Subway to build EV charging "oasis" locations

[storewanderer]

I've mentioned before, there's been an increasing proliferaation of charging stations in all kinds of places--grocery store parking lots, hotels, parking garages and many of them are retrofits rather than new construction.

Subway is working with a charging company which I assume has access to data on traffic counts, vehicle ownership types, etc. They probably also have a good idea how far people travel without stops---my own observations are that most vehicles lack the lumbar support for comfort for more than a couple hours (if that) and if you've traveled with children you know that small humans have small bladders (ditto a lot of adults, esp. as they age) which probably make 100-120 miles a resonable interval and they probably know the average time people spend on a comfort stop, which always seems longer than people expect and probably long enough for a 15 minute charge. The same company is working with a large Taco Bell franchise and probably others. Only about 15% of the population lives in rural areas and there are popular corridors here people routinely take a stop even though the distances are not vast (e.g., DC to Rehoboth or Ocean City; 120 miles, 2 1/2 hours if the traffic moves which it often doe not). Not every place that adopts the charging tech will make money on it, but the infrastructure already allows people to charge in places that aren't exactly hotbeds of Tesla owners or densely populated: https://chargehub.com/en/charging-stations-map.html

I suspect whoever is doing this has large government grants or is otherwise somehow receiving so much funding for this venture from other means that it is basically being paid for.

I don't think anyone has all of this data you are talking about. They will get as many charging points as possible installed and it doesn't matter if it is a profitable venture or one that people will use or not. Many Subways are in strip malls and do not control their parking areas so I am not sure how this is even going to work.

I am not sure about your 15% of people live in rural areas, but let's just go with it.

The charge doesn't take 15 minutes, it takes 17 minutes. And that assumes there is even a station available when you get there...

Go spend 20-30 minutes at a Pilot, TA, Loves, Flying J, or something and observe the "car" traffic and see how long they stick around. You will see even the ones with families are usually gone within 5-10 minutes. You will also observe behaviors of many customers who are clearly in a big hurry and rushing along anyone who lingers.

[Super S]

https://www.businessinsider.com/subway- ... reddit.com

Subway has announced plans to build a number of "oasis" locations along major freeways with EV charging stations, picnic tables, WiFi access and in some cases playgrounds. This seems to mirror plans announced previously by Starbucks to build freeway locations based around EV chargers.

It seems like Subway is already pretty well represented in truck stops and travel plazas, so I'm not sure why they feel the need to build standalone locations for EV customers. I could possibly see this working if they locate near busy gas stations to get both ICE and EV customers, but I don't think the number of customers making long distance EV trips is going to sustain these locations by itself, at least not currently.

Plus, Subway is such a lousy place to stop. Hours aren't consistent. The stores have a characteristic distinct smell to them that sticks to your clothes and no one's sure of the cause, the restrooms don't have a good reputation, and stopping at a Subway on a road trip is going to be a complete gamble or not since quality control is so iffy due to the patchwork of franchises.

Starbucks makes more sense because they've cultivated a "hang out and drink coffee" culture, and their stand-alone shops are all corporate-owned.

I don't always feel welcome when I want to eat inside a Subway for some reason. I have noticed quite often that their dining areas are empty, and the iffy quality control extends to cleanliness of things like tables and restrooms. I have been to a few Subways that are completely disgusting.

Honestly, this would make more sense for a sit-down family restaurant such as Denny's or Shari's, where people can sit down and eat while charging. Even McDonald's would at least offer more variety and attract more customers. If the shift to electric vehicles does take place, and more so if electric semis take off, I could see a shift back to full service restaurants at truck stops.

[babs]

https://www.businessinsider.com/subway- ... reddit.com

Subway has announced plans to build a number of "oasis" locations along major freeways with EV charging stations, picnic tables, WiFi access and in some cases playgrounds. This seems to mirror plans announced previously by Starbucks to build freeway locations based around EV chargers.

