They already encourage RVs to park on their parking lots. Its probably a strategy to attract customers to their stores.
“Kapadia said he expects the new charge points to be direct-current fast chargers, with about four chargers on average installed per store.”
RVs don’t cost them anything, especially at night. Electric charging will. While I expect you are right that they hope to attract customers, I see that their partner provides “free” EV charging in some cases, but attaches a fee if you’re there more than 30 minutes (at least in the article I read). I think some Walmart shoppers may not be happy to be on the clock while they’re shopping, especially if they have to wait 10 minutes at a checkout register.
You may well be correct, Goofyhoofy. Success does depend on individuals deciding that its worth their while. At least the charging option gives them another choice. They have to decide which is most convenient, cost effective, etc.
Walmart is first rate when it comes to merchandising. Getting people into their stores. We see them make these choices all the time. Their money is made mostly in the dry goods section of the store. Letting people park their RVs in their empty parking lot gets them near the store. Easy for them to shop for whatever they need. Use rest rooms, etc. Ditto groceries. Its a low margin business but brings people in the store. Ditto $4/mo generic drugs. Brings people in the store repeatedly.
Don’t count them out. Walmart is excellent at what it does.
And, fast charging at Wal-mart is an extension of the Tesla supercharger approach - which is to set them up at highway rest stops (mostly) with convenience stores or in small malls with food and supply shopping options in the parking lot. It makes sense - charge for 15-20 minutes, stretch your legs, grab a coffee or a snack; and probably charge 2-3x your commercial electricity rate as a markup for charging while you drive sales into the stores - and that rate is STILL going to be cheaper than gas.
People will start buying EVs en masse when these organizations invest in the charging stations to make it as easy as gas.
Just a minor point, but I’ve charged at over a hundred superchargers by now, and I’ve never found one in a highway rest stop. I do think there are some, but not many.
People are already buying EVs en masse. Charging is already easier (and more pleasant, and cheaper) than using gas, since most of the time you’re just charging overnight at home or while you’re parked at work rather than going somewhere special to fuel up.
The small percentage of charging that’s done on the road is often less convenient and more time-consuming, but not all that much.
And for people who don’t live or work where they can charge, I’m pretty sure they aren’t yet buying EV’s en masse, so you’re partly right.
-IGU-
But of course things may change a lot as California and elsewhere decide to stop licensing internal combustion engine vehicles in 2035 or so. We need lots of investment to make that practical, but we have time and see companies making the investment.
What will you do if you can’t buy gasoline or diesel fuel in California? Black market pricing $20/gal. Will other states follow along?
There is huge difference between “you can’t sell new ICE cars” and “you can’t sell gasoline for the existing fleet of cars”.
They first started talking about banning incandescent bulbs 20 years ago, for a device with a functional life of a year or two. You think they’re going to obsolete every ICE car in the state without severe backlash?
To me that is kind of shocking. I’ve supercharged maybe 10 times and 9 out of those 10 were at highway rest stops. The remaining one was at a WaWa station just off the highway.
In Missouri if you drive from St Louis to Kansas City on I-70, you will pass a Walmart about every 25 miles. They are numerous.
Difference between east coast and west coast maybe? My road trips haven’t taken me east of Colorado. Although back in 2017 I drove a rental Model X in the general area of Boston to Burlington, Vermont. I don’t know how to find information on this other than by examining the supercharger map sites one by one, which hardly seems worth doing to resolve such a question.
But I can say for sure that I’ve noticed the opening of all superchargers over the past several years, at least cursorily, and there were only a few that were clearly in rest areas, all in the US.
-IGU-
It’s quite possible. Does the West Coast even have many highway rest stops? I can’t recall many in CA, and sure enough most of the superchargers in CA are in areas just off the highway (There is even one with 96 superchargers, 56 on one side of the road and 40 on the other side! It’s in Kettleman City, CA)