Walmart plans EV Charging network which will blanket the US within a few years

https://evchargingstations.com/chargingnews/exclusive-walmart-ev-charging-network/

by tzs • 1 year ago

97 97 1 year ago

tzs3• 1 year ago

Note: I submitted using the article's subtitle instead of the title, because the title was much less informative. The title is "EXCLUSIVE: Walmart EV Charging Network — Save Money, Charge Better".

I did have to shorten the subtitle to fit. The full subtitle is "Walmart plans expansive EV Charging network which will blanket the US within a few years".

jf• 1 year ago

Thanks for making that decision, the title you picked is better

johnea3• 1 year ago

and offer access through its own Walmart app.

8-(

I've _never_ been required to "join the club", or "run the app" to purchase gasoline.

Why does charging an EV require use of an app?

This is an accessibility issue and as such should be illegal...

mayneack• 1 year ago

It definitely sucks, but it seems likely that gas stations would require it if they were invented today.

autoexec2• 1 year ago

I doubt they'd get away with it. If they thought they could they'd already have done it, but it'd probably result in a lot of legislation and companies don't want regulation. The only reason Walmart can get away with it is that very few people have an electric car.

vel0city11• 1 year ago

Why does charging an EV require use of an app?

It doesn't. Almost all DC fast charging I've done has been plug and charge or with a normal credit card terminal.

Meanwhile when I buy gas at QT or Sam's Club I pay through an app.

johnea3• 1 year ago

First 2 steps on Walmart's instruction page:

* Donwload the Walmart app

* Scan the QR code

iwanttocomment4• 1 year ago

I've driven EVs since 2013 across several states and I've never once encountered a functioning public charging station in the US that has a credit card reader and does not require payment and/or access via an app. I'm all in favor of it, and I understand they technically exist, but perhaps your specific locality requires that? It's in no way my experience.

kposehn2• 1 year ago

I think the app will be for plug-and-charge users, while they'll have credit card readers for everyone else.

I do agree that chargers requiring an app are a royal pain. We're an all-EV household and I don't bother with local chargers that don't have readers or support plug-and-charge. There's a lot of Shell chargers in our area that require an app to work and almost no-one uses them because of how clunky it is.

vel0city11• 1 year ago

The article says the app is the primary way to activate the charger (scan a QR code on the dispenser) while they'll have credit card terminals for states that require it.

tzs3• 1 year ago

It will likely work for Walmart because as of 2021 the Walmart app had 120 million active monthly users [1]. That's almost half of the US adult population.

For all of those people, using the chargers won't require downloading some new clunky app that they only have because of EV charging.

It will be that an app they already have and use regularly and already have their payment information adds EV charging to the list of Walmart goods and services that they already use it for.

[1] https://www.appsrhino.com/blogs/walmart-grocery-delivery-app...

formerly_proven3• 1 year ago

US-specific issue

Lio2• 1 year ago

Is it? I think it's a problem in the UK too. Every charging network seems to have its own associated app.

Planning long journeys means having an app for every stop.

It really shouldn't.

Aurornis2• 1 year ago

The app says that credit card access will be available in the future “at least” in states that require it.

This is an accessibility issue and as such should be illegal...

Assuming it was app-exclusive, you would have a hard time convincing anyone that someone might be capable of driving an EV on the road while also having enough of a disability to make it impossible for them to use a phone app.

There are already members-only gas stations such as the ones attached to Costco. This would be following the same pattern but with an app instead of a card, which is actually far more easy to acquire than a paid Costco membership.

snypher• 1 year ago

They could be dyslexic or something?

mixmastamyk3• 1 year ago

Not what they mean. Card doesn't need power, screen, OS, BigTech approval, etc. Cash requires even less.

kevin_thibedeau• 1 year ago

Vulture capitalists want to know where you live and your income level so they can sell your profile on to other data brokers. Cash is practically a communist plot to give people freedom and liberty.

kposehn2• 1 year ago

Glad to see Walmart going further with DCFC build-out, especially with 400kw chargers.

jarbus• 1 year ago

This would likely make EVs a lot more appealing and accessible to lower-income folks, love it.

lordnacho• 1 year ago

Makes a lot of sense from my amateur perspective. It takes a bit of time to charge a car, and you might as well use it to buy your groceries. Plus I'm sure WM can get a sensible bulk discount on electricity.

