7 ms·

7-11 is opening 500 EV charging stations by the end of 2022

161 points by evo_9 5y ago

UncleOxidant 5y ago
Most 7-11s near where I live have very limited parking. And it's not a place where you spend much time shopping - you're usually in and out in 5 minutes or less. Having cars charging there for an hour or more will eat up that limited parking space. It's good to have more charging stations, but it would seem like it would make more sense to have them in front of stores where people tend to shop for a long time - just thinking out loud: maybe this could be a way to revive shopping malls? Offer cut rate charging stations, people walk around in the mall waiting for their car to charge and maybe end up buying stuff.
- abfan1127 5y ago
  it seems restaurants, movie theaters, grocery stores, are the types of experiences where an EV charger is appropriate. This is like offering an EV charger in a drive thru like McDonalds.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - firloop 5y ago
    Did a road trip in Europe in December 2020 and it turned out that McDonalds very reliably had EV charging. What you're saying is not as crazy as it sounds!
  - Retric 5y ago
    20-30minutes of fast charging at McDonalds is perfectly reasonable for those who go inside. The important bit is having 100+kw chargers.
    - jsight 5y ago
      Exactly! I'd love for every interstate or highway fast food restaurant to have fast chargers. Even 70KW is often fast enough to get to the next stop in a lot of cars.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  I assume 7-11 management is aware of things like parking constraints, and that could be why this is only being rolled out to 250 stores in North America (out of 10,000). I'm sure that there are more than enough 7-11s that do have good parking, are in the right areas where charging stations would turn a profit, etc. If even 1 out of 5 7-11s met those conditions, they can later increase that to 5,000 EV stations in 2500 stores. Remember, there's over 100K gas stations and if we count pumps, you're in the ballpark of a million, so there is lots of room for companies to enter the charging market before it gets too crowded. Might as well set up a beachhead now.
- jmccaf 5y ago
  I love more charging stations, but I agree with this skepticism, 7-11 tend to be very quick stops ? If 7-11 builds chargers at my nearest location, I'll occupy them happily and walk home while charging. And perhaps I'll enter 7-11 on the drop-off or pick-up trip ? I have a plug-in hybrid (Volt) and live in an apartment complex without chargers, and I use the abundant shopping mall chargers at Valley Fair mall in San Jose, CA as you describe. I live close enough to walk home 1 mile from the mall, so I'll drop car off, then go into mall to pickup a meal at the nice food court or browse around. Probably as 7-11 hopes: I'll readily spend $10-$15 on food, while charging $5. My unique fit here is that Valley Fair is an urban mall: it's close to my apartment in healthy walking distance, and it has dense multi-level parking structures, so I'm not walking out and back through a vast mall parking lot. Movie theaters in malls map well to charging stations because of the 2 hour duration you are inside, for when people go inside movie theaters again ($AMC?) Offices and workplace charging work well for me too (when not WFH)
  - bin_bash 5y ago
    These are DC fast chargers. You won't be walking home while it's charging.
- newsclues 5y ago
  Probably target interstate highway locations.
- turtlebits 5y ago
  These are DC fast charging stations, you can get a decent charge in ~10/min on newer EVs.
- jsight 5y ago
  Very few cars are stopping for an hour. The typical stop time is between 20 and 30 minutes.
  - jackson1442 5y ago
    And with more cars supporting 350kW charging speed in the near future (Kia EV6, anyone?) that time is only going to decrease.
- bin_bash 5y ago
  Most shopping malls (at least that I've seen) already have EV charging. IMO it's kind of useless though. If I'm traveling I need a DC fast charger and if it is a DC fast charger, probably won't have much time to go in the mall before it's done (and have to move my car to open up the spot). If I'm near home I almost never need to charge outside. 7-11 is actually better since I won't be too far away from my car. Run in, grab a snack, chill for 5-10 minutes and be on my way. Only problem is they never have bathrooms.