It seems like Subway is already pretty well represented in truck stops and travel plazas, so I'm not sure why they feel the need to build standalone locations for EV customers. I could possibly see this working if they locate near busy gas stations to get both ICE and EV customers, but I don't think the number of customers making long distance EV trips is going to sustain these locations by itself, at least not currently.

Plus, Subway is such a lousy place to stop. Hours aren't consistent. The stores have a characteristic distinct smell to them that sticks to your clothes and no one's sure of the cause, the restrooms don't have a good reputation, and stopping at a Subway on a road trip is going to be a complete gamble or not since quality control is so iffy due to the patchwork of franchises.

Starbucks makes more sense because they've cultivated a "hang out and drink coffee" culture, and their stand-alone shops are all corporate-owned.

I would think a food hall concept could do well as part of an electric charging station. Give folks a variety of places to eat. Various seating options. I'm not sure a single fast-food restaurant is the best way to go.

I don't always feel welcome when I want to eat inside a Subway for some reason. I have noticed quite often that their dining areas are empty, and the iffy quality control extends to cleanliness of things like tables and restrooms. I have been to a few Subways that are completely disgusting.

Honestly, this would make more sense for a sit-down family restaurant such as Denny's or Shari's, where people can sit down and eat while charging. Even McDonald's would at least offer more variety and attract more customers. If the shift to electric vehicles does take place, and more so if electric semis take off, I could see a shift back to full service restaurants at truck stops.

[BillyGr]

The problem is many people cannot "have two cars" - one EV and then a separate "car" for longer road trips. This is not practical or affordable for many people. New apartments are being built in California with zero parking requirement. Where are people going to park their EV to charge (not to mention where will they park their other vehicle)? New apartments where I am in Reno are built with 1.5 parking spaces per unit per code (this doesn't work well for a 2–3-bedroom apartment where 3 people live who all have cars- just one car each even- let alone if there are multiple cars for multiple purposes) which is also inadequate but better than zero.

There is a large segment of population living in the middle of the US or in rural areas that regularly drives a lot of miles to get from one place to another. I am concerned those pushing these EV policies only understand big city life and do not really understand how far apart things are elsewhere in the US.

One has to wonder if this will become something that what are now rental car companies get into - being an option to provide a different type of car for those occasional needs? Much like people would now rent a truck for the one time here & there they need to move something that doesn't fit their own vehicle, even those planning to drive for a vacation could rent a gas-powered car if they only own an electric one and plan to travel farther than it can easily go.

It also seems that the states that are pushing to eliminate options for non-electric vehicles are those where these larger city areas exist. Makes sense that it wouldn't be as quick to occur in the states that are more wide-open and require the longer trips on a regular basis (at least until there is a vehicle that would be useful for those lengths of trips).

[storewanderer]

One has to wonder if this will become something that what are now rental car companies get into - being an option to provide a different type of car for those occasional needs? Much like people would now rent a truck for the one time here & there they need to move something that doesn't fit their own vehicle, even those planning to drive for a vacation could rent a gas-powered car if they only own an electric one and plan to travel farther than it can easily go.

It also seems that the states that are pushing to eliminate options for non-electric vehicles are those where these larger city areas exist. Makes sense that it wouldn't be as quick to occur in the states that are more wide-open and require the longer trips on a regular basis (at least until there is a vehicle that would be useful for those lengths of trips).

This is already happening to some degree. There are car share companies out there. I think some are owned by the car rental companies, Avis did own Zip Car but I haven't heard anything about it since before COVID.

But these cater primarily to people living in big cities. People who don't own a vehicle mostly, but could certainly be for people who need a "different" vehicle type for a temporary need. The cars are stored nearby and it is easy to drop them somewhere and let someone use the vehicle that will fit their needs for a short time period.

What works in a large city does not work as well in a spread out medium sized area or rural area, or even the outer edges of big metros.

California is a very wide open state and there is quite a bit of rural population in that state. Additionally being close to Lake Tahoe I can tell you folks who live in the larger areas like the bay area love to drive the 3 hours to Lake Tahoe for various activities, skiing, hiking, etc.