Add to that, you can make people use your app and show them targeted adverts. You can get them to buy any bulk goods for pickup when they are charging the car.

Reason0774• 1 year ago

Only trouble is, the cars charge too fast now days! An 800V vehicle like the Ioniq 5 can often be topped up in under 15 minutes, barely enough time to buy a coffee and use the restroom, let alone do any grocery shopping!

And some charging networks apply idle fees if you don’t move your car quickly when charging completes.

Of course, a car can only charge as fast as the charger, so maybe it makes sense (and certainly saves money) to install slightly slower ones at locations where customers are likely to want to spend longer times.

constantcrying7• 1 year ago

Fast charging degrades the battery. Obviously you will choose a slower charger if you know you will be gone for 45 minutes.

Walmart is also unlikely to have these charges, since they obviously do not want people to rush through their stores. (Obviously charges after a couple of hours might be there.)

jayd16• 1 year ago

When do we start jail breaking cars to intentionally charge slowly and avoid fees?

mixmastamyk3• 1 year ago

Don't they slow down past ~80%?

autoexec2• 1 year ago

If they force you to use an app it'll make their charging stations useless for me and anyone else who refuses.

tzs3• 1 year ago

My guess is that this will be less of a problem for Walmart than it is for other EV charging networks because with the other networks all their app is good for is EV charging at their network.

With Walmart the EV charging is just going to be another thing managed from the Walmart app. I'd guess that a significant majority of people who will be wanting to charge there already use Walmart for other things and have the app.

pridkett• 1 year ago

The State of Charge YouTube video that covered the announcement and visited a site in McKinney, TX indicated it did need the Walmart app[0].

Sigh. Plug and pay charging is so much better. It’s not like this is a Tesla only feature. Ford has thousands of chargers beyond SuperChargers that just work for plug and pay.

[0] https://youtu.be/_UIVp8Upvj8?si=eX9EMWKi6sho4DnT

Havoc• 1 year ago

Clever combination. Can definitely see that work out well

cbsmith5• 1 year ago

$0.42/kwH is competitive? I think the highest I've ever paid was $0.43/kwH.

fisherjeff• 1 year ago

FWIW my nearest DCFC, the Electrify America station at my local Walmart, charges $0.56/kWh.

fullstop4• 1 year ago

It depends on where you live and the time of day. I've seen some above $0.60 in Pennsylvania.

cbsmith5• 1 year ago

Sure, but in Texas?

999900000999• 1 year ago

Chaotic good, I could imagine Walmart deciding to sell a miniature EV for around $12,000.

Imagine something like a two-seater City car, while I'm dreaming I imagine this type of vehicle completely taking over for most City commuting. Since these would be smaller and slower than normal cars, they would be phenomenally safer.

SoftTalker2• 1 year ago

Very few people have purchased the gasoline-engine equivalent of such cars, so not sure why an EV version would fare a lot better.

mikeyouse• 1 year ago

Especially when they are at Walmart to purchase it with a grocery cart full of groceries that you’d be hard pressed to fit in the E-Smart Car equivalent.

Reason0774• 1 year ago

… in the USA. European cities are full of small city cars. Driving (and parking) anything much larger can be impractical on many streets in Europe.

dzhiurgis5• 1 year ago

Especially considering some ebikes are approaching $12k...

dyauspitr• 1 year ago

A 2 seater is never going to work in America. But electric trucks and vehicles definitely can if charging stations are ubiquitous and there is no range anxiety.

constantcrying7• 1 year ago

Chaotic good, I could imagine Walmart deciding to sell a miniature EV for around $12,000.

There have been many, many car projects like that from large and small companies. All of them failed to get any kind of mainstream audience.