- m463 5y ago
  They could enforce a time limit. Cars are also starting to charge to a usable percentage much faster. Tesla was talking about charging at 1000mph or ~ 83 miles range in 5 minutes of charging. Also, at a 7-11 near a freeway exit, I would assume it's a different story than an urban 7-11.
- femiagbabiaka 5y ago
  There are quite a few combination 7-11 gas stations that I’ve seen on road trips. I’d guess those are the targets.
- compsciphd 5y ago
  it's DC fast charging. lets say you're in the store for 10 minutes. lets say its chargepoint's new 24kw charging. That means in 10 minutes, a user would get about 4kwh of energy. i'd estimate that's 10-20 miles depending one how one drives (15-20 if slow stop and go city driving, probably between 10-15 if speedy highway driving). But, if this is an around town driving and there are many places where 10-20 minutes here and there you can pick up miles like that, it all adds up. with that said, malls are also a great place to have charging.
- nashequilibrium 5y ago
  The big question is, within the next 5yrs how much charge will you be able to get in 10 minutes.
whoisjuan 5y ago
Why aren't all gas station in the US buying at least a couple of timed/metered EV chargers? They are cheap in Aliexpress. Between 400 USD and 1000 USD per charger. I would assume that a gas station already has the electrical setup required to hook a handful of them since they have other equipment with high electricity consumption. With a couple thousand you can create a small EV charging operation. It baffles me when I see gas stations with a new car wash system that is probably expensive as fuck and not a single EV charging station in miles. Is EV charging a regulated industry or something?
- crooked-v 5y ago
  Buying EV chargers from random sellers on AliExpress seems like a great way to get sued after somebody's car catches on fire.
  - whoisjuan 5y ago
    Hahaha true. Using that only as a proxy of EV charger cost.
  - kayfox 5y ago
    Or have a pile of chargers no electrician will sign off on for permitting.
- abfan1127 5y ago
  there are probably electrical hookup limitations.
  - failwhaleshark 5y ago
    Electrical permits and metering (if it's not your property).
  - jagger27 5y ago
    Most gas stations are on primary arterial roads. That's where high voltage transmission lines usually run, no?
failwhaleshark 5y ago
Most people who own EVs aren't going to feel safe enough to sit for two hours recharging their expensive cars next to a convenience store with the standard hangout figures around said stores. These are what personal safety people call "transitional spaces" so it's absolutely the worst place to put oneself for an extended period of time.
- ThalesX 5y ago
  Not all electric cars are 80k Tesla units. In Europe, they recently launched a ShitEV called Dacia Spring. You can buy it in Germany for around $14000 [0]. The world has enough room, and will have enough EVs in time, for regular charging stations for regular people, or even "standard hangout figures" ... we won't all be driving hype. [0] https://www.carscoops.com/2021/03/dacia-spring-ev-prices/ https://www.carscoops.com/2021/03/dacia-spring-ev-prices/
  - synaesthesisx 5y ago
    Teslas also start at about half that (closer to $40K), and are effectively the new Toyota Prius in terms of popularity (in California, at least). I don't consider them luxury vehicles by any means, especially after sitting in a Lucid Air, Mercedes EQS or nicer EVs.
  - failwhaleshark 5y ago
    But hype is faster, stronger, just-around-the-corner, and more magical like a certain loop. Say you have to drive 1000 mi / 1600 km nonstop or have a low battery. So how are EVs going to work practically for everyone who isn't rich without standard swappable battery packs like the original Model S had? -- There "isn't enough room" in ATX; homelessness is being recriminalized. Also, there "isn't enough room" in Denmark for out-of-EU asylum waiting camps because no one wants to host them. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/austin-s-homeless-camping-ban-is-back-in-effect/ar-BB1gCGJ9 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/austin-s-homeless-camping-... https://www.kctv5.com/denmark-passes-law-to-move-asylum-centers-outside-the-eu-it-still-needs-another-country/article_48236484-aeaa-51c4-b132-fafc9184f8e3.html https://www.kctv5.com/denmark-passes-law-to-move-asylum-cent...
