While it's becoming clear that electric vehicles of all flavours are becoming more common on the UK roads, it's also clear that there seems little development in terms of charging points. Most UK motorway service stations have had some form of charging spaces for years, but usually only two and, as time has passed, it seems increasingly common to find at least one of these to be out of order. Tesla Motors are, of course, deploying their wonderful supercharging network but that deployment is far from rapid and in some areas still non-existent. So, as the number of EVs on the road increases but the opportunities to keep them going begin to fall behind, is a business opportunity opening up?
Although there's a lot of technology behind charging an EV, at the end of the day it's just a power socket so it would seem that the ability to add a charging station to your business should be reasonably straightforward. There are several companies out there already in the UK who specialise in providing EV charging equipment and Tesla themselves offer options for businesses to become "Destination Charging" points. So the question is, what benefits could a company receive from installing such charging points and, crucially, will those benefits end in a profit?
Of course, the first benefit is the fee for charging itself but you're going to have to have those points busy night and day to make any real money, I suspect, so that should probably be dismissed. Much more interesting is what it means in terms of a "captive audience". Fossil fuel stations have long realised the benefits of having some form of shop on-site, in fact some now have shops that rival local stores in terms of range and size, and here we're only talking about people who must spend at least a few minutes on site in the process of filling and paying. With EV charging, even at Tesla Supercharger speeds (which can deliver about 80% of a charge in around 40 minutes), you're still looking at one or more humans wandering around looking for something to do for at least half an hour, more likely an hour or more.
The decision to install charging points is therefore going to be influenced by your business and what it can offer someone who finds themselves trapped for an hour on your premises. If you've already got a cafe of some kind that's a good start, but that cafe has to be attractive, it has to have wi-fi for the travelling business user (or non-business social media addict). It needs to be comfortable and, ideally, be in a good position with relation to the charging points (not only might customers want visibility of their car while it's charging, some might have apps that connect to the vehicle and need to be within a certain range). So the obvious is refreshment based. But why stop there? If you run any kind of retail store (within reason), if you can attract people to your store because you offer a rare service, you may find an extra customer or two.
So, if you've got space and power on your site, and at the very least something to occupy a random visitor for an hour or so which might result in them handing you some cash, why not consider installing an EV charge point?
