Please Sign Petition For Costco To Install Charging Stations

[mbender]

So put ten of these at the far end of each and every Costco (and TJ's etc.) parking lot... perfect. If people choose to use them, it would be that many fewer vehicles fighting for spaces near the store.

Our Costco is so busy on the weekend and at night unless the chargers were at the far end of the parking lot or way in the back, there is no way you would find a non-iced spot. There would literally have to be a Costco employee policing the spots to keep them from being ICEd.

 

[ishiyakazuo]

Our Costco is so busy on the weekend and at night unless the chargers were at the far end of the parking lot or way in the back, there is no way you would find a non-iced spot. There would literally have to be a Costco employee policing the spots to keep them from being ICEd.

Yeah, I can't even go to my Costco on the weekend. I spend 15 minutes driving around looking for a spot as it is. For that reason alone, I'm not too excited about the idea of relying on Costco for a charge. (There's also a Whole Foods with 2 free L2 spots that are almost always open within a 5 minute drive of my local Costco...)

 

[mbender]

No one should rely on charging at a store, nor is anyone advocating that. The chargers would just be an added benefit, a "perq"... like free samples, say. I hope no one relies on level 2 charging at Whole Foods or other retailer to get home, just as I hope no one relies on free samples for their evening meal. This is getting silly.

 

[ishiyakazuo]

OK, perhaps my wording was off. Let me put it another way. For every X chargers added to the Costco parking lot, to me that just means that X more cars will be sitting there for a long period of time and not opening up a parking spot to be used. Admittedly, considering how huge the Costco lots tend to be, that's probably not a huge concern unless they put like 50 of them in, but the last thing I need when shopping at Costco is for someone to spend extra time at that location taking up a parking spot just to pull a little extra juice.
In short, adding charging stations just about anywhere but Costco would appeal more to me.

 

[abasile]

No one should rely on charging at a store, nor is anyone advocating that. The chargers would just be an added benefit, a "perq"... like free samples, say. I hope no one relies on level 2 charging at Whole Foods or other retailer to get home, just as I hope no one relies on free samples for their evening meal. This is getting silly.

Why can't one rely on charging at a store? We do this roughly once or twice per month in order to get home. Typically we'll top off our charge at the Walmart in Redlands, CA using a Blink station (at $0.49/kWh). This allows us to make the 4900' climb back up our mountain. Of course, we have backups. If we can't charge at the Walmart, we'll go to the nearby Nissan dealer which is free but not as convenient to shopping.

Also, it bears repeating that charging docks at retail stores could also be useful to employees. Used LEAFs are very affordable these days, after all.

 

[TomT]

+1

OK, perhaps my wording was off. Let me put it another way. For every X chargers added to the Costco parking lot, to me that just means that X more cars will be sitting there for a long period of time and not opening up a parking spot to be used. Admittedly, considering how huge the Costco lots tend to be, that's probably not a huge concern unless they put like 50 of them in, but the last thing I need when shopping at Costco is for someone to spend extra time at that location taking up a parking spot just to pull a little extra juice.
In short, adding charging stations just about anywhere but Costco would appeal more to me.

 

[Valdemar]

I wouldn't mind charging stations at Costco, I often need a charge on the way home from work these days so stopping at Costco for some shopping and getting a charge instead of paying a visit to NRG and nose picking for 15 minutes doesn't sound like a very bad idea to me. However given what a zoo any Costco is around my area, even on weekdays, and the population of plug-in cars being pretty dense, the availability is likely going to be an issue unless they put a large number of plugs in each location, which is not very likely I suspect.

 

[TomT]

The problem is that this is generally not where power is readily available, and it would be expensive to run it that far...

So put ten of these at the far end of each and every Costco (and TJ's etc.) parking lot... perfect. If people choose to use them, it would be that many fewer vehicles fighting for spaces near the store.