Good - the charging network is one area holding EV adoption back and Build Back Better only had half of what was asked for. Climate change is going to cost hundreds of $Billions per year, so this is just a drop in the bucket to try to control those costs.
The only problem is these places make more money from gas pumpers than people charging an EV. Even if the percentage of people pumping gas that go in for a snack is less than EV, you can have 10x as many people use the pump than a charger in the same time span.
This is why the government incentives are needed until the technology is fully mature. If uncle Sam pays 90% of the install cost, the pay back period looks much nicer.
This was in my local rag, the Irving station is across the street from my favorite breakfast place!!
Not correct. Profit margins are astronomically higher inside the convenience store than at the gas pumps. Cash flow is nice but profit margin drives the business. How many gas stations do you see without convenience stores compared to convenience stores without gas stations?
I understand this completely. I know someone who works for a gas distribution company and the business' net profit margin hovers around 1%, it is a volume business. The point being that far fewer people show up for an EV charger per day, versus a gas pump per day, based on length of charge time. sotek2345 hit the nail on the head with his response, there needs to be significant government incentives to install a charger for it to make financial sense. You just won't sell enough Gatorade and candy bars with 1/10 of the vehicle traffic to make the transition sensible. Or charge times need to be reduced considerably to make the volume of people showing up for EVs comparable to people using the pump.
When EA opens a charger..what is the relationship between the EA and the location owner? I was under the impression that EA owned the charger(and took the profit) with only a small cut going to the property owner. In such an arrangement there really is no risk to the property owner, provided he or she has space for the chargers and it doesn't take away too many spaces for the non-EV crowd. As an added bonus, the property owner gets the store sales from people as they are charging? Is that not the case?
And there is never an electricity leak that requires digging up of tanks.... Every gas station is a mini-superfund site waiting to happen. If local electricity costs 20c per kWh and it is being sold at 35c per kWh then there is certainly profit available.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that they rip out all of their fossil pumps on Day 1 to install DCFC. As you said, it's a transition. Fossil fuels will be around for many years. My thought is that public seed money would be well-spent to align and combine new charging locations with existing energy delivery infrastructure. The Wawa, Sheetz, etc. of the world could provide convenience features and security to charging without hurting their ongoing business.
There's a completely different dynamic between buying gas and charging an EV on the road.
Networks like EA and Tesla SC lease space from the property owner and collect fees from the chargers. Other networks like Chargepoint and Greenlots generally sell equipment and service plans to property owners who set rates and collect fees from the chargers.
I can see truck stops and larger gas stations making the investment on charger installation because they have more real estate to spare and because they have multiple ways to collect revenue from people waiting to charge. It's easy to spend money and time at a place like Buc-ee's or Love's on things like brisket, video poker and those weird glass figurines that they all seem to have.
