and Co-founder of XCharge North America. “But we aren’t just installing hardware—we are providing Illinois drivers a more efficient, reliable charging experience to replace range anxiety with total confidence.”
“For too long, residents of the South Side of Chicago have been plagued by range anxiety, forcing EV drivers to plan their lives around where they can find a plug. But today, we’re changing that narrative,” said Joe Sheehan, CEO of JOJO Superfast. “Our goal at JOJO’s is to build the most accessible ultra-fast network in the state, and XCharge’s unmatched technology and hardware are the keys to making that scale possible. I also want to thank ComEd and the IEPA, whose collaboration with us proves that EV incentives can create something incredibly impactful when everyone works together.”
About XCharge North America
XCharge North America (XCharge NA) specializes in high-power EV charging and battery-integrated solutions tailored to the North American electrical grid. With solutions that store energy, improve grid resilience, and create new revenue streams, XCharge NA is the first scalable open-access EV charging solution designed to strengthen the country’s electrical grid and broader energy infrastructure while providing charging solutions for EVs from individual to fleet.
About XCharge
XCharge (NASDAQ: XCH), founded in 2015, is a global leader in integrated EV charging solutions. The Company offers comprehensive EV charging solutions, which primarily include the DC fast chargers and the advanced battery-integrated DC fast chargers as well as its accompanying services. Through a combination of proprietary charging technology, energy storage system technology and accompanying services, XCharge enhances EV charging efficiency and unlocks the value of energy storage and management. Committed to providing innovative and efficient EV charging solutions, XCharge is actively working toward establishing a global green future critical to the Company’s long-term growth and development.
About JOJO Superfast EV Charging
JOJO Superfast is a developer and operator of ultra-fast EV charging infrastructure and next-generation clean energy solutions, focused on deploying high-capacity, strategically located charging hubs across the Midwest. The company is advancing a vertically integrated approach to energy, including the development of Generation III+ power systems such as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) to support transportation, data, and emerging AI and quantum infrastructure. Through strategic partnerships and forward-looking energy development, JOJO Superfast is building the backbone of a cleaner, electrified transportation and computing future.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements. Such statements are made pursuant to the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about XCHG Limited's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, and a number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by words or phrases such as "may," "will," "expect," "anticipate," "objective," "target," "aim," "estimate," "intend," "plan," "believe," "potential," "continue," "is/are likely to" or other similar expressions. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in XCHG Limited’s filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release, and XCHG Limited does not undertake any duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.
JOJO Superfast and XCharge North America officials celebrate the launch of their first of nine EV charging sites in Illinois. Photo credit: Matthew Korman
NEW YORK (AP) — On a recent weeknight, three tenants of an aging Bronx building were trading apartment horror stories inside a packed ballroom lined with city bureaucrats.
The occasion was the third in a series of “rental rip-off hearings,” a new forum launched by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani for disgruntled renters to air their complaints directly to housing officials — and in some cases, the mayor himself.
As she waited in line, Gulhayo Yuldosheva said she worried that noxious mold in her apartment had worsened her child’s asthma. Nearby, her downstairs neighbor, Marina Quiroz, was showing a video of rats scurrying through her kitchen to a representative of the city’s tenant protection office.
Ann Maitin, a longtime resident of the same building, had just met with the mayor.
“He let me go over my three minutes,” she said, holding up a spiral notebook’s worth of grievances.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist swept into office on a promise of zealous tenant advocacy, framed the event as a struggle session for renters, assuring the standing room only crowd that their stories would guide the city's efforts “to actually hold landlords accountable when they don’t follow the law."
To the residents of 705 Gerard Avenue, this raised a practical problem: No one seemed to know who actually owned their building.
“It feels like such a basic question,” said Maitin, a retired Verizon technician who recently organized the building’s tenant association. “You’d think we’d have the right to that information.”
Their situation is hardly unique. As corporate owners and investor groups have grown their share of the rental market in New York City, they are increasingly shielding their identities behind limited liability companies, or LLCs.
The practice, which has also been spreading nationally, is legal. But experts warn it could complicate Mamdani’s promised crackdown, making it harder for the city and tenants to track the chronically negligent owners whose buildings the mayor has vowed to target and even seize.
“There are these big slumlords that everyone knows are doing predatory investment, but pinning them down is going to be difficult, for the LLC reason,” said Oksana Mironova, a housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society. “That’s a problem for the administration, and it’s even worse for tenants.”
For Yuldosheva and her neighbors, finding their landlord is one of many problems afflicting their six-story building near Yankee Stadium.
Heat and hot water outages are regular enough that some tenants keep a thermometer on their fridge and the city’s complaint hotline on speed dial. Common areas are often filthy, and increasingly populated by drug users. Getting help with an urgent maintenance issue “feels like waiting for Christmas in July,” said Maitin.
