Costco and Electrify America partnering for select Costco chargers

[andyboo]

What was the pricing? The non-EA one in WA I went to was $0.29/kwh, but only peaked at 105kW. Decent deal if you need dcfc and plan on shopping but I'd rather pay the higher EA price for faster charging on a real roadtrip.

Just looked it up, it was $0.36/kwh

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[TJM]

Six 350kw chargers at
Costco
4741 Airport Way,
Denver, CO 80239

 

[KidThunder]

Well maybe if I'm shopping at Costco I won't focus as much on how painfully slow the EA chargers are

 

[richguess]

I avoid EA like the plague and use Tesla only. Tesla is becoming a mess too with all the new manufacturers using them and taking up extra spots. EA is a complete rip off price wise too which is another reason to avoid it.

I don’t view it as non Tesla cars “taking up extra spots.” Elon took the $$$ from the other manufacturers, knew the cables wouldn’t reach many without taking up 2 slots, and let the fur fly. Also fired most of the charging station employees. Blame Tesla, not the consumers.

 

[crashmtb]

Costco had charging stations in California from 2006-2011 or so. Unsurprisingly there was not much use, so they ended that experiment.

 

[Redmond Chad]

Costco was definitely an early player in the charging station game. The ancient charging stations were L2 inductive chargers. There was one at Costco's headquarters in Issaquah WA as well. The EV community was very appreciative of Costco's leadership.

Somewhere around 2011, Plug In America was trying to talk to Costco about changing their inductive chargers to J1772 stations. But Costco not only didn't do that, they removed the inductive chargers even though RAV4 EVs were still using them. (I had a RAV4-EV at the time, and lived near the Issaquah location, but I didn't know it was there until after it had been removed). OK, there probably wasn't much use, that's fine, but...they not only removed the chargers, they poured cement in the holes so it would be MUCH harder to install another charger in the future.

This seemed curious, so Plug In America tried asking about it. Store management said it was a corporate decision, so we approached Costco corporate. They said it was a regional decision, but declined to give us contact information for a regional manager. So exactly why they cemented over the conduits is still a mystery. They did at least mention that their decisions were all based on cost effectiveness, typically without factoring in intangible good will/publicity factors. Which again is fine...but still doesn't explain the extra expense of cementing the conduits.

Whatever their reasoning was back then, I am very glad to hear that Costco is back in the game! In general they seem like great locations for chargers.

 

[Zorg]

Loomis, CA Costco has 14 EA stations.

 

[shamoo]

I don't know about other Costco's, but in the SoCal area, Costco parking lots are completely packed almost from open to close.

Any EV charging spot will immediately be taken up (by EVs of course), so while it helps a few of those who want to charge, 99% of the shopping population won't have an opportunity.

Most Tesla chargers located in shopping centers are also completely full 100% of the time.

 

[CANCERDOC]

This is a great idea. Here in California, may Costco parking lots are zoo's with lots of backed up traffic. I would hope the chargers are for Costco members only.

 

[EVentually]

Unless there are closer to 50 chargers, I can't imagine those things every being vacant.

 

[C12farmer]

350kW chargers are actually too fast for anyone doing a real Costco shopping trip.
Anyone on a road trip is not going to do a Costco run and anyone doing a Costco run shouldn't be clogging up the charging stall for 1+ hour.

What Costco needs is a ton of 50-80KW DCFC for shoppers and some 350kW for road trippers. Have a couple of cost tiers. Charge more for 350kW and non-Costco members. Lowest cost for the 50-80kW and Costco members. Lowest cost for Executive members .

This would be prefect situation for actual shoppers who spend ~1hr in store. That may actually motive people to spend more time shopping rather than scarfing down the $1.50 hotdogs and running back to their cars.

 

[MDH]

I’d rather pay more to EA than give musk-rat a dime unless absolutely necessary.

If you had any real conviction you wouldn't use Tesla SCs at all. So hypocritical but typical.

 

[eRacer]

California implemented building codes that requires new businesses to install the infrastructure and/or electric vehicle chargers for new construction. The quantities are based on the total number of parking spaces are in the plans. Due to Costco's parking lot sizes, they are automatically required to install chargers and additional electrical infrastructure for ev chargers.

The local/New Napa Costco has several installed. However, they have not been energized yet.

 

[SANZC02]

If you had any real conviction you wouldn't use Tesla SCs at all. So hypocritical but typical.

Like everything in life it is a bit more complicated than that.

Sure canceling Tesla would hurt EM but the collateral damage would not go unnoticed.

They have more than 140k employees, most making decent money so a lot of lost tax revenue and their support for the economy creating spiraling losses.

Many people probably are unaware of what funds or 401Ks they have that are heavily invested in Tesla (although many are trimming the investments) that would be negatively impact to various degrees.

I would much prefer it to be a simple case of having conviction but…. In the meantime I’ll drive my 9 year old Tesla, charge at the Superchargers for free whenever I can, and only charge my Rivian there when I absolutely need to.

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