The future of EV Charging looks a lot like an airport lounge – The Mercury News

Tope Alake and David R Baker | Bloomberg News (TNS)

Charging an electric vehicle in the future increasingly looks like an experience somewhere between a truck stop and an airport lounge.

Most public chargers sit in parking lots, often three or four machines along the side of a hotel or grocery store. Drivers are exposed to the elements and — unless they need to go shopping — are basically stuck hanging out in their cars while filling their batteries.

But charging companies and automakers increasingly see a need for stations with amenities: restaurants, good bathrooms, comfortable furniture, and canopies that shield from the rain, snow and sun. After all, even the fastest chargers need a half-hour to top off your car — so you’d better enjoy the stay. The additional convenience could entice would-be EV drivers to take the plunge, adding fuel to the electric transition.

The transition to charging could be an opportunity to reimagine the refueling experience altogether, said Christopher Hawthorne, senior critic at Yale School of Architecture. The design and placement of gas stations have remained largely unchanged for decades, but EV charging facilities don’t necessarily have to follow the same rules.

This summer, Rivian Automotive Inc. turned a former blacksmith shop outside Yosemite National Park into a recharging lounge where drivers can sip free coffee while making their own trail mix from an ingredients bar. Or they can sprawl out on furniture made from used sleeping bags and browse books in an onsite library. There’s even a wall-sized display of climbing routes of Yosemite’s famed El Capitan rockface.

In dense, urban San Francisco, Electrify America LLC opened a drive-in station where 20 high-speed chargers sit inside a large, garage-like space that also includes two climate-controlled lounges, free wi-fi and bathrooms with baby-changing stations. That represents a large chunk of the city’s fast-charging ports.

These are just two of a growing number of efforts to find public charging models that work. Some drivers considering going electric remain skeptical that they’ll find convenient and reliable charging beyond their own garage. Indeed, it’ll be eight years before EV chargers become as ubiquitous as gas stations today.

Hunting for chargers outside individual stores isn’t much of a draw. Lounges accompanied by banks of chargers are one potential answer. So are stations that mimic their gas-dispensing predecessors, with pull-through lanes, bright lighting and broad canopies easily visible from the street. EVgo Inc., in partnership with General Motors Co., plans to install 400 fast chargers at such facilities.

“We don’t want people to think of charging infrastructure as anything that would hold them back — we want them to be thrilled by the infrastructure that they have available to them,” said EVgo President Dennis Kish. “Going that extra mile on these sites is a way of making investments we think will really accomplish that goal.”

He also noted that “without question,” the company is seeing more usage and higher customer satisfaction with its more developed charging sites. Stations with additional amenities increase customer safety and deter the growing problem of charger vandalism, he added.

Offering products from soda to chewing gum will appeal to the charging station operators as competition for customers intensifies, said Gabriel Daoud, an analyst at TD Cowen.

“Over time, charging is expected to become like the gas station model where you make little margin on the fuel, but profit on the other services provided,” Daoud said. “Ultimately, it’ll have to be paired with a convenience store to help improve the economics.”