During a monthslong elevator outage, a tenant who uses a wheelchair, Tommy Rodriguez, said he was forced to “slide down the steps, like a kid.” Calls to the building management about a repair timeline went unanswered, he said.
Growing up in the building in the 1980s, Rodriguez recalled the previous landlord as a friendly and responsive neighborhood presence.
“This felt like a home before,” Rodriguez said. “Now they treat us the same as the rats.”
A large rodent had recently chewed a hole through his couch cushion. He handled the extermination himself, with a two-by-four.
Recently, tenants received a clue about their landlord, following the partial collapse of another Bronx building. The man identified in news stories as the owner of that building, David Kleiner, shared a Brooklyn office with their building manager, Binyomin Herzl.
A handful of tenants visited each of the building’s 72 units, logging an array of decrepit conditions and unusual alterations.
“We didn’t want to become the next news story,” said Yuldosheva, pointing to a crack in the wall of a bedroom shared by her three children — a result, she feared, of the subway that rumbles just below her windows.
Lawsuits show that Herzl has been ordered to pay more than $100,000 for violations across at least six Bronx buildings, several of which were found by a judge to pose an imminent hazard.
Reached by phone, Herzl said he didn't own any of those properties, but simply acted as a middleman between tenants and the true owners, whom he declined to list. “There’s no one landlord,” he said. “It’s a group of investors.”
Kleiner, who was previously featured on the city’s “worst landlord” list, confirmed his partial ownership of 705 Gerard in a brief phone call, but declined further comment.
Herzl, meanwhile, attributed the tenants’ complaints to “normal wear and tear” of a nearly century old building. He said Mamdani should focus on improving the city’s public housing, rather than going after private landlords.
“Our buildings look like five star hotels against his,” he added.
When landlords refuse to address a serious violation, like heat or hot water outages, the city can step in and order repairs, then bill the owner directly.
In the last three years, inspectors have ordered emergency repairs at 38 buildings that list either Herzl or Kleiner as an owner, according to records provided by the city’s housing department. The men have been billed $446,521 for those repairs.
Mamdani has proposed using such fines as a vehicle to bring distressed rental properties under city stewardship, by aggressively pursuing liens on delinquent landlords and buying up their portfolios through foreclosure auctions.
Just as the city can shut down unsanitary restaurants, Mamdani has said, landlords that “repeatedly put New Yorkers at risk will not be allowed to operate in New York City — with no exceptions."
In reality, the process is resource-intensive and legally fraught. It is made more complex by the nest of LLCs often used by landlords to obfuscate the full scope of their portfolios, according to Cea Weaver, director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants.
“It’d be great to have a better sense of who owns the buildings that we are regulating and overseeing,” she said.
State legislation that would have made it easier to identify LLC owners was recently vetoed by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul amid pressure from landlords.
Kenny Burgos, the CEO of the New York Apartment Association, a landlord lobbying group, said Mamdani’s tenant proposals — including freezing the rent for regulated tenants — would force landlords to cut back on maintenance and services.
“That’s going to take away from the elevator budget, the boiler budget, the heating budget,” he said. “It’s a question of math: These buildings are crumbling because of policy, not because of bad landlords.”
He characterized the rental rip-off hearings as “show trials” that took a “tribal approach” to the city’s affordable housing crisis.
Despite the combative branding — “New Yorkers vs. Bad Landlords,” blares one promotion — the Bronx event mostly resembled a standard constituent service night: City officials fielded questions about local laws, helped residents with paperwork and connected them to service providers.
Maitin left feeling “glad to be heard by someone who can actually do something about the problem,” but felt it was too early to tell “if it’s all talk."
The next morning, she was surprised to find the building’s superintendent applying a fresh coat of paint to a staircase. Outside, workers were removing scaffolding that had been in front of the building for years.
“I think they caught wind of the rental rip-off,” Maitin said. “They’re scared.”
FILE - New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Rental Ripoff Hearing at Fordham University on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki, File)
Gulhayo Yuldosheva's children get ready for school in an apartment building where tenants report maintenance issues and pest infestations, in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)
Francisco Medina, left, cleans his apartment next to his relative, Maria Frias, right, in an apartment building where tenants report maintenance issues and pest infestations, in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)
Gulhayo Yuldosheva, 33 , center right, Marina Quiroz, 65, top, pose for a portrait with other two residents in an apartment building where tenants report maintenance issues and pest infestations, in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)
Tommy Rodriguez, right, talks to his relative, Francisco Medina, left, in an apartment building where tenants report maintenance issues and pest infestations, in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)
Marina Quiroz stands in her living room in a Bronx apartment building, where tenants report maintenance issues, pest infestations, Tuesday, March 17, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)
