When it comes to lessons to be learned from Europe, the EV proponents always point to Norway.
Here’s a country that for several years now has been leading the world in electric vehicle (EV) deployment and EV charging station business. As of mid-2024, 85% of all new passenger cars sold are pure electric. On a national basis, nearly 30% of the passenger cars on the road are pure electric, and almost 40% around the biggest cities.
The charging stations are ubiquitous, available at parking garages, gas stations and other retail and fast-food chains.
Still, only 10% of charging takes place at all these commercial EV chargers, while 80% of all charging takes place at home, and remaining 10% - at work.
Norway is a faraway European country, and its social structure is very different from the US. But some lessons may be extracted from its example, such as:
- For the gas station industry as a whole, income from charging will not compensate for the loss of income from gas sales.
- Home charging will be a substantial threat to the gas station business.
The only way to attract the EV drivers to your c-store forecourt, is by inviting them to your store, by offering them attractive, appealing food options that’ll keep them in your store long enough – usually 30 minutes – to also use your EV chargers. As somebody said, “…add stickiness to the place” – i.e., increase the number of reasons to visit your location, which is the best and easiest done by good food.
Naturally, there are different concepts of “good food” for different demographics of customers. But here you can be helped by Traffic flow Demographics, a set of data describing the drivers in the flow of traffic that passes by your store. With this new tool, you’ll learn about their points of origin, the time they spend on the road before stopping at your store, their income, gender, age, ethnicity, etc. Ticon’s new product is now available with nationwide coverage and high granularity, at Ticon’s industry-leading accuracy and precision.
Become the place in the EV drivers’ life where they want to come for that very special food offering, and you’ll have a chance of finally making profit off these costly fast chargers you installed.