People want general purpose cars and they will not buy anything else.

Since these would be smaller and slower than normal cars, they would be phenomenally safer.

City driving at 50kmh is already dangerous in regular cars. Either you limit traffic to something like 25 kmh or you have to accept that crashes are now more dangerous.

iwanttocomment4• 1 year ago

For your consideration, the Smart Fortwo electric drive. They really tried. Not a success. While I never owned one, I drove them several times and I liked them!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_electric_drive

constantcrying7• 1 year ago

The smart is also a "real" car. You can use it on the highway.

Obviously it isn't great there, but it is not a car you can only drive in the city.

jasonthorsness• 1 year ago

Now do Costco!

russell_h• 1 year ago

At least in the Pacific Northwest most Electrify America installations are in Walmart parking lots. These have caused me to spend more time at Walmart the past two years, honestly its a pretty good experience - aside from EA reliability issues, which seem to have improved but still far short of Tesla.

dheera• 1 year ago

I have a hard time just picking up and plugging that heavy fatass CCS connector. And then I have to try plugging it in 3 times because it waits for the car and the car waits for it and one gives up before the other succeeds.

fullstop4• 1 year ago

I'm not a big dude, but I've never struggled with this.

darknavi2• 1 year ago

honestly its a pretty good experience - aside from EA reliability issues, which seem to have improved but still far short of Tesla.

Going from the Tesla Supercharger network I can't share this sentiment at all. Virtually every time I charge at an EA station (which is admittedly only a few times a year) there is either random power degradation with no notice or one or many totally dysfunctional stalls. This latest time a few days ago the only open stall was busted because the terminal said to unplug from the last session over an hour ago.

The flakiness is compounded by the lack of chargers per station. Superchargers often have 10 or even 20 chargers, EA chargers often have 2 to 4 chargers so a charger going out is much worse.

vel0city11• 1 year ago

Every time I've used an EA charger there was an open one and all I had to do was just drive up and plug in. The car negotiated payment and it worked fine with reasonable charging rates.

Driving a Mach E around Texas.

constantcrying7• 1 year ago

Germany already has a pretty good charging network, yet EV adoption is very slow.

This will not change much. Charging infrastructure is only a small part of making EVs appealing, although it is obviously a necessary prerequisite.

manmal3• 1 year ago

EV prices are just way too high. As a father of three, I can decide between a used BMW 2 which goes 1k km on a full tank, for €17k, and a Kia EV 7 seater for €70k. Guess which one I went with. There are some other, cheaper, EV models with 7+ seats (40k+), but they charge so slow and need so much power in winter, you‘d get max 200km out of them and then need to charge 1h.

Generally, most EVs you can buy in the EU are just 10-20k more expensive than their ICE counterparts, and incentive programs don’t make up for that difference.

constantcrying7• 1 year ago

I can decide between a used BMW 2 which goes 1k km on a full tank, for €17k, and a Kia EV 7 seater for €70k. Guess which one I went with.

I assume you are talking about the family van 2 series? And not the sporty 2 door 2 series. (Why didn't you buy a Touran?)

You are also comparing used car prices to new car prices which is pretty insane.

EV prices are just way too high.

Sure.

thebruce87m• 1 year ago

a used BMW 2 which goes 1k km on a full tank, for €17k, and a Kia EV 7 seater for €70k

A used lower end model from one manufacturer vs a new high end model from a different one doesn’t seem like a fair comparison.

dzhiurgis5• 1 year ago

I don't get the false equivalence. You are comparing compact car vs 7 seater.

Besides 7 seaters are only must for families with 4 kids, AKA less than 10% of households.