linsomniac 5y ago
Back in the '90s I filled my car up with gas at the local 7-11. My car sputtered across the parking lot and then died and wouldn't restart as I was pulling out onto the street. I drained the gas and put fresh in from another place and it started right up. Called the regional HQ, told the guy there the story, and he just hung up on me and wouldn't answer when I called back. Since then I've been avoiding 7-11 because, as far as I can tell, it's run by a-holes. They've lost more business from me than they would have spent on just refunding my $30 gas purchase or whatever. Makes me think twice about plugging a $50-$100k car in to their business though. :-)
- abfan1127 5y ago
  most 7/11s are franchised. While the brand should be interested in such pieces to help their brand, the reality is that sometimes bad batches show up, or local franchisees stretch their dollar a bit in unscrupulous ways.
turtlebits 5y ago
IME, Chargepoint fast chargers are the most expensive I've seen. The ones near all charge a session fee of $3 to $8 plus 0.35$/kwh (which is almost 4x residential rates).
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  At that rate, you'll spend as much per mile as gasoline.
  - edaemon 5y ago
    DC fast charging can be almost as expensive per mile as gas, but charging at home or at a commercial L2 (non-fast) charger is much cheaper.
- bsder 5y ago
  Chargepoint are shit. I can't wait for chargers to become ubiquitous enough to drive Chargepoint into bankruptcy.
xyst 5y ago
If 7-11 becomes anything like their counterparts in Japan, it might actually become a success in the upcoming age of EVs.
- clouddrover 5y ago
  Here's how Circle K does it in Norway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TVohXHjLro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TVohXHjLro
arduinomancer 5y ago
I'm really curious what the future will look like for charging infrastructure if majority of people switch to electric. Is the ideal long term goal to have a charger in basically every parking spot? For example an apartment building where every single spot in the parkade has a charger.
- clouddrover 5y ago
  Chargers in parking spaces makes sense for urban areas. Dedicated charging locations make sense for highway driving. A couple of examples of dedicated charging locations: - Circle K in Norway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TVohXHjLro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TVohXHjLro - Gridserve in the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoN4WCpuxHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoN4WCpuxHY
- ink_13 5y ago
  The power requirements to run, say, 100 chargers, potentially all at once, are potentially bananas. If there's going to be large-scale charging, there's also going to have to be some kind of load-orchestration system involved, too.
  - chrisbolt 5y ago
    There already is, companies like EverCharge (https://evercharge.net/ https://evercharge.net/) deal with load orchestration. However even if every parking spot has a car that’s plugged in, most of them probably won’t be charging at any given time.
- alexanderdmitri 5y ago
  With a battery swap out model, you could have spots where you pull in and swap a drained / semi-drained battery (or batteries) for a fully charged one. Maybe like the way it's done with propane tanks in some places, but more complicated. Quality control, general standardization and ease of access would need to be solved, but if done right this could be automated by pulling up to a vending machine and maybe eventually (super futuristic) on the fly like the way they can do in-flight fueling for aircraft. The initial overhead could be worth it to not sit around charging, but I could also see other interests winning out here (bored people spend money, standardization isn't necessarily win-win, enabling third party service is less profitable for the car makers, &c).
