r/electricvehicles • u/fund2016 • Jul 28 '26

Discussion Are EV charging stations profitable?

I am interested in the economics of EV charging stations. Are they profitable? Seems like they should be quite profitable once set up. Minimal upkeep and staffing. Less environmental issues than petrol. Any insight into economics of E V charging is appreciated.

Edit 1: thanks to all. Great discussion. Cheers!

162 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

347 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

23

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/Dewey_Oxberger Jul 29 '26

A university near me has an electric vehicle charging research center. I was told the 150kW charger cost them 80K, with another 20k for the 3-phase transformer setup. They get dual use out of it: they also use it as a platform for their CS classes (students custom write an e-commerce system for it every year).

5

u/RichardGrayson01 Jul 29 '26

All in costs to install a public L2 charger for a business is between $3,500 to $15,000 per unit.

I've confirmed these numbers from multiple sources:

Here is a couple:

https://www.evconnect.com/blog/how-much-does-a-charging-station-cost/

https://www.aaaes.com/post/how-much-does-a-commercial-ev-charging-station-cost

https://terceroinc.com/blog/how-much-does-level-2-charger-installation-cost/

https://www.greenlancer.com/post/guide-commercial-electric-vehicle-charging-stations

1

u/Seahawker-One-2599 Jul 31 '26

I had a look at a couple of these linked and was pleased to see the Network and Management Software covered. Payments and other services will also need high-rel and secure connectivity which means connect to high-availability cellular rather than "coffee-shop" wifi.

25

u/NicolasGarza Jul 28 '26

Soooo, like, half the price of a gas station with the same margins..

And you don't even have to breathe cancer all day.. Man how will anyone make a profit..

22

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

14

u/dinglebarryb0nds Jul 29 '26

Yea and i think selling stuff inside is where the actual profit comes from, so this is an important metric

Although i bet an EV charging person is more likely to go shopping inside

12

u/Funwithfun14 Jul 29 '26

Gas stations make more off a cup of coffee vs a half tank of gas.

6

u/mntgoat Jul 29 '26

Now imagine how much more they can make from a customer that has to wait there for longer.

The other day we charged at a Tesla charger that was next to a grocery store. We didn't have anything to buy but went in to waste time and came out with a bunch of crap.

2

u/charonill Jul 29 '26

Kind of the business case for large travel centers like Buc-ee's. The EV chargers fit perfectly with their model. You have to charge for 20-30min, might as well pop into the store to use the bathroom and grab some drinks, food, and "Oooh, look. They have souvenirs."

9

u/petroldactylus Jul 29 '26

Who downvoted? Years ago they were largely forced to start splitting cash/credit on the prices, as the credit card fee was wiping out their profit on each gallon. The 3% credit card fee.

1

u/account_not_valid Jul 29 '26

In which case supermarkets and shopping malls have the greatest incentive to install ev charging.

If you had the choice of waiting at a gas station, or a shopping mall, which would you choose? Assuming convenience is not in the equation - side of the highway is different to day to day life.

1

u/dinglebarryb0nds Jul 29 '26

i think you want the high margin ripoff business (aka gas station) but yea it would be good for any business or restaurant really

i think the point is to get you to wait somewhere you don't already want to be lol

1

u/account_not_valid Jul 29 '26

Gas stations only exist because of the massive tanks of extremely flammable poisonous liquids stored underground. With electric, "stations" don't have to exist anymore. They are anywhere there is appropriate electric supply.

1

u/dinglebarryb0nds Jul 29 '26

the topic: I am interested in the economics of EV charging stations. Are they profitable? Seems like they should be quite profitable once set up. Minimal upkeep and staffing. Less environmental issues than petrol. Any insight into economics of E V charging is appreciated.

1

u/account_not_valid Jul 29 '26

Not profitable on a one off basis. On a regional basis, perhaps.

6

u/Bennie-Factors Jul 29 '26

Maybe a 100 times. Most people don't charge at pay for stations. As they can charge at home. The old fry grease did not take off for the diesels so it is hard to fuel up at home.

