|
|
Gas station owners have begun to weigh the cost of installing fast charging stations—typically costing at least $100,000—for electric vehicles (EVs) against the risk of sitting pat on a fading technology: the petrol-powered vehicle.
The prime market for chargers is the nation’s 121,000 convenience stores that now sell gasoline and diesel, The Wall Street Journal reported.
A fast charge would take 15 to 30 minutes and the stores could sell coffee, snacks, newspapers, and other time-passing items to customers while they wait to refuel.
Some chains are installing EV chargers in key locations to test the market and gain experience with them.
Other owners whose pockets are less deep have run the numbers and decided that the cost, in addition to the attendant expenses of tearing up pavement and closing some or all of their pumps during construction, makes no sense—at least not yet, the WSJ noted.
While president Joe Biden has called for EVs and hydrogen-powered vehicles to comprise 50 percent of U.S. new vehicle sales by 2030—and has earmarked $7.5 billion in his infrastructure plan to install a national network of chargers—alternative-fuel cars and trucks hold just 3 percent of the American vehicle market, a slight uptick from 2 percent in 2020, the WSJ noted.
“We don’t see an investable marketplace,” A.J. Siccardi, president of Metroplex Energy, a subsidiary of RaceTrac Petroleum, which owns and operates about 750 gas stations, told the WSJ.
“We’re perfectly OK putting capital at risk,” he said, but “we’ve got to have a viable business case.”
It has yet to find one, even after two years of research, he added.
Pilot Co., which operates about 900 gas stations in North America, has installed chargers at its 58 most popular sites.
The chargers are in use about 5 percent of the time, the company reported; they would need to be in use 30 percent of the time for the chargers to be profitable, according to Pilot CEO Shameek Konar.
“The economic case today for EV charging investment does not exist,” he told the WSJ.
Also, most U.S. personal vehicles travel an average of less than 30 miles a day, according to a study by the American Automobile Association.
A fully-charged EV can travel over 200 miles without refueling, a task that most owners accomplish by plugging in at home overnight.
In addition, many electric utility companies are contemplating their own networks of charging stations; gas station owners may fear making an investment that would put them in competition with those, the WSJ pointed out.
A survey by Murphy USA, which owns more than 1,650 fuel stops, found that its typical customer drives a 12-year-old car worth about $15,000.
The sticker price of a basic, all-electric Chevrolet Bolt is about $31,000; the starter price of a gas-powered Toyota Camry is about $6,000 less.
“Electric vehicles have to be affordable, which they aren’t,” Murphy CEO Andrew Clyde said to the WSJ.
Clyde predicted a long, slow adoption period for EVs, giving gas stations years yet in which to dispense gasoline and diesel fuel.
TREND FORECAST: EVs face the same problem of affordability as solar electric panels: the operating cost is less than traditional technologies but the up-front price is too often prohibitive, even with state and federal tax incentives.
Barring a crash program in which governments massively subsidize EV purchases and chargers, or place drastic bans on petrol-powered vehicles, EVs will need years yet to become competitive with gas buggies among vehicle buyers.
The breakthrough to mass-market appeal will come when battery technology makes significant improvements to ranges and charging times.