I think the only place where much of this has a chance is the dense east coast with a vast public transit network in place to supplement.

And back to these EV charging, back east there are those large service plazas along the tollways that would be very good for charging stations, they have ample parking spaces, are never full (unless there is weather or some congestion issue), but those types of things simply do not exist in most of the country. Yes I know Chicago has some, but many other states with toll roads like KS, OK, TX, FL, have no big service plazas like that.

[buckguy]

I've mentioned before, there's been an increasing proliferaation of charging stations in all kinds of places--grocery store parking lots, hotels, parking garages and many of them are retrofits rather than new construction.

Subway is working with a charging company which I assume has access to data on traffic counts, vehicle ownership types, etc. They probably also have a good idea how far people travel without stops---my own observations are that most vehicles lack the lumbar support for comfort for more than a couple hours (if that) and if you've traveled with children you know that small humans have small bladders (ditto a lot of adults, esp. as they age) which probably make 100-120 miles a resonable interval and they probably know the average time people spend on a comfort stop, which always seems longer than people expect and probably long enough for a 15 minute charge. The same company is working with a large Taco Bell franchise and probably others. Only about 15% of the population lives in rural areas and there are popular corridors here people routinely take a stop even though the distances are not vast (e.g., DC to Rehoboth or Ocean City; 120 miles, 2 1/2 hours if the traffic moves which it often doe not). Not every place that adopts the charging tech will make money on it, but the infrastructure already allows people to charge in places that aren't exactly hotbeds of Tesla owners or densely populated: https://chargehub.com/en/charging-stations-map.html

I suspect whoever is doing this has large government grants or is otherwise somehow receiving so much funding for this venture from other means that it is basically being paid for.

I don't think anyone has all of this data you are talking about. They will get as many charging points as possible installed and it doesn't matter if it is a profitable venture or one that people will use or not. Many Subways are in strip malls and do not control their parking areas so I am not sure how this is even going to work.

I am not sure about your 15% of people live in rural areas, but let's just go with it.

The charge doesn't take 15 minutes, it takes 17 minutes. And that assumes there is even a station available when you get there...

Go spend 20-30 minutes at a Pilot, TA, Loves, Flying J, or something and observe the "car" traffic and see how long they stick around. You will see even the ones with families are usually gone within 5-10 minutes. You will also observe behaviors of many customers who are clearly in a big hurry and rushing along anyone who lingers.

I have classmates who work in marketing research and used to have a friend whose father did statistical modeling of traffic---there have been tons of data related to traffic for decades and the capacity for analyzing it has improved with faster generations of computers. Commercial real estate routinely uses this information to sell space and civil engineers use it to plan projects. I would imagine that the EZ-Pass peopel have a lucrative sideline in selling the data they collect on toll roads and bridges.

The 15% number if from the Census and its been shrinking more than its been growing. Another way to think about it----DC has more people than Wyoming and is only 12-15% of its metro area depending on how large you draw the arc. There are multiple suburban counties that are even larger. The population became majority urban 100 years ago and its been pretty linear ever since, esp. with the growth of suburbs.

I've driven enough in different parts of Calfornia to know that rural parts of the state are not that isolated once you get out of the mountains--lots of well traveled corridors. Ditto the rural Midwest and lightly populated areas in Pennsylvania, like the I-80 corridor to NYC. If you look at the map I linked, the current gap areas for charging are in lightly traveled parts of the Intermountain West. which is what one would expect. EVs are turning up in rental car fleets and that should increase demand in the classic national park circuits that are popular with foreign tourists. Car sharing, btw, is largely dead---Zipcar is a shadow of its former self. Even with current historically high rates, renting a car for the day often still is cheaper than renting one for a few hours.

Charging stations are popping up where subsidies are neglible or non-existent, like Ohio. DC has a variety of subsidies that are coiming but don't explain all the new infrastructures in the last year. EV owners are paying to have condo buildings add chaging to existing garages and have been doing that for quite some time--it started in my complex back when I was on the Board, which was 6 or 7 years ago.

