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There was a Technology Connections video on YouTube that I can’t find right now, so feel free to link it. He was basically talking about the fact that a lot of

There was a Technology Connections video on YouTube that I can’t find right now, so feel free to link it. He was basically talking about the fact that a lot of the infrastructure that we have surrounding gas pumps in stations being missing from EV chargers is not necessarily something that’s sustainable, and more so a presently lacking feature to prevent damage and other issues. He posits that as EV gets more popular security and amenities will be mandatory, and EV charging parks will look more like our present day gas stations. In the transition period, we are probably going to see chargers moving away from dedicated locations and into existing gas stations.

ajmurmann 3y ago
I understand that a lot of gas station revenue comes from selling stuff other than gas. I am somewhat surprised that gas stations didn't jump on EV chargers immediately, since charging takes a while and those customers might be more likely to make other purchases while waiting.
- jewayne 3y ago
  Most of the Superchargers in the Cleveland area are at gas stations -- Sheetz, in particular.
- logifail 3y ago
  > I am somewhat surprised that gas stations didn't jump on EV chargers immediately, since charging takes a while and those customers might be more likely to make other purchases while waiting At least in this part of Europe, there is simply not enough space at most gas stations for any significant proportion of vehicles to spend more than five minutes there.
  - HillRat 3y ago
    One medium to long-term strategy for most of Europe I've seen discussed is to move charging to the streetside and connect it in as a residential utility play with consumer ties -- in other words, chargers that could be used in "residential mode," where the resident just charges their vehicle directly, or in "consumer mode," where non-residents swipe a credit card and the resident gets an additional credit on the power usage.
    - logifail 3y ago
      > to move charging to the streetside My experience is that roadside parking outside residential property is in pretty short supply across much of Europe too.
- HillRat 3y ago
  That was definitely the thinking behind the Buc-ee's/Tesla partnership; Buc-ee's makes a huge amount of backcourt revenue including QSR sales, so it's a very natural extension for them. I posited to our retail fuels clients several years ago that if they didn't develop a long-term EV strategy around backcourt partnership and sales they risked losing to a Tesla retail strategy, so I'm surprised that Tesla never split off a separate BU to directly attack that space.
- lxm 3y ago
  It's probably lower barrier to entry - as soon as any generic shopping plaza nearby sets up a few chargers, customers will probably choose hanging around Starbucks or a grocery store rather than a gas station.
- tzs 3y ago
  I'd guess the hang up is volume. Right now there are two types of people that go to those stations. 1. People there to put gas in their car, and 2. People there specifically to visit the convenience store. Gas stations tend to be in places that won't get a lot of foot traffic, so what is going to mostly determine how many potential customers they see a day is how many cars they can accommodate at once and how long those cars stay. Group #2, the people specifically there for the convenience store, are both very likely to buy something and not likely to stay long. Group #1, the people there for gas, may or may not also buy something from the convenience store. If they do, great. If they don't at least they won't stay long because gas powered cars "charge" fast. A reasonably well maintained gas pump is over an order of magnitude faster than EV chargers. If they add EV charging the EV charging area will probably have to either take space from the gas pumps or to take space from the place group #2 parks. If they take the space from group #2 parking, they are replacing people highly likely to buy with people less likely to buy and more likely to stay around longer. It is hard to see how this could ever be a win for the store. If they take the space from the gas pumps then they are replacing fast gas fill ups with slow EV fill ups, which cuts down the number of potential convenience store customers. Maybe EV drivers will be more likely to decide to buy something in that extra time, but I suspect that won't be a big effect. I'd bet people who buy from the convenience store just because they are killing time waiting for EV charging will mostly just make small purchases. On the other hand, it really is #2 that provides most of the profit. It is possible that group #1 is a sufficiently small contribution that it doesn't matter if replacing some gas pumps with EV charges lowers convenience store sales. Sometimes I think selling gas at those stores is mostly for awareness. I'd guess that a lot of the people in group #2 are only there because at some earlier time they were in group #1 there. They decide on Friday or Saturday night that they need to get some beer or cigarettes or lottery tickets and remember, and because they got gas there earlier that week they think of the convenience store. Putting in a couple EV chargers in place of a couple gas pumps might turn some EV drivers into group #2 people who otherwise might have forgotten about the convenience store.
  - ajmurmann 3y ago
    Interesting. It would have never occurred to me that group 2 even exists, but in hindsight it seems obvious.
cogman10 3y ago