xbar 5y ago
Three words: Double Gulp Slurpee.
diogenescynic 5y ago
Doesn't seem like a fit for their clientele which is mostly homeless tweaks hanging out in their parking lot.
chemmail 5y ago
Wow five whole hundred? If you really think about it, all the EV subsidies need to go the charging infrastructure. Tesla has already proven people want EVs. The real challenge is the charging for people without houses. Right now much of DC Fast charging falls on Electrify America's hands and they really do not care at all as they are just a punishment company for VWs diesel cheating scandal. In my and a lot of other experiences, up to 25% of public chargers are broken and can take months to repair. Only Tesla has decent organization to fix it in just a couple of days. People who buy EVs now are in for a rude awakening.
- clouddrover 5y ago
  > Wow five whole hundred? The best way to think of it is five additional hundred. That's the advantage of using a common standard like CCS. Drivers of CCS cars can make use of all CCS chargers with no need for adapters. 7-Eleven's 250 new charging locations will be added to the existing 4,414 CCS locations in the US and Canada: https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html
  - janvidar 5y ago
    In Europe, Teslas and Tesla chargers are CCS - but limited to Tesla only. I rarely see Teslas on non-tesla fast chargers.
    - clouddrover 5y ago
      The charge curve for the Tesla Model 3 is better on non-Tesla CCS chargers. It's flatter for longer: https://insideevs.com/news/507489/tesla-model3-charging-faster-ccs2/ https://insideevs.com/news/507489/tesla-model3-charging-fast... https://support.fastned.nl/hc/en-gb/articles/360012178313-Charging-with-a-Tesla-Model-3 https://support.fastned.nl/hc/en-gb/articles/360012178313-Ch...
dreamcompiler 5y ago
It's Chargepoint, so it's useless to Tesla owners until Tesla decides to sell a CCS adapter in the USA.
- clouddrover 5y ago
  It really is time for Tesla to switch to CCS in North America. Tesla switched to CCS in Europe two years ago. The European Teslas are better cars purely because they have a plug you can use with more fast chargers with no need for an adapter.
  - dreamcompiler 5y ago
    Other than the aesthetics of the charger, I couldn't agree more. The CCS connector is a big ugly thing compared with the svelte Tesla connector, but you never see it unless you're charging.
  - dawnerd 5y ago
    Or at the very very least actually release a CCS adapter. People have been begging for a NA version of what they already have available. I wonder what the real holdup is.
    - sagz 5y ago
      can you use an EU adapter with an NA car? can you buy one off of eBay and import?
peteretep 5y ago
Can we modify the title to specify this is USA 7-Eleven only? There are three countries with more 7-Elevens that the US in absolute terms, and 10 with more per-capita than the USA including Norway and Australia.
Animats 5y ago
How many years before people with gas cars have to check in advance to see which gas stations are in business, open, and have gas?
xarope 5y ago
This is reminiscent of the type of gas station I found in Paris. Just a store front, and a pump or two by the side of the road. Not sure if this link will show: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jefferysview/6442802819 https://www.flickr.com/photos/jefferysview/6442802819 And given the industry is pushing for a fast-charge within 5-10 minutes, which would give another 100 miles to your car, I don't see why this wouldn't work?
whatever1 5y ago
Why not build facilities similar to old school burger drive-in places like Sonic [1]? While charging your car, get served food or whatever else you like. Since we will be stuck in the car for longer time, it seems like a field ripe for disruption. Don't forget that even today, gas stations do not make their profit from selling gas, but from the convenience store. [1]https://th.bing.com/th/id/Rd6475860948f58c4523352a0cec38645?rik=jl8Gpt72VJRp%2bw&pid=ImgRaw https://th.bing.com/th/id/Rd6475860948f58c4523352a0cec38645?...