[veteran+]

One has to wonder if this will become something that what are now rental car companies get into - being an option to provide a different type of car for those occasional needs? Much like people would now rent a truck for the one time here & there they need to move something that doesn't fit their own vehicle, even those planning to drive for a vacation could rent a gas-powered car if they only own an electric one and plan to travel farther than it can easily go.

It also seems that the states that are pushing to eliminate options for non-electric vehicles are those where these larger city areas exist. Makes sense that it wouldn't be as quick to occur in the states that are more wide-open and require the longer trips on a regular basis (at least until there is a vehicle that would be useful for those lengths of trips).

This is already happening to some degree. There are car share companies out there. I think some are owned by the car rental companies, Avis did own Zip Car but I haven't heard anything about it since before COVID.

But these cater primarily to people living in big cities. People who don't own a vehicle mostly, but could certainly be for people who need a "different" vehicle type for a temporary need. The cars are stored nearby and it is easy to drop them somewhere and let someone use the vehicle that will fit their needs for a short time period.

What works in a large city does not work as well in a spread out medium sized area or rural area, or even the outer edges of big metros.

California is a very wide open state and there is quite a bit of rural population in that state. Additionally being close to Lake Tahoe I can tell you folks who live in the larger areas like the bay area love to drive the 3 hours to Lake Tahoe for various activities, skiing, hiking, etc.

I think the only place where much of this has a chance is the dense east coast with a vast public transit network in place to supplement.

And back to these EV charging, back east there are those large service plazas along the tollways that would be very good for charging stations, they have ample parking spaces, are never full (unless there is weather or some congestion issue), but those types of things simply do not exist in most of the country. Yes I know Chicago has some, but many other states with toll roads like KS, OK, TX, FL, have no big service plazas like that.

Years ago, Florida was on a campaign of closing Rest Stops with or without "service plaza".

On the other hand, Texas was building more of the above and was VERY proud of them.

I do not know if these campaigns are still at play.

[storewanderer]

I've driven enough in different parts of Calfornia to know that rural parts of the state are not that isolated once you get out of the mountains--lots of well traveled corridors. Ditto the rural Midwest and lightly populated areas in Pennsylvania, like the I-80 corridor to NYC. If you look at the map I linked, the current gap areas for charging are in lightly traveled parts of the Intermountain West. which is what one would expect. EVs are turning up in rental car fleets and that should increase demand in the classic national park circuits that are popular with foreign tourists. Car sharing, btw, is largely dead---Zipcar is a shadow of its former self. Even with current historically high rates, renting a car for the day often still is cheaper than renting one for a few hours.

Charging stations are popping up where subsidies are neglible or non-existent, like Ohio. DC has a variety of subsidies that are coiming but don't explain all the new infrastructures in the last year. EV owners are paying to have condo buildings add chaging to existing garages and have been doing that for quite some time--it started in my complex back when I was on the Board, which was 6 or 7 years ago.

You are right about CA; the rural areas or medium type areas (let's call places like Redding and San Luis Obispo medium) are quite well connected along very highly traveled roads. There are many very isolated spots like Eureka but that is probably about the biggest of the isolated spots, and it isn't very big.

There are Federal Subsidies for these new EV charging projects now, with the Inflation Reduction Act is where those subsidies really came in. Some states as you point out were funding it prior and there were smaller buckets of Federal dollars available previously as well.

There are virtually no EVs in rental car fleets at the present time, but changes are coming, quickly. But there are plenty of hybrids in the rental car fleets... always enjoy getting one.
The EVs are also only handled by very limited locations, at least in the US.
For example: https://www.avis.com/en/cars/electric-c ... -locations
Hertz handles EVs at 500 US locations. Hertz has close to 3,000 US locations. Hertz was supposed to have 100,000 Teslas in its US fleet by the end of 2022, but it is unclear if that actually happened. Hertz also ordered 175,000 total GM Electric Vehicles to be delivered 2022-2027 and 65,000 Polestar EVs and anticipates 25% of its fleet will be EVs by 2024. We will see how that goes.