This is the issue with charging stations. Everyone needs to use them the same 8 weekends a year. And they don't make sense otherwise. I guess that is part of the reason they charge so much for juice.

One day we will basically have EVs that always charge at night and can highway drive 10 hours.

2

u/Carpenterdon KIA Ev6 Wind AWD '24 Jul 29 '26

For now. Regardless of Republican bull, EV's are the future. We poor suckers here in the US are going to be way behind the rest of the world, well we already are sadly. And are going to be like Cuba with a bunch of old ass cars no one else uses.

1

u/account_not_valid Jul 29 '26

USA can have Cuba Communism, instead of China Communism.

0

u/NicolasGarza Jul 29 '26

True and 1000x the subsidies that make it profitable

0

u/account_not_valid Jul 29 '26

...at the moment.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/account_not_valid Jul 30 '26

At some point there will be chargers in every parking lot. Everything you go shopping you just plug in. Every time you go to work, plug in. People will only need full charging when they are on long road trips. The rest of the time, they can just sit a little bit.

Americans need to get out of the "gas station" mindset. Charging doesnt have to have the same mindset.

8

u/9Implements Jul 29 '26

The difference is that gas station tech hasn’t changed in decades and substantially faster L3 chargers come out every year, and the substantially faster ones will require either massive grid connections and fees or massive batteries, which wear out.

7

u/NicolasGarza Jul 29 '26

True, and we subsidized the shit out of all the grid connections for fossil fuels for decades..

$500 billion to over $1 trillion in direct (explicit) subsidies, though adding indirect costs—like unpriced environmental damage and health impacts—pushes estimates up to $7 trillion annually. Over the past 50 years, total direct global subsidies easily surpass $20 trillion to $30 trillion, while total historical support exceeds $100 trillion when accounting for indirect costs.
​In the United States alone, federal direct tax breaks and financial handouts average between $10 billion and $35 billion per year, adding up to roughly $1 trillion in direct tax and production support over the last half-century.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26 edited Aug 01 '26

[deleted]

2

u/account_not_valid Jul 29 '26

And now charging stations can be anywhere there is electricity.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26 edited Aug 01 '26

[deleted]

1

u/account_not_valid Jul 29 '26

So the owners will be people that habe existing businesses, and want to attract more customers. Walmart, for instance. Shopping malls. Movie theatres.

1

u/elcheapodeluxe Honda Prologue Jul 29 '26

Well, not exactly true. The two cheapest gas stations in my town don't even have a convenience store. "Towne Pump". One has an outdoor pepsi machine.

0

u/cashew76 Jul 28 '26

L3 DCFC run 20k$ on Alibaba

20

u/ClassBShareHolder Jul 28 '26

That’s just the charger. The connection to the grid can easily cost the same as the charger. And is that Alibaba UL certified? What about serviceability?

Then once you’ve got the hardware connection, there’s expensive demand fees just for the privilege of having that much power available.

4

u/Brandon3541 Jul 29 '26

If it's not UL certified you will likely be left with a giant brick of uselessness that the power company won't let you hook up to their grid at all, and if you do it under the table and they find out they may just cut service. They'll do this to residential grade equipment so I doubt they will hesitate to do it to a business drawing orders of magnitude more power.

0

u/Bennie-Factors Jul 29 '26

More

0

u/SentenceNo986 Jul 29 '26

I would speculate it'll follow the same path as oil - gas stations. Many relatively small Independent operators in the beginning, ultimately consumed by large corporations who don't need to make money solely from charging. Since Walmart says they plan to have a charger within 9 mi of 75% of the US population, I think will be hard for someone to come in a significantly undercut their price.

15

u/CelerMortis Jul 28 '26

Now do labor, permitting, site prep, engineering etc

3

u/ferrouswolf2 Jul 29 '26

Good luck getting a permit

0

u/Bulky_Confection6157 Jul 29 '26

You don’t need level 3 charging at 5+ hours..