Starbucks plans EV charger pilot

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Re: Starbucks plans EV charger pilot

Post by storewanderer »

Super S wrote: March 20th, 2022, 12:17 pm

I will also add that, along Interstate 84 between Portland and Boise, there are a few stretches with very few gas stations, and even less charging stations. It gets even worse as you head east of Boise and down toward Utah, not to mention various points in Idaho.

I think that the point where we might see a real shift is if one of the major oil companies such as Chevron or Shell makes an investment in a large number of locations to offer EV charging.
Chevron controls about 200 corporate operated stations in CA, OR, and WA and Shell has very few if any corporate operated stations in the US (might have one in Houston at present). Some of them do control real estate on some dealer sites however. But at this point the gas stations are primarily owned by various dealers/franchisees. This could be good in the regard that an enterprising dealer/franchisee who is looking to add additional revenue streams to their station, would likely be interested in adding some charging stations to their site, and is able to act faster to do so than some large corporate oil company would be.

But you still have the turnover problem. If that EV charging station can only do one car per hour, that is only one potential convenience store customer per hour. If a gas pump can serve 6 customers per hour that is six potential convenience store customers per hour.

The other issue is many of these gas stations are on lots sized with few parking spaces/limited navigation and this design was due to the idea that customers are only staying 5-10 minutes. If moving to a new model where customers are now having to stay 40-60 minutes for EV charging the lot size/parking space requirements are going to change...

They have to get faster charging...
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Re: Starbucks plans EV charger pilot

Post by jamcool »

If you charge a battery too fast if will overheat, which is bad news for a lithium battery.
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Re: Starbucks plans EV charger pilot

Post by Brian Lutz »

Traditional gas stations don't seem well equipped to handle large quantities of EVs largely due to lack of space, but some of the bigger truck stop / travel plazas (primarily Love's and Pilot/Flying J) might be better equipped for the purpose. They generally already have a decent amount of land and a large number of fuel pumps for both passenger cars and semis, and tend to be built in sparsely populated locations with reasonable amounts of vacant land nearby. Naturally the main focus of these travel plazas is still on professional drivers and that will likely always be the case, but if larger numbers of EV drivers are making longer stops for charging I could see them making more use of things like showers, sit-down restaurants and lounges. One of the nicer truck stops my wife and I tend to stop at on our trips is the TA Travel Plaza in Boise, which in addition to the usual travel plaza amenities has two fast food restaurants (Taco Bell and Subway), a fairly large sit down restaurant (Country Pride, which appears to be a brand common to TA locations) and even a small arcade. Most of the Love's / Pilot / AmBest stops I've been to have one fast food restaurant (usually something like Arby's, McDonald's, Subway or Carl's Jr.) and not much else besides the typical convenience store stuff for car drivers, so there's definitely room to improve on this for EV drivers in the future if the market warrants it. I did notice that a lot of the truck stops in Montana also have small casinos attached to them, although that largely depends on state gambling laws and seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
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Re: Starbucks plans EV charger pilot

Post by buckguy »

storewanderer wrote: March 20th, 2022, 10:17 am
And I don't see folks on a road trip wanting to stop at Starbucks for 40-60 minutes, period. Starbucks are generally small, tables are small (few tables can even seat a family of 4),
Having had to do work on road trips and having done it at Eastern turnpike plazas, you'd be surprised how long people can spend on a stop and what people do. There is dog walking, making onward plans, catching up with loved ones by phone, etc. Having wifi and clean restrooms alone would make Starbucks locations attractive and real estate in the middle of nowhere is probably much cheaper than in urban neighborhoods or popular suburban strips where they usually have locations.

Most people traveling on interstates are singles or couples, even during the peak summer season. Those are the kind of people for whom an electric car is likely to be their only vehicle and therefore would be the primary users of this infrastructure. Many people work on long trips partricularly those whose job requires that they spend long periods of time on the road and need stops for paperwork, prepping for calls, etc.

Truckstops
Brian Lutz wrote: March 20th, 2022, 8:23 pm Traditional gas stations don't seem well equipped to handle large quantities of EVs largely due to lack of space, but some of the bigger truck stop / travel plazas (primarily Love's and Pilot/Flying J) might be better equipped for the purpose. They generally already have a decent amount of land and a large number of fuel pumps for both passenger cars and semis, and tend to be built in sparsely populated locations with reasonable amounts of vacant land nearby. Naturally the main focus of these travel plazas is still on professional drivers and that will likely always be the case, but if larger numbers of EV drivers are making longer stops for charging I could see them making more use of things like showers, sit-down restaurants and lounges. One of the nicer truck stops my wife and I tend to stop at on our trips is the TA Travel Plaza in Boise, which in addition to the usual travel plaza amenities has two fast food restaurants (Taco Bell and Subway), a fairly large sit down restaurant (Country Pride, which appears to be a brand common to TA locations) and even a small arcade. Most of the Love's / Pilot / AmBest stops I've been to have one fast food restaurant (usually something like Arby's, McDonald's, Subway or Carl's Jr.) and not much else besides the typical convenience store stuff for car drivers, so there's definitely room to improve on this for EV drivers in the future if the market warrants it. I did notice that a lot of the truck stops in Montana also have small casinos attached to them, although that largely depends on state gambling laws and seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
Truck stops seem naturals for EV chargers, for the reasons you mention. The nicer ones function much like the service plazas that are common on toll roads in the East and Midwest which are good places to kill time. Service plazas typically have multiple fast food vendors, a convenience store, souvenir shopping, etc. plus video games and seasonal things like farmers markets. They're also good places for dog walking, stretching, etc. and often have picnic areas.
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Re: Starbucks plans EV charger pilot