161 points by evo_9 5y ago

Most 7-11s near where I live have very limited parking. And it's not a place where you spend much time shopping - you're usually in and out in 5 minutes or less. Having cars charging there for an hour or more will eat up that limited parking space. It's good to have more charging stations, but it would seem like it would make more sense to have them in front of stores where people tend to shop for a long time - just thinking out loud: maybe this could be a way to revive shopping malls? Offer cut rate charging stations, people walk around in the mall waiting for their car to charge and maybe end up buying stuff.

abfan1127 5y ago
it seems restaurants, movie theaters, grocery stores, are the types of experiences where an EV charger is appropriate. This is like offering an EV charger in a drive thru like McDonalds.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- firloop 5y ago
  Did a road trip in Europe in December 2020 and it turned out that McDonalds very reliably had EV charging. What you're saying is not as crazy as it sounds!
- Retric 5y ago
  20-30minutes of fast charging at McDonalds is perfectly reasonable for those who go inside. The important bit is having 100+kw chargers.
  - jsight 5y ago
    Exactly! I'd love for every interstate or highway fast food restaurant to have fast chargers. Even 70KW is often fast enough to get to the next stop in a lot of cars.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
rsj_hn 5y ago
I assume 7-11 management is aware of things like parking constraints, and that could be why this is only being rolled out to 250 stores in North America (out of 10,000). I'm sure that there are more than enough 7-11s that do have good parking, are in the right areas where charging stations would turn a profit, etc. If even 1 out of 5 7-11s met those conditions, they can later increase that to 5,000 EV stations in 2500 stores. Remember, there's over 100K gas stations and if we count pumps, you're in the ballpark of a million, so there is lots of room for companies to enter the charging market before it gets too crowded. Might as well set up a beachhead now.
jmccaf 5y ago
I love more charging stations, but I agree with this skepticism, 7-11 tend to be very quick stops ? If 7-11 builds chargers at my nearest location, I'll occupy them happily and walk home while charging. And perhaps I'll enter 7-11 on the drop-off or pick-up trip ? I have a plug-in hybrid (Volt) and live in an apartment complex without chargers, and I use the abundant shopping mall chargers at Valley Fair mall in San Jose, CA as you describe. I live close enough to walk home 1 mile from the mall, so I'll drop car off, then go into mall to pickup a meal at the nice food court or browse around. Probably as 7-11 hopes: I'll readily spend $10-$15 on food, while charging $5. My unique fit here is that Valley Fair is an urban mall: it's close to my apartment in healthy walking distance, and it has dense multi-level parking structures, so I'm not walking out and back through a vast mall parking lot. Movie theaters in malls map well to charging stations because of the 2 hour duration you are inside, for when people go inside movie theaters again ($AMC?) Offices and workplace charging work well for me too (when not WFH)
- bin_bash 5y ago
  These are DC fast chargers. You won't be walking home while it's charging.
newsclues 5y ago
Probably target interstate highway locations.
turtlebits 5y ago
These are DC fast charging stations, you can get a decent charge in ~10/min on newer EVs.
jsight 5y ago
Very few cars are stopping for an hour. The typical stop time is between 20 and 30 minutes.
- jackson1442 5y ago
  And with more cars supporting 350kW charging speed in the near future (Kia EV6, anyone?) that time is only going to decrease.
bin_bash 5y ago
Most shopping malls (at least that I've seen) already have EV charging. IMO it's kind of useless though. If I'm traveling I need a DC fast charger and if it is a DC fast charger, probably won't have much time to go in the mall before it's done (and have to move my car to open up the spot). If I'm near home I almost never need to charge outside. 7-11 is actually better since I won't be too far away from my car. Run in, grab a snack, chill for 5-10 minutes and be on my way. Only problem is they never have bathrooms.
m463 5y ago
They could enforce a time limit. Cars are also starting to charge to a usable percentage much faster. Tesla was talking about charging at 1000mph or ~ 83 miles range in 5 minutes of charging. Also, at a 7-11 near a freeway exit, I would assume it's a different story than an urban 7-11.
femiagbabiaka 5y ago
There are quite a few combination 7-11 gas stations that I’ve seen on road trips. I’d guess those are the targets.
compsciphd 5y ago
it's DC fast charging. lets say you're in the store for 10 minutes. lets say its chargepoint's new 24kw charging. That means in 10 minutes, a user would get about 4kwh of energy. i'd estimate that's 10-20 miles depending one how one drives (15-20 if slow stop and go city driving, probably between 10-15 if speedy highway driving). But, if this is an around town driving and there are many places where 10-20 minutes here and there you can pick up miles like that, it all adds up. with that said, malls are also a great place to have charging.
nashequilibrium 5y ago
The big question is, within the next 5yrs how much charge will you be able to get in 10 minutes.

whoisjuan 5y ago

Why aren't all gas station in the US buying at least a couple of timed/metered EV chargers? They are cheap in Aliexpress. Between 400 USD and 1000 USD per charger. I would assume that a gas station already has the electrical setup required to hook a handful of them since they have other equipment with high electricity consumption. With a couple thousand you can create a small EV charging operation. It baffles me when I see gas stations with a new car wash system that is probably expensive as fuck and not a single EV charging station in miles. Is EV charging a regulated industry or something?

crooked-v 5y ago
Buying EV chargers from random sellers on AliExpress seems like a great way to get sued after somebody's car catches on fire.
- whoisjuan 5y ago
  Hahaha true. Using that only as a proxy of EV charger cost.
- kayfox 5y ago
  Or have a pile of chargers no electrician will sign off on for permitting.
abfan1127 5y ago
there are probably electrical hookup limitations.
- failwhaleshark 5y ago
  Electrical permits and metering (if it's not your property).
- jagger27 5y ago
  Most gas stations are on primary arterial roads. That's where high voltage transmission lines usually run, no?

failwhaleshark 5y ago

Most people who own EVs aren't going to feel safe enough to sit for two hours recharging their expensive cars next to a convenience store with the standard hangout figures around said stores. These are what personal safety people call "transitional spaces" so it's absolutely the worst place to put oneself for an extended period of time.

