By Jane Margolies
Sarajane Leary understands what to do when her EV is running low on battery: she goes grocery shopping.
On a recent day, Leary connected her Toyota bZ4X to a fast electric vehicle charger located in the parking lot of a Hannaford supermarket in Altamont, New York, and then walked into the store for some essentials like paper products and snacks.
“I’ll achieve a 50% charge while I’m here,” she commented.
The time and money Leary invests in shopping while her vehicle charges exemplifies the type of outcome that retailers, shopping centers, and malls anticipated when they began adding EV chargers years ago. For a long time, their results were varied and the actual advantages remained uncertain.
However, recent research indicates that the efforts of retailers to provide charging may finally be yielding benefits: A peer-reviewed study conducted by Boston University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison this year examined the effects of almost 1,600 Tesla Supercharger stations across more than 800 U.S. counties and found a 4% rise in monthly visits to retailers within 200 meters after charger installation. The impact was more significant for stores within 150 meters. The study also identified a 5% uptick in consumer spending.
A different recent study, published in Nature Communications, reviewed data from California, where both EV ownership and charging infrastructure are notably advanced compared to other states. It revealed that adding chargers did lead to increases in foot traffic and spending, albeit more modest than in previous studies, and noted that public EV stations “tend to attract visitors with higher incomes, as well as local residents,” and they “support businesses” in lower-income areas.
Certain companies — particularly Walmart, the largest retailer in the U.S. — are beginning to view charging as a potentially lucrative venture in itself, rather than merely a strategy to increase foot traffic and sales. They have started to create their own charging stations, moving away from depending on external providers who lease parts of their parking lots to manage installation and maintenance of the chargers.
“Businesses are starting to recognize charging as a potential boost to their profits,” said Graham Evans, a director at S&P Global Mobility, a firm focused on automotive market research. “It’s likely to become commonplace rather than just a token initiative.”
The rise in charging adoption aligns with an increasing number of Americans — many of whom are concerned about climate change — choosing to replace their gasoline vehicles. In 2023, 1.4 million plug-in electric vehicles were sold in the U.S., making up over 9% of all car sales for the year and representing a more than 50% increase from 2022, according to Argonne National Laboratory, a federally funded research institution. Although the pace of EV sales has slowed this year, Cox Automotive, a market research agency, estimates that approximately 346,309 of these vehicles were sold in the third quarter, nearly 9% of total sales. (It remains too early to analyze the impact of Donald Trump’s potential election on EV sales, but he has pledged during his campaign to reverse the Biden administration’s policies which support EV manufacturing and sales.)
Part of the decrease in EV sales this year can be attributed to consumers reluctant to trade in their gasoline cars due to concerns regarding the EV charging network, which has not expanded as quickly as EV sales. Non-functional chargers have posed an issue: recent research by a Harvard Business School fellow found that 1 in 5 charging ports is inoperative when drivers arrive.
Currently, over 200,000 public chargers are distributed across about 74,000 stations, yet more than 1 million public chargers will need to be available by 2030 to meet the demand generated by EV sales, according to estimations from researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Even with the Biden administration’s $5 billion initiative to fill the infrastructure void, a comprehensive national network is still several years away. This plan requires states to submit proposals for charging operators and site hosts. According to EVAdoption, a data analytics firm, nearly 60% of grants have been allocated to fuel and convenience stores, rest areas, and service plazas. However, a Consumer Reports analysis revealed that only 1 in every 14 big-box stores provides charging, while only 1 in every 15 grocery stores and 1 in every 40 department stores do.
For numerous retailers, inadequate charging options present a chance: Truck drivers, ride-hailing operators, and those on long journeys depend on public chargers, alongside the 5% of EV owners unable to charge at home, many of whom reside in apartment complexes or park on the streets. According to a 2024 usage study by J.D. Power, the most frequently utilized public chargers are located at retail establishments.
Some property owners of shopping centers and malls have discovered that installing chargers on their premises has attracted new tenants, as stated by Jim Hurless, a managing director overseeing EV operations at the real estate firm CBRE.
However, the installation of chargers is a complex and costly endeavor. It involves surveying, engineering, procuring permits, coordinating with local utilities, conducting testing, and performing inspections — which can take as long as 18 months to complete. The installation of slower chargers — better suited for cinemas and hotels where customers remain for several hours or overnight — can cost up to $7,000. Fast chargers, capable of delivering a significant charge in as little as 20 minutes, can be priced as high as $175,000.
Many retailers collaborate with charging providers who pay them a monthly rental fee for the utilized parking spots while retaining all customer revenue. These providers are increasingly installing more chargers at a faster rate, promising a more reliable and sometimes more luxurious customer experience than before.
Mercedes-Benz is investing $1 billion into the initial phase of a new network of high-speed chargers that cater to all vehicle brands. Its charging stations will feature lounges and landscaping at select locations. The manufacturer has established charging hubs at various Buc-ee’s gas and convenience stores in the Southeast, with plans to extend to over 40 additional locations. Starbucks has worked with Volvo to set up 15 stations across properties from Seattle to Denver, and it will partner with Mercedes to introduce 100 extra stations, including along Interstate 5 on the West Coast.
Certain charging companies are innovating ways to hasten the installation process. EVgo has begun experimenting with a prefabricated model, launching its first installation at a site in League City, Texas, in March.
Nevertheless, some retailers, such as the convenience-store chains 7-Eleven and RaceTrac, aspire to take control over and monetize charging by developing their own networks.
For a number of years, Walmart partnered with Electrify America, a subsidiary of Volkswagen, and now features Electrify America stations at 280 of its stores. When Walmart trialed its own chargers at locations near its Bentonville, Arkansas headquarters and a nearby town in Dallas, it discovered unexpected strong demand, according to Vishal Kapadia, the company’s senior vice president for energy transformation.
“There is a significant need for this infrastructure in numerous areas,” he mentioned.
The company is launching 15 stations in the Dallas-Fort Worth region and 10 in Phoenix, planning to have thousands throughout the country by 2030. Walmart anticipates investing between $1 million and $1.5 million at each site.
“Charging can indeed be a profitable independent business,” Kapadia stated. “The additional benefits are driving traffic to our locations.”
Even Costco, one of the earliest retailers to install charging stations back in the 1990s and subsequently removed them in 2011 due to low usage, has recently re-entered the EV charging arena. Costco installed a station at its Ridgefield, Washington store within just seven weeks.
Hannaford, a grocery chain in the Northeast with charging stations at 24 of its 189 locations — including the one Leary visits — entered the charging sector because it reflects “how we want to present ourselves,” according to George Parmenter, health and sustainability leader at Hannaford. “It acts as a billboard that communicates, ‘This is something we value.’”
Parmenter added that he was uncertain about the extent to which charging contributes to in-store sales, but he did note that a Tesla charger at a Hannaford in Portland, Maine, averages around 2,000 charging sessions monthly.
“I can’t think of another way to get that many people to come here,” he concluded.
Brent Gruber, executive director of the EV sector at J.D. Power, remarked: “Fifteen years ago, adding charging stations may not have appeared sensible. Now, it does.”