It honestly makes no sense why non-tesla charge managers care so little about their stations. It costs a LOT of money to install a L3 charger (Last I saw, something like $500,000). So having it go offline for a significant amount of time is a fairly big loss. And, what's completely frustrating, is the parts that are breaking/being vandalized aren't the $500,000 inverters, it's the screen, cable, or card reader. $100 parts. (Maybe more like $500 for the cable). The only thing I can think of is there's simply a skill shortage and these companies aren't willing to pay for enough employees to maintain their stations. You need to be an electrician to work with these stations and it may be that these companies don't want to pay for the amount of electricians they need.
- xnx 3y ago
  The business of non-Tesla chargers was to get paid to install them, not to get paid to keep them running.
barbazoo 3y ago
I don't have an EV yet but I wonder how practical it will be to charge at gas stations. Where I live, gas stations usually aren't in areas where there's much else to do even for 15 minutes. Sure there is usually a store but even if I needed a few things, how long would that keep me busy, 5 minutes? And if that's the case, how profitable would that be? Given how long it takes to charge and how limited space is, I wonder if it'd make much more sense to place a large number of chargers in places where people spend time i.e. park for >30 minutes, nowadays anyway. Shopping centers, grocery stores, movie theatres, business parks, etc. Edit: Thanks all for sharing your experiences
- andix 3y ago
  Fast charging is usually so fast that you can barely do anything else before the car is full and you need to move it. If you go for lunch for example usually you need to hurry not to pay overtime fees. AC charging is another thing, this can take 5-10 hours, that's perfect for a movie theatre or a shopping center. And they are rather cheap to build. Just a small box to plug in a charging cable. And personally I often plug in with 60% SoC or more, so I don't need a full charge.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  On the east coast, there's been a trend to larger, well-list stations with clean restrooms and much better food than ye ole hot dog roller. A stop like that is perfect for DCFC, especially when open 24 hours.
- stetrain 3y ago
  On road trips my charging stops are usually 10-20 minutes, so not enough time to go in and sit down at a restaurant or watch a movie. At longer stay locations then high powered AC chargers (12kW+) or slow DC chargers (25-50kw) could make a lot of sense. Personally I haven't yet managed to go into a Buc-ee's store, use the restroom, and get out with a snack before the car sends me a notification that it's ready to go.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  We did a 3000km trip 4 times with an EV as a family. We basically alternated between 20 minute charging stops and 40-60 minute stops. If you have a family, it takes about 20 minutes to bathroom, buy a coffee and pull a game or something out of the back for the kids. 40-60 minutes is a sit down meal & bathroom break.
droopyEyelids 3y ago
It's surprising they don't already look like fancy gas stations, considering the owner of the charging station has a captive audience for half an hour. I'd expect a lot of food options, video gambling, etc. It's crazy that right now there aren't even vending machines by the charging stations!
- jewayne 3y ago
  I like the fact that the capital costs of a Supercharger are low enough that they go into a variety of places. Yes, I love the Superchargers at Sheetz because I can grab a coffee or a bite to eat while I charge, but I vastly prefer a charger with no amenities to no charger at all.
andix 3y ago
Personally I prefer fast charging stations at gas stations. They have all the infrastructure you need for cars and road trips (food, toilets, wiper fluid, equipment for cleaning the windshield, checking tyre pressure, roofs, ...). And they are usually easy to find and to reach.
gaganyaan 3y ago
I seriously doubt it will look similar for the most part. I expect a lot more places like Target or malls to have chargers, and this is already happening around me. Once you're charging there, why not go in and do some shopping since you've got nowhere else to go? The incentives are strongly aligned on both ends to make this happen. Yeah, there will be some charger parks that look like gas stations, but I would expect that to be a small fraction of them. People thinking about gas stations are stuck in an old mode of thinking. We already have a massive investment into electricity resulting in it being everywhere. Building on top of that makes much more sense vs limited special infrastructure.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Agreed! The defining characteristic of gas stations (and EV stations) will be average_stop_time. These are order-of-magnitude different between gas and EV. Consequently, it seems reasonable that convenience-optimized gas stations (fast food, grab and go snacks) will transition to more leisurely interactions (restaurant, shopping, attraction) for long-distance EV stopping points. Which interestingly opens a distance-based development opportunity along high-volume routes (e.g. interstates). X miles from (major city) to (major city) along (major interstate), regardless of whether there's any sort of town there, suddenly becomes an attractive place for commercial development. But all of this is predicated on fast charging and battery tolerance... more expensive cars / infrastructure = shorter wait = more like current gas stations.
darknavi 3y ago
This would be amazing. We road trip a few times a year in our Model Y and the Superchargers at the gas stations are the best. Grab a snack, a bathroom break, and a small walk, then back on the road. The chargers near nothing are just inconvenient. We only normally stop for 15-20 minutes so walking 15 minutes to a store is normally a little forced and so we'll just poke around the Supercharger and then stop at a gas station for a snack afterwards.

