3 Big Numbers is a weekly column that looks at a few key details from around the c-store industry.
Dozens of convenience retailers have made headlines over the past several years for launching and expanding their electric vehicle charging programs. But once the chargers are in place, we often don’t hear much more about them.
Charging manufacturer Electric Era recently looked at the EV charging networks of dozens of retailers and ranked them in its new Retail EV Charging Index.
“The index is not intended to be an opinion or judgment,” wrote Jordan Con, head of marketing for Electric Era, in the introduction to the index. “Rather, it’s a reflection of where retailers stand on key dimensions.”
Electric Era says its rankings consider four metrics: scale, or the number of sites a retailer has; experience, which rates how integrated the charging experience is with the overall site; quality, which takes into account data from JD Power public charging experience study along with driver ratings; and momentum, an AI-assisted score that estimates how likely the retailer is to keep building its network.
In this week’s “3 Big Numbers” we look at Electric Era’s rankings and what they say about the state of EV charging in the c-store space.
7
The number of convenience retailers in the top 10 of Electric Era’s Retail EV Charging Index.
The index looked at 50 total retailers across convenience, fuel, grocery, restaurant and big box. Fuel and convenience store companies combined for a little over half of the companies, but they made up seven of the top 10 spots in the rankings.
Wawa came in first, followed by BP, Applegreen, Pilot Company and Walmart — all of which have extensive plans for building up their infrastructure.
Applegreen and BP both have their own EV charging arms, Pilot has an extensive partnership with EVgo and GM, and Walmart has chargers either operating in or coming soon across 29 states.
275
The approximate number of EV chargers in Wawa’s network.
The Pennsylvania retailer topped the list in part because of a strong quality score across its 275 fast charging locations, which earned it nearly 60 points, the 12th-highest among the selected companies.
Wawa is working with EV network Ionna to put its EV Rechargeries at Wawa c-stores and is moving from simply hosting Tesla EV chargers to owning the hardware at some sites, branding the chargers to its own banner and handling pricing.
65
Kwik Trip’s “quality score” on Electric Era’s charging index.
Wawa got first place overall, but looking at the rankings by quality score brings some different names to the top.
The popular Midwest chain Kwik Trip ranks fourth in this metric, partly on the strength of how the retailer is building its Kwik Charge program.
Since debuting Kwik Charge in October 2024, Kwik Trip has added 23 locations to its network with more on the way, according to the company’s website. The charging index underscores just how much the retailer has made EV charging a part of the brand experience, from the name to the company-branded chargers.
Having its own branded chargers means it’s Kwik Trip’s name on the line for a bad experience, rather than a provider like Tesla. That could give the retailer extra incentive to keep the chargers clean, lit and working at all times.