ThalesX 5y ago
Not all electric cars are 80k Tesla units. In Europe, they recently launched a ShitEV called Dacia Spring. You can buy it in Germany for around $14000 [0]. The world has enough room, and will have enough EVs in time, for regular charging stations for regular people, or even "standard hangout figures" ... we won't all be driving hype. [0] https://www.carscoops.com/2021/03/dacia-spring-ev-prices/ https://www.carscoops.com/2021/03/dacia-spring-ev-prices/
- synaesthesisx 5y ago
  Teslas also start at about half that (closer to $40K), and are effectively the new Toyota Prius in terms of popularity (in California, at least). I don't consider them luxury vehicles by any means, especially after sitting in a Lucid Air, Mercedes EQS or nicer EVs.
- failwhaleshark 5y ago
  But hype is faster, stronger, just-around-the-corner, and more magical like a certain loop. Say you have to drive 1000 mi / 1600 km nonstop or have a low battery. So how are EVs going to work practically for everyone who isn't rich without standard swappable battery packs like the original Model S had? -- There "isn't enough room" in ATX; homelessness is being recriminalized. Also, there "isn't enough room" in Denmark for out-of-EU asylum waiting camps because no one wants to host them. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/austin-s-homeless-camping-ban-is-back-in-effect/ar-BB1gCGJ9 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/austin-s-homeless-camping-... https://www.kctv5.com/denmark-passes-law-to-move-asylum-centers-outside-the-eu-it-still-needs-another-country/article_48236484-aeaa-51c4-b132-fafc9184f8e3.html https://www.kctv5.com/denmark-passes-law-to-move-asylum-cent...

linsomniac 5y ago

Back in the '90s I filled my car up with gas at the local 7-11. My car sputtered across the parking lot and then died and wouldn't restart as I was pulling out onto the street. I drained the gas and put fresh in from another place and it started right up. Called the regional HQ, told the guy there the story, and he just hung up on me and wouldn't answer when I called back. Since then I've been avoiding 7-11 because, as far as I can tell, it's run by a-holes. They've lost more business from me than they would have spent on just refunding my $30 gas purchase or whatever. Makes me think twice about plugging a $50-$100k car in to their business though. :-)

abfan1127 5y ago
most 7/11s are franchised. While the brand should be interested in such pieces to help their brand, the reality is that sometimes bad batches show up, or local franchisees stretch their dollar a bit in unscrupulous ways.

turtlebits 5y ago

IME, Chargepoint fast chargers are the most expensive I've seen. The ones near all charge a session fee of $3 to $8 plus 0.35$/kwh (which is almost 4x residential rates).

Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
At that rate, you'll spend as much per mile as gasoline.
- edaemon 5y ago
  DC fast charging can be almost as expensive per mile as gas, but charging at home or at a commercial L2 (non-fast) charger is much cheaper.
bsder 5y ago
Chargepoint are shit. I can't wait for chargers to become ubiquitous enough to drive Chargepoint into bankruptcy.

xyst 5y ago

If 7-11 becomes anything like their counterparts in Japan, it might actually become a success in the upcoming age of EVs.

clouddrover 5y ago
Here's how Circle K does it in Norway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TVohXHjLro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TVohXHjLro

arduinomancer 5y ago

I'm really curious what the future will look like for charging infrastructure if majority of people switch to electric. Is the ideal long term goal to have a charger in basically every parking spot? For example an apartment building where every single spot in the parkade has a charger.

clouddrover 5y ago
Chargers in parking spaces makes sense for urban areas. Dedicated charging locations make sense for highway driving. A couple of examples of dedicated charging locations: - Circle K in Norway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TVohXHjLro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TVohXHjLro - Gridserve in the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoN4WCpuxHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoN4WCpuxHY
ink_13 5y ago
The power requirements to run, say, 100 chargers, potentially all at once, are potentially bananas. If there's going to be large-scale charging, there's also going to have to be some kind of load-orchestration system involved, too.
- chrisbolt 5y ago
  There already is, companies like EverCharge (https://evercharge.net/ https://evercharge.net/) deal with load orchestration. However even if every parking spot has a car that’s plugged in, most of them probably won’t be charging at any given time.
alexanderdmitri 5y ago
With a battery swap out model, you could have spots where you pull in and swap a drained / semi-drained battery (or batteries) for a fully charged one. Maybe like the way it's done with propane tanks in some places, but more complicated. Quality control, general standardization and ease of access would need to be solved, but if done right this could be automated by pulling up to a vending machine and maybe eventually (super futuristic) on the fly like the way they can do in-flight fueling for aircraft. The initial overhead could be worth it to not sit around charging, but I could also see other interests winning out here (bored people spend money, standardization isn't necessarily win-win, enabling third party service is less profitable for the car makers, &c).