ajmurmann 3y ago

I understand that a lot of gas station revenue comes from selling stuff other than gas. I am somewhat surprised that gas stations didn't jump on EV chargers immediately, since charging takes a while and those customers might be more likely to make other purchases while waiting.

jewayne 3y ago
Most of the Superchargers in the Cleveland area are at gas stations -- Sheetz, in particular.
logifail 3y ago
> I am somewhat surprised that gas stations didn't jump on EV chargers immediately, since charging takes a while and those customers might be more likely to make other purchases while waiting At least in this part of Europe, there is simply not enough space at most gas stations for any significant proportion of vehicles to spend more than five minutes there.
- HillRat 3y ago
  One medium to long-term strategy for most of Europe I've seen discussed is to move charging to the streetside and connect it in as a residential utility play with consumer ties -- in other words, chargers that could be used in "residential mode," where the resident just charges their vehicle directly, or in "consumer mode," where non-residents swipe a credit card and the resident gets an additional credit on the power usage.
  - logifail 3y ago
    > to move charging to the streetside My experience is that roadside parking outside residential property is in pretty short supply across much of Europe too.
HillRat 3y ago
That was definitely the thinking behind the Buc-ee's/Tesla partnership; Buc-ee's makes a huge amount of backcourt revenue including QSR sales, so it's a very natural extension for them. I posited to our retail fuels clients several years ago that if they didn't develop a long-term EV strategy around backcourt partnership and sales they risked losing to a Tesla retail strategy, so I'm surprised that Tesla never split off a separate BU to directly attack that space.
lxm 3y ago
It's probably lower barrier to entry - as soon as any generic shopping plaza nearby sets up a few chargers, customers will probably choose hanging around Starbucks or a grocery store rather than a gas station.
tzs 3y ago
I'd guess the hang up is volume. Right now there are two types of people that go to those stations. 1. People there to put gas in their car, and 2. People there specifically to visit the convenience store. Gas stations tend to be in places that won't get a lot of foot traffic, so what is going to mostly determine how many potential customers they see a day is how many cars they can accommodate at once and how long those cars stay. Group #2, the people specifically there for the convenience store, are both very likely to buy something and not likely to stay long. Group #1, the people there for gas, may or may not also buy something from the convenience store. If they do, great. If they don't at least they won't stay long because gas powered cars "charge" fast. A reasonably well maintained gas pump is over an order of magnitude faster than EV chargers. If they add EV charging the EV charging area will probably have to either take space from the gas pumps or to take space from the place group #2 parks. If they take the space from group #2 parking, they are replacing people highly likely to buy with people less likely to buy and more likely to stay around longer. It is hard to see how this could ever be a win for the store. If they take the space from the gas pumps then they are replacing fast gas fill ups with slow EV fill ups, which cuts down the number of potential convenience store customers. Maybe EV drivers will be more likely to decide to buy something in that extra time, but I suspect that won't be a big effect. I'd bet people who buy from the convenience store just because they are killing time waiting for EV charging will mostly just make small purchases. On the other hand, it really is #2 that provides most of the profit. It is possible that group #1 is a sufficiently small contribution that it doesn't matter if replacing some gas pumps with EV charges lowers convenience store sales. Sometimes I think selling gas at those stores is mostly for awareness. I'd guess that a lot of the people in group #2 are only there because at some earlier time they were in group #1 there. They decide on Friday or Saturday night that they need to get some beer or cigarettes or lottery tickets and remember, and because they got gas there earlier that week they think of the convenience store. Putting in a couple EV chargers in place of a couple gas pumps might turn some EV drivers into group #2 people who otherwise might have forgotten about the convenience store.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  Interesting. It would have never occurred to me that group 2 even exists, but in hindsight it seems obvious.

cogman10 3y ago

It honestly makes no sense why non-tesla charge managers care so little about their stations. It costs a LOT of money to install a L3 charger (Last I saw, something like $500,000). So having it go offline for a significant amount of time is a fairly big loss. And, what's completely frustrating, is the parts that are breaking/being vandalized aren't the $500,000 inverters, it's the screen, cable, or card reader. $100 parts. (Maybe more like $500 for the cable). The only thing I can think of is there's simply a skill shortage and these companies aren't willing to pay for enough employees to maintain their stations. You need to be an electrician to work with these stations and it may be that these companies don't want to pay for the amount of electricians they need.