[BillyGr]

There are virtually no EVs in rental car fleets at the present time, but changes are coming, quickly. But there are plenty of hybrids in the rental car fleets... always enjoy getting one.
The EVs are also only handled by very limited locations, at least in the US.
For example: https://www.avis.com/en/cars/electric-c ... -locations
Hertz handles EVs at 500 US locations. Hertz has close to 3,000 US locations. Hertz was supposed to have 100,000 Teslas in its US fleet by the end of 2022, but it is unclear if that actually happened. Hertz also ordered 175,000 total GM Electric Vehicles to be delivered 2022-2027 and 65,000 Polestar EVs and anticipates 25% of its fleet will be EVs by 2024. We will see how that goes.

Perhaps that makes sense - if people don't already have an EV, they might not be as interested in renting one (not knowing the whole system of how to get it charged and all). You might get a few people who would rent it for a short time, perhaps if they are looking at buying one, basically as an extended test. Also a few that would rent one if they had one that was not usable at the time, or if they are traveling and need it elsewhere (since they are likely to be more familiar with how the process works, or might even check ahead to see if a place they are staying or such has capacity for charging).

[storewanderer]

Perhaps that makes sense - if people don't already have an EV, they might not be as interested in renting one (not knowing the whole system of how to get it charged and all). You might get a few people who would rent it for a short time, perhaps if they are looking at buying one, basically as an extended test. Also a few that would rent one if they had one that was not usable at the time, or if they are traveling and need it elsewhere (since they are likely to be more familiar with how the process works, or might even check ahead to see if a place they are staying or such has capacity for charging).

If I went and reserved a compact rental and the rental agency presented me with an EV, at the same price as a standard compact (at this point they are charging way more to rent an EV than standard vehicles), I would have to stop and do research to determine if charging facilities existed wherever I planned to drive. If I was going to do a short rental and knew the 300 miles would be sufficient and I wouldn't have to worry about charging, it would be a no-brainer to take the EV. But if I were planning a 500+ mile rental I would need to do research to make sure it would work out.

The same bottleneck issue for EVs and charging for the rental car agencies will exist as with standard road drivers. At this point the rental car company spends a minute or two to refuel a vehicle that comes back not full (many come back full, but perhaps not the majority). Now with the EV they have to stop and keep the vehicle charging for 20 minutes. Now, they should be able to just plug the vehicle in for a charge and then do the cleaning of the vehicle interior during that time, so that shouldn't be a huge issue, but it would require a change in work flow as at this point the way the car rental backstage facilities at the airports are designed is they have large bays of vacuums similar to a car wash so the EV charging would somehow need to be added in those areas.

Back to the rental car thing, GM only built/delivered about 500k EVs for all of 2022. Hertz expects to get 175k EVs from GM by 2024. We will see if that happens.

I know GM was set back badly in 2021 when they had to recall 140,000 EVs for battery fire risk and that slowed their production down during the rest of 2021, so they needed to get scale back in 2022 and did do so. And had it not been for that 2021 setback involving the recall of 140,000 EVs for battery fire risk, they likely would have delivered closer to 650,000 EVs in 2022.

Realistic expectations and promises that can actually be kept should be the cornerstone of the EV transition. Instead it seems a lot of bold predictions are happening that do not actually get accomplished fully as promised.

At the end of the day a lot of people are going to make a lot of money in this "transition" to EVs, and who will pay those costs? Who will pay for the inefficiency of this model until efficiencies can be realized which will take decades? The consumer. That electricity has to be generated from something... how much of it will be from dirty oil or natural gas or other things that we are supposed to be moving away from? It is premature to set deadlines banning the sale of gas vehicles new until the electricity generation issue is resolved and capacity is actually online. The way they are doing this risks the entire concept falling flat on its face after ridiculous amounts of taxpayer money have been spent.