First Interview I've seen with Slate's new CEO Peter Faricy

[aquaman811]

As far as fuel stations, most corner gas stations probably wouldn't. Pilot/Flying J is installing chargers at many of their stations though. Even the smaller ones usually have some kind of food service in them. 15-20 minutes can give you a significant addition to your range.
One of the not-so-secret secrets of gas stations is they don't really make much money on the gas. They really want you to come in and buy stuff. I can see chargers being viable at any gas station that has even a subway or McDonalds attached.

For that matter, there's an idea. Food chains should start adding chargers, not just along major highways, but in cities. Need to charge, you are going to choose to eat at the place with a charger.

I know in Chicago there are numerous Fast Chargers at Whole Foods, Target, Costco. That would help range anxiety.

 

[KevinRS]

Near me, now that I look, closest charging stations are: about 5 miles, at a high school, they may not allow the general public to just park in their parking lot and charge, 8 miles, at a public park, well, many parks or city buildings in the city, a Shell station over 10 miles, and then the car dealers, mall, and other stores around the freeway around 13-15 miles away.
When the Pilot chargers open up that will be about 7 miles, if the closest Walmart adds them, about the same.
Every one of these chargers is west of me. To the east, over 30 miles to the nearest charger.
So currently if I needed to go somewhere and charge, just to charge, 8-12 miles to just sit around while charging, 13+ to shop, or sit down and eat or similar while charging. I can see that if Walmart put one in, it would see some use, and many charging would be shopping at the same time.
Realizing the closest park in that city, surrounded by residential, about 5 miles from me, doesn't have charging, neither does the one right by that walmart. Realizing the city left out the east side on something again.

 

[RetiredOnPaper]

What bothers me about this interview is at the end, he is asked about charging networks. In fact the question had a lead in it about Walmart. And Mr. Faricy missed it. Walmart has a program of installing EV fast chargers at most locations. If he does not know this already, he is not qualified to lead an EV company.

 

[cadblu]

What bothers me about this interview is at the end, he is asked about charging networks. In fact the question had a lead in it about Walmart. And Mr. Faricy missed it. Walmart has a program of installing EV fast chargers at most locations. If he does not know this already, he is not qualified to lead an EV company.

Perhaps, but I don’t think a few misspoken words in an interview is enough to discredit the CEO. We recall that Chris Barman also had a couple of poor responses in the Q&A segment but she still holds the key to Slate’s overall success. The fact that Slate has access to Tesla’s vast supercharger network with its standard NACS connector is way more important than some inferior 3rd party charging system at Walmart. Which probably won’t work very well.

 

[KevinRS]

What bothers me about this interview is at the end, he is asked about charging networks. In fact the question had a lead in it about Walmart. And Mr. Faricy missed it. Walmart has a program of installing EV fast chargers at most locations. If he does not know this already, he is not qualified to lead an EV company.

Except Walmart is not installing chargers at most locations, at least not yet. They have chargers at only 36 stores. They have 124 stores marked coming soon, and around 200 with permits pulled. Sure that adds up to over 350 potentially, but that is out of over 5000 stores. I don't see it as any kind of a miss for someone not to bring up Walmart's 36 stores with charging stations, even the 350 which might take a year or several years to get permitted and built would not be all that notable. If they start getting those numbers moving more, sure.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

They have chargers at only 36 stores. They have 124 stores marked coming soon, and around 200 with permits pulled. Sure that adds up to over 350 potentially, but that is out of over 5000 stores.

Help me understand your math here. Doesn't a project need a permit before beginning work? Wouldn't the 124 locations marked 'coming soon' be a subset of the 200 permits?

I understand it's a minor point in the overall picture, but maybe I'm missing something in your logic.

 

[KevinRS]

Help me understand your math here. Doesn't a project need a permit before beginning work? Wouldn't the 124 locations marked 'coming soon' be a subset of the 200 permits?

I understand it's a minor point in the overall picture, but maybe I'm missing something in your logic.

That is how it is stated in the posting I read. The 124 is the number actually listed on the walmart page as coming soon. I'm assuming the other 200 are showing up in a permit search but not shown on Walmart's listing.
Doesn't much matter, 350, or just ~225. Either way, it's a fraction of Walmart locations. Now if you are near Walmart HQ in Arkansas or one of the, basically test cities they are rolling out in, it may look different, but I'm seeing zero chargers in California, with 4 locations "coming soon" in the cities of Antelope, Brea, Stockton, and Suisun City.

Actually clicking through Walmart's list, looks like many of their current and future chargers are in Texas, with 16 + 39 coming soon. Even at that, that's a minority of the over 500 Texas Walmart stores.