xnx 3y ago
The business of non-Tesla chargers was to get paid to install them, not to get paid to keep them running.

barbazoo 3y ago

I don't have an EV yet but I wonder how practical it will be to charge at gas stations. Where I live, gas stations usually aren't in areas where there's much else to do even for 15 minutes. Sure there is usually a store but even if I needed a few things, how long would that keep me busy, 5 minutes? And if that's the case, how profitable would that be? Given how long it takes to charge and how limited space is, I wonder if it'd make much more sense to place a large number of chargers in places where people spend time i.e. park for >30 minutes, nowadays anyway. Shopping centers, grocery stores, movie theatres, business parks, etc. Edit: Thanks all for sharing your experiences

andix 3y ago
Fast charging is usually so fast that you can barely do anything else before the car is full and you need to move it. If you go for lunch for example usually you need to hurry not to pay overtime fees. AC charging is another thing, this can take 5-10 hours, that's perfect for a movie theatre or a shopping center. And they are rather cheap to build. Just a small box to plug in a charging cable. And personally I often plug in with 60% SoC or more, so I don't need a full charge.
_ea1k 3y ago
On the east coast, there's been a trend to larger, well-list stations with clean restrooms and much better food than ye ole hot dog roller. A stop like that is perfect for DCFC, especially when open 24 hours.
stetrain 3y ago
On road trips my charging stops are usually 10-20 minutes, so not enough time to go in and sit down at a restaurant or watch a movie. At longer stay locations then high powered AC chargers (12kW+) or slow DC chargers (25-50kw) could make a lot of sense. Personally I haven't yet managed to go into a Buc-ee's store, use the restroom, and get out with a snack before the car sends me a notification that it's ready to go.
bryanlarsen 3y ago
We did a 3000km trip 4 times with an EV as a family. We basically alternated between 20 minute charging stops and 40-60 minute stops. If you have a family, it takes about 20 minutes to bathroom, buy a coffee and pull a game or something out of the back for the kids. 40-60 minutes is a sit down meal & bathroom break.

droopyEyelids 3y ago

It's surprising they don't already look like fancy gas stations, considering the owner of the charging station has a captive audience for half an hour. I'd expect a lot of food options, video gambling, etc. It's crazy that right now there aren't even vending machines by the charging stations!

jewayne 3y ago
I like the fact that the capital costs of a Supercharger are low enough that they go into a variety of places. Yes, I love the Superchargers at Sheetz because I can grab a coffee or a bite to eat while I charge, but I vastly prefer a charger with no amenities to no charger at all.

andix 3y ago

Personally I prefer fast charging stations at gas stations. They have all the infrastructure you need for cars and road trips (food, toilets, wiper fluid, equipment for cleaning the windshield, checking tyre pressure, roofs, ...). And they are usually easy to find and to reach.

gaganyaan 3y ago

I seriously doubt it will look similar for the most part. I expect a lot more places like Target or malls to have chargers, and this is already happening around me. Once you're charging there, why not go in and do some shopping since you've got nowhere else to go? The incentives are strongly aligned on both ends to make this happen. Yeah, there will be some charger parks that look like gas stations, but I would expect that to be a small fraction of them. People thinking about gas stations are stuck in an old mode of thinking. We already have a massive investment into electricity resulting in it being everywhere. Building on top of that makes much more sense vs limited special infrastructure.

ethbr1 3y ago
Agreed! The defining characteristic of gas stations (and EV stations) will be average_stop_time. These are order-of-magnitude different between gas and EV. Consequently, it seems reasonable that convenience-optimized gas stations (fast food, grab and go snacks) will transition to more leisurely interactions (restaurant, shopping, attraction) for long-distance EV stopping points. Which interestingly opens a distance-based development opportunity along high-volume routes (e.g. interstates). X miles from (major city) to (major city) along (major interstate), regardless of whether there's any sort of town there, suddenly becomes an attractive place for commercial development. But all of this is predicated on fast charging and battery tolerance... more expensive cars / infrastructure = shorter wait = more like current gas stations.

darknavi 3y ago

This would be amazing. We road trip a few times a year in our Model Y and the Superchargers at the gas stations are the best. Grab a snack, a bathroom break, and a small walk, then back on the road. The chargers near nothing are just inconvenient. We only normally stop for 15-20 minutes so walking 15 minutes to a store is normally a little forced and so we'll just poke around the Supercharger and then stop at a gas station for a snack afterwards.