Post by storewanderer »

buckguy wrote: March 21st, 2022, 6:31 am

Having had to do work on road trips and having done it at Eastern turnpike plazas, you'd be surprised how long people can spend on a stop and what people do. There is dog walking, making onward plans, catching up with loved ones by phone, etc. Having wifi and clean restrooms alone would make Starbucks locations attractive and real estate in the middle of nowhere is probably much cheaper than in urban neighborhoods or popular suburban strips where they usually have locations.

Most people traveling on interstates are singles or couples, even during the peak summer season. Those are the kind of people for whom an electric car is likely to be their only vehicle and therefore would be the primary users of this infrastructure. Many people work on long trips partricularly those whose job requires that they spend long periods of time on the road and need stops for paperwork, prepping for calls, etc.
If the service plaza concept was viable in much of the US, I can guarantee you, others would have already built those service plazas. They work on the east coast and a little more in the midwest (have seen them in Chicago and somewhere else that I forget now) for a variety of reasons including keeping you on the toll road to get services (vs. having to exit the toll road which years ago would have meant two separate toll payments to get off then get back on, now with the auto toll systems that isn't such a big deal), as a place for people to stop due to traffic, stop due to weather, and a variety of other reasons. I like the service plaza concept and enjoy stopping in them but that is mainly because I am interested in quick service restaurants, gas stations, convenience stores, etc. and making a single stop and getting to observe 8 different operations at once is great for me. But for the average consumer it is a cumbersome situation and in my observation few people spend more than 10-20 minutes at a service plaza. I am also not convinced those service plazas are even overly profitable or if they are being subsidized by the transit authorities/toll road money. But these service plazas would be the absolute best place for a 40-60 minute EV charging stop based on their offering, setting, and safety.

You have to understand that the person who lives in a rural town who drives 2.5 hours into a larger town and back to shop, see family, go to a medical appointment, or whatever, does not want to stop somewhere for 40-60 minutes en route. They have tasks to do "in town" and they want to finish them and get home before they are so tired it is no longer safe to drive. And no I don't think they want to nap for 40-60 minutes at an EV charger (is it even safe to sit in the car with those charging? what about radiation etc.?). They do not want to deal with worrying about a 40-60 minute EV charge. You have to understand the person who drives a family member 3 hours away one way to drop them off at an airport for an international trip to a busy metro area with lots of traffic (so the 3 hour drive back just turned into a 5 hour drive back thanks to traffic) and is trying to avoid an unnecessary overnight stop does not have time for a 40-60 minute EV charge en route either.

And to that point where it is viable, the truck stops are basically functioning like a service plaza throughout much of the middle of the US...

This article, while dated, shows some states are finding those service plazas to be profitable. Note these are densely populated east coast states with lots and lots of car traffic. I do not see this as being viable in the less populated states that are more spread out. Are there service plazas in larger east coast states like Maine or PA?
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-a ... de-revenue

And based on the above article it sounds like the concept of doing service plazas in other states may not even be legal... it is nice a large corporation like HMS Host can run these service plazas back east. How many dozens of small businesses that would have otherwise located at offramps in the area, do not open up since the big corporation has a deal with the big government to monopolize the sale of food along that specific road? Sort of like when you go to an airport where all of the food service is run by HMS Host (becoming more and more rare since travelers have gotten progressively more pissed off with this outfit over the years)- how satisfied are you with the selection and service? Yeah, I thought so...
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Re: Starbucks plans EV charger pilot

Post by babs »

Keep in mind this is an evolving market. A few years ago, 100 miles was the general standard for range. It's now about 300 miles. Tesla is going to get it to 500 miles with their new battery option. 1000 mile range in 10 years isn't out of the question. Improved battery technology will make charging faster. I don't think gas vehicles are going away for decades. But electric is going to be a growing option. What we see today is only the beginning.
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Re: Starbucks plans EV charger pilot

Post by Brian Lutz »