xbar 5y ago

Three words: Double Gulp Slurpee.

diogenescynic 5y ago

Doesn't seem like a fit for their clientele which is mostly homeless tweaks hanging out in their parking lot.

chemmail 5y ago

Wow five whole hundred? If you really think about it, all the EV subsidies need to go the charging infrastructure. Tesla has already proven people want EVs. The real challenge is the charging for people without houses. Right now much of DC Fast charging falls on Electrify America's hands and they really do not care at all as they are just a punishment company for VWs diesel cheating scandal. In my and a lot of other experiences, up to 25% of public chargers are broken and can take months to repair. Only Tesla has decent organization to fix it in just a couple of days. People who buy EVs now are in for a rude awakening.

clouddrover 5y ago
> Wow five whole hundred? The best way to think of it is five additional hundred. That's the advantage of using a common standard like CCS. Drivers of CCS cars can make use of all CCS chargers with no need for adapters. 7-Eleven's 250 new charging locations will be added to the existing 4,414 CCS locations in the US and Canada: https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html
- janvidar 5y ago
  In Europe, Teslas and Tesla chargers are CCS - but limited to Tesla only. I rarely see Teslas on non-tesla fast chargers.
  - clouddrover 5y ago
    The charge curve for the Tesla Model 3 is better on non-Tesla CCS chargers. It's flatter for longer: https://insideevs.com/news/507489/tesla-model3-charging-faster-ccs2/ https://insideevs.com/news/507489/tesla-model3-charging-fast... https://support.fastned.nl/hc/en-gb/articles/360012178313-Charging-with-a-Tesla-Model-3 https://support.fastned.nl/hc/en-gb/articles/360012178313-Ch...

dreamcompiler 5y ago

It's Chargepoint, so it's useless to Tesla owners until Tesla decides to sell a CCS adapter in the USA.

clouddrover 5y ago
It really is time for Tesla to switch to CCS in North America. Tesla switched to CCS in Europe two years ago. The European Teslas are better cars purely because they have a plug you can use with more fast chargers with no need for an adapter.
- dreamcompiler 5y ago
  Other than the aesthetics of the charger, I couldn't agree more. The CCS connector is a big ugly thing compared with the svelte Tesla connector, but you never see it unless you're charging.
- dawnerd 5y ago
  Or at the very very least actually release a CCS adapter. People have been begging for a NA version of what they already have available. I wonder what the real holdup is.
  - sagz 5y ago
    can you use an EU adapter with an NA car? can you buy one off of eBay and import?

peteretep 5y ago

Can we modify the title to specify this is USA 7-Eleven only? There are three countries with more 7-Elevens that the US in absolute terms, and 10 with more per-capita than the USA including Norway and Australia.

Animats 5y ago

How many years before people with gas cars have to check in advance to see which gas stations are in business, open, and have gas?

xarope 5y ago

This is reminiscent of the type of gas station I found in Paris. Just a store front, and a pump or two by the side of the road. Not sure if this link will show: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jefferysview/6442802819 https://www.flickr.com/photos/jefferysview/6442802819 And given the industry is pushing for a fast-charge within 5-10 minutes, which would give another 100 miles to your car, I don't see why this wouldn't work?

whatever1 5y ago

Why not build facilities similar to old school burger drive-in places like Sonic [1]? While charging your car, get served food or whatever else you like. Since we will be stuck in the car for longer time, it seems like a field ripe for disruption. Don't forget that even today, gas stations do not make their profit from selling gas, but from the convenience store. [1]https://th.bing.com/th/id/Rd6475860948f58c4523352a0cec38645?rik=jl8Gpt72VJRp%2bw&pid=ImgRaw https://th.bing.com/th/id/Rd6475860948f58c4523352a0cec38645?...