[HN Gopher] 7-11 is opening 500 EV charging stations by the end ...
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7-11 is opening 500 EV charging stations by the end of 2022
Author : evo_9
Score : 63 points
Date : 2021-06-03 21:19 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnet.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnet.com)
| whoisjuan wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Buying EV chargers from random sellers on AliExpress seems like
| a great way to get sued after somebody's car catches on fire.
| whoisjuan wrote:
| Hahaha true. Using that only as a proxy of EV charger cost.
| abfan1127 wrote:
| there are probably electrical hookup limitations.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| Electrical permits and metering (if it's not your property).
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| You can buy your own and pop it on PlugShare.
|
| There are zillions of free-as-in-free-beer charging locations.
|
| Edit: https://www.plugshare.com/
| generalizations wrote:
| There seem to be two categories of gas stations; the ones where
| you fill up and go, with a minor convenience store attached,
| and the larger ones where they seem to want you hanging around.
|
| With the first category, I imagine they just don't want people
| hanging around. The dollars per car per hour ratio drops off a
| cliff when you have EVs just sitting there for 15-40 minutes
| clogging up the limited space.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| There's also gas stations with just pumps, maybe a mechanics
| shop, and no food or bathrooms. Nobody is going to hang out
| there for a charge.
|
| Charging stations are best placed where there is something to
| do. That's why every casino has them.
| johngalt wrote:
| It's a different scenario. Charging vs fueling has different
| constraints, and a facility designed for one is not necessarily
| designed for the other.
|
| Probably more effective for some restaurant franchise to add EV
| charging as part of their branded setup. E.g. Every IHOP in the
| country has EV charging.
| 238475235243 wrote:
| There are more chargers than (most people) you think.
|
| Having more is a good thing, but gas stations adding them wont
| move the needle any time soon.
|
| A friend was telling me recently that there aren't many
| chargers. He lives in Boulder, of all places. There are a
| million public chargers around Boulder, but they're relatively
| invisible compared to a gas station, especially if you aren't
| actively looking for them. When I showed him the plugshare map
| he couldn't believe it, he thought this stuff was a decade
| away.
|
| In my experience owning five EVs, public charging isn't really
| an issue, especially for Tesla and J-1772. If anything, I worry
| for chargepoint et. al. in the face of so many free chargers in
| the short term.
|
| That said, there are some weird spots between superchargers if
| you have a tesla. And if you rely on CCS with the coming
| onslaught of F-150 lightnings... I wish you good luck and to
| reconsider. Slow charging speed and crappily maintained CCS /
| CHaDeMo are really going to suck the life out of you on road
| trips compared to superchargers. But if you can get by with
| J1772 then life is good.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Here in Norway the main limitation seems to be cost, not for
| the chargers but for the connection to the grid.
|
| Installation might require increasing the local transformer
| station, which whoever wants the capacity has to share the cost
| for. This can be very expensive, usually hundreds of thousands
| USD from what I understand.
|
| Also the running costs can be significant, as there's a
| separate grid charge based on the peak kW used per month. This
| can add up to a lot if multiple chargers are used
| simultaneously.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Anything involving modifying parking stalls or electricity
| quickly becomes expensive, and these require both. Signage,
| striping, curb and walkway alterations, burying cable and
| permits quickly add up. The installation may also require
| security considerations since the charger is worth something.
|
| But you are completely right; stations that become conspicuous
| charging destinations are going to do a lot of convenience
| store business. It'd be smart of well located towns to work on
| making it easier to add charging infrastructure so they can
| continue to be popular stops.
| linsomniac wrote:
| The $1K chargers that wouldn't stress an existing electrical
| panel aren't worth it for EV users unless they're in a dire
| emergency. It takes 6 hours for a full charge on one of these.
| Great for a hotel, but not for a gas station.
|
| The ones that charge a car in 30-60 minutes generally have
| their own dedicated transformer, the size of a fridge. Two cars
| can pretty easily use 300KW with older tech, 600KW+ with newer
| stuff. If my math is right, that's 2,500 amps on traditional
| 240V service. My house has 100A service for comparison.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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/
| synaesthesisx wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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-...
|
| https://www.kctv5.com/denmark-passes-law-to-move-asylum-
| cent...
| janvidar wrote:
| You can check out Teslabjorn on Youtube, he is testing
| pretty much all EVs and publishing his test results,
| including a 1000KM "high speed run".
|
| His reference ICE car is a Kia Ceed hybrid, which completed
| the run in 9h25m. The fastest EV: 9h35m - Yes, that was an
| expensive Audi. The fastest Tesla: Model S Long Range -
| 9h50m
|
| All data found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d
| /1V6ucyFGKWuSQzvI8lMzv...
|
| ... and the relevant videos from each test can be found on
| his Youtube channel:
| https://www.youtube.com/user/bjornnyland
| janvidar wrote:
| If the charging station can deliver the juice, like _at least_
| 150KW, then a 10 minute stop will give you another few hundred
| kilometers if your car can handle that.
|
| At that point it becomes a nice spot to stretch your legs and
| grab something quick to bite before you're back on the road
| again.
|
| I never charge at anything less than 75KW if I am driving long
| distance. I have 22KW at home for slow charging.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| Teslas might as well be Ferraris for most the world. Aren't
| the bulk of present average EVs unable to charge at the rates
| Teslas or similar expensive EVs use?
|
| Do you think 7-11 is going to install very fast charging?
| It's 7-11: where deathdogs rotate forever until someone who
| doesn't like living buys one.
| janvidar wrote:
| I think the charging speed of most EVs are expected to
| improve for all cars in the coming years due to better
| batteries and battery management.
|
| Affordable EVs these days, for example the ID.3 or ID.4 do
| 125KW charging, at least up to a certain point. Teslas are
| not much better. Yes, the Model 3 can charge much faster
| than this, but only for a short time until it will throttle
| down significantly.
|
| For this reason though, charging only a little makes even
| more sense. Bringing your battery from 10% to 50% should be
| relatively fast no matter which car you have. The last 50%
| will take much longer.
|
| Once the car throttles down the charging speed, you are
| probably better off finding another charger an hour or two
| away - unless you're planning a longer stay.
| linsomniac wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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]
| firloop wrote:
| 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!
| rsj_hn wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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)
| newsclues wrote:
| Probably target interstate highway locations.
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