I have both - decent sized EV and an old 7 seater. I'd never want to take it for a road trip as EV is just far more comfortable and easier to drive (autopilot 90%+). Its sole purpose is to deal with family visits and when I need to tow something like twice a year.

pkulak• 1 year ago

Very true. My first EV went about 80 miles, in the summer. Fast charging was the name of game! It was the difference between the trip being possible or not. Now I have a car that can go 350+ miles in the summer (280-300 in the winter) and I basically never fast charge it. I guess we don't "road trip" much, but we do drive around our state quite a bit, and 300 miles is just so much range. We went to the coast last weekend, my son asked how the charging was, and I replied that I hadn't bothered to look because it wasn't at all needed. It almost takes the fun out of it.

dzhiurgis5• 1 year ago

All because VW ID series flopped due to awful software while keeping pretty high cost when compared to competition (and Germans generally buy German cars).

constantcrying7• 1 year ago

Germany has 3 automotive groups. The IDs didn't flop just because of software, it was also uncompetitive in price and looked hideous.

The IDs right now are also selling quite well, with VW Brand leading the manufacturer charts.

daft_pink• 1 year ago

While I really hope that they do a great job with it, I have no faith in Walmart to offer an effective charging network. Doing everything on the absolute cheap leaves a lot to be desired.

They were great when they were expanding and had great stores to lure you away from the competition, but now they operate under maintained not well staffed stores with confusing self checkout and obtrusive surveillance everywhere. It’s just a total race to the bottom at their stores.

Hopefully it will encourage better players like Target to follow suit.

Anyways, reality is that people buy EVs to charge them at home most of the time. At least thats what I think the reality is.

ojbyrne• 1 year ago

Or maybe it’s people who can charge at home are more likely to buy EVs.

rchowe• 1 year ago

The quality of store management seems to affect a lot when it comes to Walmart. I have been to some Walmart stores where I have never seen any unfolded clothing. I have been to some Walmart stores where I have never seen any folded clothing.

An organization as large as Walmart has the wherewithal to put together an effective charging network if they decide it is a priority. One of the nice things about being first-party is that they will likely have a preventive maintenance program and emergency maintenance program for the chargers, and some of that can be done by the company electrician.

I have a Tesla, and due to various factors (apartment living, other family members with Teslas), I almost exclusively use public chargers. I have some opinions of what amenities I want at a charger (bathroom, cold diet coke), but in general the chargers at gas stations, grocery stores, and Walmarts are the best for me. Restaurants and malls are actually not great amenities because that's often not the mood you are in when you arrive at the charger.

Seattle3503• 1 year ago

It feels like this will be big for road trips. Every road trip I've been on, it always felt there was a Walmart just a few miles miles the road.

theshrike79• 1 year ago

This is what made the charging infrastructure in Finland boom.

We have two major grocery chains (a duopoly pretty much), and they started competing for the growing EV customer base by installing chargers at every store of theirs.

Now just one of them has over 300 charging stations with about 2000 plugs, 5 years ago they had next to nothing.

Turns out it's good for business when families stop to charge for 30 minutes, they drop a bunch of money for other services while they're at it.

And I'll rather stop at a store to grab cheap snacks and ready to eat meals vs. paying through the nose for gas station prices. (We actually have some cups, plates, and cutlery in the car just for this)

coopreme• 1 year ago

This combined with the $20K electric truck looks promising.

I just hope something like the blue rhino propane tank for batteries to offer a Battery drop in.

yuliyp• 1 year ago

I wonder how this will affect their relationship with Electrify America, which has like 30% of its charging locations in Walmart or Sams Club locations.

fnordpiglet• 1 year ago

I’m surprised they can find the transformers. As I understand it even without any government subsidy transformer production backlog is through 2030. We had a Tesla super charger site near us sit idle for over a year waiting for a transformer. A family member is a lead on transformer manufacturing at hitachi and they can’t build transformer production capacity fast enough to keep up with the rate of change of orders.

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/electric-transformer-shorta...

tocs3• 1 year ago

I hope they pair this with solar panel awnings in the parking lots. 30 acre parking lots in Central Texas (and I am sure elsewhere) are a killer. I am not sure why more big box stores (HEB, Home Depot, etc.) have not been a little more active with this sort of thing.

Walmart plans EV Charging network which will blanket the US within a few years

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