Haven't seen any of these charging stations at my local Walmart. Have you? For Prime owners, probably still less expensive to charge at home. Electrify America, Walmart Announce Completion of Over 120 Charging Stations at Walmart Stores Nationwide with Plans for Further Expansion
Definitely way cheaper to charge at home. These fast chargers are more for longer range road trip EV's.
No, I believe most of them are DCFC but even then gas might actually be cheaper. Of course they are taking over ChargePoint L2 stations so there’s those. However, all the new Audi e-tron users get 1,000kWh complimentary for the first four years. Porsche Taycan users can get unlimited free charging for 3 years. They will be able to take advantage of the 50kWh, 150kW and 350kW DC. They even have 0% deals now on the Jaguar I-Pace in the northeast, already. It can also use the DCFC. Unsupervised!
I don't think they are "taking over" ChargePoint stations, just making it so one app works with the other one.
I'll pass on sitting 2 hours to get max 35 miles range, even if they were offering the charge for free. I'll burn the gas for $1.40 and save myself 2 hours. Then I'll charge at home for 10 cents/kwh while I am sleeping. I might even buy gas at Walmart if they have pumps and the price is right.
I asked ChargePoint about it via PM over a year ago concerning my area, but I guess that the property owners of the Walmart lot were/are not particularly interested in putting free chargers. *shrug*
But the lot owners are not Walmart. They get their lease money from Walmart, and that's the same whether or not the lot owners splashes out the cash for some "free" charging stations. The average EV driver is not shopping at Walmart anyway. They are at Trader Joes or Whole Foods.
For the same reason that 120 Walmart stations already do...? Maybe in Nebraska, are the needs of people who drive electric cars that much different?
This would likely depend on the local demand for EV power and the ownership of the property. 120 Walmarts in the whole US is not a lot. Looking at the article, it seems they are targeting a cross-country driver away from home, not the locals. In that case, they may get some people to stop for an hour and pick up some charge. There aren't a whole lot of EVs in our area that I know of, and most of them charge at home. I don't think I've ever seen an EV in a Walmart lot here, but I see them at Whole Foods and Trader Joes. On the road, they would likely stop at a convenient EV charging station, so Walmart may be onto something. But every local Walmart isn't going to put in a charging station, because the locals don't really need them.
hope not . . . . it's one of the bottom 5 worst states for DCQC's - because fewer there have plugins. If you're not crossing interstate 40 or 30 to go somewhere else? You'd really just need 2 stations to cross this dead zone. .
Top wants and needs for those charging (if they're on a trip) is fairly fast food within a couple hundred feet, clean bathrooms, a trash can, and 24 hr. lighting and safety. Walmart parking lots at night is none of those, and during the daytime, very little of the other. If the PHEV or BEV owner is somewhat local, and a Walmart shopper, the price charging at home is a tiny percentage of pay per use DC or L2 charging, so if it was me, I'd skip the probable $12+ top-off charge. Walmarts might not be the best demographic with current price levels of PHEV's and BEV's, but that metric is going to be sliding to lower price vehicles pretty soon, so this plan might be workable, profit-wise - in the near future. Still, I can't wrap my head around Walmarts being a good case scenario as a proper charging point. There's got to be lots of better options for placing charge-per-use charging. Agree with jb in NE that TJ's or WF would be better choices, if daytime charging is a goal. I'd bet this is a pretty popular combo: (Boulder)
I think one of the reasons they pursued Walmart is that a lot of them (at least in the midwest) tend to be real close to major interstates, which is obviously important for quick charging stations. I'm sure there are a few, but I'm having trouble thinking of any other business that is consistently close to the interstate other than the obvious gas station/travel center. And the nationwide fast food joints wouldn't likely have enough parking lot to spare for that. By the process of elimination it kinda had to be Walmart.
Your Walmarts are different than Walmarts I've come across, and many are right off the 95 corridor. If there isn't a restaurant in the same strip mall, the Walmart has a food court. They also allow long haul trucks to 'camp' on their lots, so they may not be automatically opposed to longer term parking not directly giving them business.