Big travel plazas like the ones you see on the East Coast are nonexistent in the Northwestern US, although in some states (most visibly in Idaho) there is something called the Interstate Oasis program, where the state provides some amount of funding to travel center owners (most of the ones I've seen are Flying J locations) that directs people to their locations with blue "Interstate Oasis" signage similar to rest area signs, and requires those locations to maintain freely available parking and restroom facilities meeting certain standards (not hard, most of these travel centers have pretty well maintained restroom facilities already.) This allows the state to provide facilities for travelers at a much lower cost than it would spend on building and maintaining standalone rest areas. Some more info on the required standards can be found here:

https://apps.itd.idaho.gov/apps/mediama ... Oasis.html

There are still a fair number of actual rest areas, but these are often in areas with little to no other facilities nearby. I know that here in Washington some rest areas (particularly the ones in more populated areas) have been temporarily closed recently, with shortages of workers to maintain the facilities being cited as the primary reason for this.
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Re: Starbucks plans EV charger pilot

Post by storewanderer »

babs wrote: March 21st, 2022, 7:48 pm Keep in mind this is an evolving market. A few years ago, 100 miles was the general standard for range. It's now about 300 miles. Tesla is going to get it to 500 miles with their new battery option. 1000 mile range in 10 years isn't out of the question. Improved battery technology will make charging faster. I don't think gas vehicles are going away for decades. But electric is going to be a growing option. What we see today is only the beginning.
This is exactly it, until this evolves, to an ability to charge the vehicle faster, this is not going to be a viable option for most people. Or the hybrid model... not sure why that has fallen so far out of favor... realistically it would be the best idea for the current time.
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Re: Starbucks plans EV charger pilot

Post by storewanderer »

Brian Lutz wrote: March 21st, 2022, 9:18 pm Big travel plazas like the ones you see on the East Coast are nonexistent in the Northwestern US, although in some states (most visibly in Idaho) there is something called the Interstate Oasis program, where the state provides some amount of funding to travel center owners (most of the ones I've seen are Flying J locations) that directs people to their locations with blue "Interstate Oasis" signage similar to rest area signs, and requires those locations to maintain freely available parking and restroom facilities meeting certain standards (not hard, most of these travel centers have pretty well maintained restroom facilities already.) This allows the state to provide facilities for travelers at a much lower cost than it would spend on building and maintaining standalone rest areas. Some more info on the required standards can be found here:

https://apps.itd.idaho.gov/apps/mediama ... Oasis.html

There are still a fair number of actual rest areas, but these are often in areas with little to no other facilities nearby. I know that here in Washington some rest areas (particularly the ones in more populated areas) have been temporarily closed recently, with shortages of workers to maintain the facilities being cited as the primary reason for this.
Idaho has a good idea and I am sure many of these sites would gladly take funding to install EV charging as well.

What I have noticed in California is the rest stops are still open along I-80 most of the time (I think Gold Run is closed for some remodeling at present or was last month), but once you get onto the rural/remote state highways the rest stop restrooms have been closed for quite some time. Even before COVID. In some cases you can't even pull into them and stop to park.
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Re: Starbucks plans EV charger pilot

Post by Super S »

Brian Lutz wrote: March 21st, 2022, 9:18 pm Big travel plazas like the ones you see on the East Coast are nonexistent in the Northwestern US, although in some states (most visibly in Idaho) there is something called the Interstate Oasis program, where the state provides some amount of funding to travel center owners (most of the ones I've seen are Flying J locations) that directs people to their locations with blue "Interstate Oasis" signage similar to rest area signs, and requires those locations to maintain freely available parking and restroom facilities meeting certain standards (not hard, most of these travel centers have pretty well maintained restroom facilities already.) This allows the state to provide facilities for travelers at a much lower cost than it would spend on building and maintaining standalone rest areas. Some more info on the required standards can be found here:

https://apps.itd.idaho.gov/apps/mediama ... Oasis.html

There are still a fair number of actual rest areas, but these are often in areas with little to no other facilities nearby. I know that here in Washington some rest areas (particularly the ones in more populated areas) have been temporarily closed recently, with shortages of workers to maintain the facilities being cited as the primary reason for this.
Idaho has updated many of their rest areas, and quite a few have an inside "lobby" area where people can wait outside of the weather. As for Washington and Oregon, many of the rest areas have not seen significant updates in many years, and while Oregon has at least done interior remodels, some in Washington have not even received much of an update to the inside facilities and are very dated looking, and could use more frequent cleaning and maintenance.

Washington does have a couple of EV charging spaces at several rest areas now. They aren't Tesla specific though.

There are some questionable types that tend to linger at the rest areas along Interstate 5, and panhandling seems to take place often, mostly during periods where the free coffee area (which is usually staffed by nonprofit organizations) is empty, which has been the norm since the pandemic began. WSP usually will get these people to leave when they drive through, but they return over and over.

I sometimes will bypass the rest areas in favor of nearby businesses, which almost always have nicer facilities and overall feel safer. If I owned a Tesla, I wouldn't want to be lingering in a questionable area.
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