The Future of Fuels 2023: Retailers’ EV POV

In many cases, retailers are moving ahead with electric-vehicle-charging initiatives, but they are proceeding with caution.

Here’s a look at how three major retailers are proceeding ...

Since 2021, Casey’s has doubled the number of EV chargers it operates, with plans to add more chargers in 2023. Each of these locations is equipped with DC fast charging, while select locations offer level 2 charging in addition to multiple plug options.

“As part of our environmental stewardship efforts, we are exploring a number of ways to provide our guests with more lower-carbon fuel options, including biofuels and EV charging stations,” says Darren Rebelez, president and CEO.

To support its EV-related efforts, Casey’s is building partnerships with local and national organizations, including Electrify America and EV makers. The company also has participated in grant opportunities with local utilities such as MidAmerican Energy in Iowa and Omaha Public Power District in Nebraska. These partnerships allow Casey’s to guide its long-term strategic planning to align with evolving trends in EV technologies as consumer demand increases.

“Penetration in the rural markets is very slow if not nonexistent. In our 16-state footprint, there’s less than 2% electric-vehicle penetration overall,” Rebelez tells CSP. “So it’s not so much ‘build it and they will come,’ it’s ‘build it and you’ll get what you get.’ We’re going to be prudent about that, and it will evolve over time. … We’re trying to line up our installations with the demand that’s really required.”

“The pace of EV adoption and a need for convenience-store charging could be coming to an inflection point with federal funding poised to potentially help add EV charging in certain markets,” says Marc Rowe, general manager of fuel sales for Trillium Energy Solutions, a unit of Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores Inc., Oklahoma City.

“There’s no question that EV adoption is growing, but we believe that growth will continue at a measured pace relative to some of the more aggressive projections that are out there,” says Ken Kleemeier, vice president of fuels at Kum & Go, Des Moines, Iowa. “While the NEVI (National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure) grant program will certainly accelerate the growth of EV charging infrastructure across the country, we expect that significant additional investment will be required in the coming years to establish the overall fast-charging capacity along key corridors that will be required to enable mass adoption.”

Des Moines, Iowa-based Kum & Go has been gradually expanding it charger footprint at locations where it sees demand, primarily along high-traffic corridors. It plans to have chargers at 10% of its stores by the end of 2023 and will be participating in NEVI grant programs to continue expanding its charger network in 2024 and beyond, Kleemeier says.

The retailer has been focused on developing a better understanding of utility rate structures in its markets.

“Those can be a major impediment to our ability to operate EV chargers profitably. In particular, the ‘demand charges’ that are included in some utilities’ rates can lead to significant operational losses due to the high-power requirements of DC fast-chargers,” Kleemeier says. “I’d encourage anyone who is considering adding EV chargers to research their local utility rates and ensure they understand all aspects of the cost structure for electricity before installing chargers. There are also groups such as the Charge Ahead Partnership that retailers can get involved with to advocate for rate structures that are more suitable for EV chargers.”

Truckstop and travel centers, due to their size, may have an advantage over c-stores in future of fuels “bingo.” They have the square footage and the varied traffic to offer more forms of fuel.

“We have 25-acre sites. …. A c-store along the highway might be on 1 or 2 acres,” says Jon Pertchik, CEO of TravelCenters of America, Westlake, Ohio. “We’re almost all either right on highway or immediately off highway, so we’re going to be relevant forever because passenger-duty EV is going to really start to affect suburban gas c-stores now.”

The ability to accommodate various forms of fueling, in addition to TA’s large stores with a cariety of food and amenity options, has the retailer “very bullish on this stuff.”

“On the passenger side, we’re preparing to make significant investments in EVs. On the heavy-duty side, because we serve 91% of America’s fleets, it’s too early to know which forms of energy are going to win the day in the long run,” Pertchik says. “And so it would be foolish to make a very large bet on one or two, because we would be losing if we made early, premature bets on one or two, and those one or two were not the winners of the day. So we will continue to engage in partnerships and dabble with the intent to help figure out some of these problems of the future of which forms of energy will win the day, and as we learn and as we develop and through testing where we’re making modest investments, not huge investments, as we learn from those things, and we see what the market tells us it’s going to consume, we’ll then adapt and change.”