If you’re looking to play the multi-trillion-dollar Electric Vehicle Revolution, I have a suggestion for you: consider EV charging stocks. People often ask, “Why charging? Why not pure-play EV companies?” To which I respond with another question.

What good is a car without a gas station?

Not much good at all. In fact, a car is useless as a means of transportation unless it has fuel. Fuel comes from gas stations — no gas stations, no usable cars.

By that same token, then, what good is an electric car without a charging station?

Not much good, either. An EV runs on electric charge. If that runs out and there’s nowhere to refuel — then the car is useless.

Without charging infrastructure, the EV paradise everyone is enthusiastic about would not materialize. You know the one; everyone and their best friend buys a Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) (or some other electric car). That won’t be possible unless an equally large growth spurt materializes in EV charging infrastructure.

Over the next decade, global EV charging stations will explode from a few thousand to a few MILLION, as every car on the road gets electrified.

And as that happens, relatively tiny EV charging companies will turn into global giants, which means their relatively tiny stocks will soar hundreds of percent.

Considering what you just read, you’re probably thinking that it’s time to rush out there and buy some EV charging stocks, right?

Not so fast.

There are lots of EV charging companies out there today. Not all of them will make it. Indeed, only a handful of them will; most will fail. So it’s not time to just buy EV charging stocks. Rather, it’s time to buy the best.

And to know which ones are “the best,” we need to first understand EV charging technology.

Gaining an Edge in EV Charging Stocks

That starts with the fundamental question: How does electricity work?

In short, power is generated from a source, like a coal-fired plant or a solar farm. Then, electric wires pass electrons (little charged particles carrying electric power) from the source to the rest of the world. This flow of electrons is called a “current.”

That current can then take two forms: alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC). DC is a direct constant flow of electrons through the wire. It results in heavy power delivery — but also in significant drain on the grid. AC is an oscillating flow of electrons that results in lower power delivery — but a much more manageable load on the grid.

Since the network is and has always been load-constrained, society decided long ago to build the grid on AC. But today’s batteries can only store power as DC — AC, being an alternating current, makes it physically unable to store.

That’s why most consumer electronics devices, like laptops, come with power cords with those big boxes in the middle of them. Those are AC/DC converters, which transform AC power from the grid into DC power that can be stored in the laptop.

EV charging works in much the same way.

The chargers plug into the grid, which provides AC power. That AC is then pumped into the EV. And on board every EV, there is an AC/DC converter that transforms the electricity into usable DC power that’s then stored in the car’s battery.

Simple enough, right?

How to Pick the Best EV Charging Stocks

If you hope to pick the best stocks, it’s not enough to just understand how EV charging works. You need to know the different types of chargers out there. Then you can pick the companies that make the most useful, highest-quality chargers.

There are two classifications of AC electric vehicle chargers — L1 and L2.

L1 chargers are the most basic out there. They’re slow but cheap. They’ll give you about three to five miles of range per hour of charging. Given that they’re low-cost, low-performance in nature, these chargers are common as residential solutions. But they’re very rarely used beyond the home.

L2 chargers are a big step up from L1s. They’re much faster — but also much more expensive. They’ll give you around 30 miles of range per hour of charging. These chargers constitute most on the road today.

Now, there are also DC fast chargers. These are fundamentally distinct from their AC counterparts. They have built-in AC/DC converters. And what this enables, then, is for the charger to pump DC power directly into an EV battery, completely bypassing the AC/DC converter in the car — and therefore resulting in a far more powerful charge.

These chargers are really, really fast — and really, really expensive. As a result, they can give you over 100 miles of range per hour of charging, but there aren’t many of them on the roads these days — just a few thousand across the entire U.S.

The Future of EV Charging

Considering this context, the future of the EV charging landscape will be a mix of mostly L2 chargers in urban areas and some DC fast chargers on interstate highways.

That’s because L2 chargers are good enough. The reality is that the enormous shift from gas stations to charging ports will be accompanied by an equally enormous shift in where we “fill up” our vehicles.

Since EV chargers are tiny and can be built anywhere there’s an electric connection, the days of dedicated gas stations are over. You won’t see EV charging stations replace gas stations. You’ll see gas stations become extinct and EV charging ports pop up everywhere — your gym, your grocery store, your local mall parking lots.

The result? You’ll constantly be charging your EV everywhere you go. So long as you aren’t traveling hundreds of miles and/or between cities and states, L2 chargers will do the job just fine. You’ll be charging every time you are shopping or working out.

For those long road trips… well, that’s where DC fast chargers will be super useful.

Oh, and charging does cost money. Right now it costs about $2 per 30 minutes of L2 charging in a public lot.

To that end, the future of EV charging is super clear. Countless L2 chargers will appear in nearly every parking lot across the world, while DC fast chargers will replace gas stations on interstate highways. And consumers will be paying for all that charge.

That’s the future.

Invest in the Best

So which EV stocks should you buy right now to play that future?

To answer that question, let’s turn to my flagship research advisory service, Innovation Investor.

In it, we leverage a team of hypergrowth technology stock experts — including software engineers, data scientists, seasoned traders and economists — to understand technological megatrends at their most fundamental level. We don’t just listen to management teams and read investor decks. We break down every company’s underlying technology to assess its validity, capability and potential to change the world.

And we do this across every industry, for every technological breakthrough and with every company. The result: We identify early-stage hypergrowth tech stocks set for enormous long-term returns.

And in the electric vehicle world, we’ve found one, tiny $3 battery stock that we believe is positioned for potentially huge end-game returns.

Interested? You should be. World-changing companies can sometimes produce life-changing gains.

Read more about that breakthrough.

On the date of publication, Luke Lango did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.