Electric vehicle charging continues to be a polarizing topic in convenience retail.
Although the federal government had been aiming for half of all new cars sold to be zero-emission vehicles by 2030, adoption hasn’t followed that projection. EVs made up 10% of the cars on the road in the U.S. in 2025, according to data from the International Energy Agency, but new electric car sales in the U.S. are expected to slow in 2026.
While some convenience store and travel center companies have pulled back on their rollout of EV charging technology, others are continuing to build out their infrastructure.
Below, we discuss three recent announcements from retailers boosting their EV charging presence.
Pilot adds 50 charging stations
Pilot added 50 electric vehicle charging sites to its network during the first half of 2026, the company announced earlier this month.
The EV charging locations, situated across 25 states, expand the reach of the travel center company’s coast-to-coast EV program. Pilot has sites in 40 states, said Scott Hundley, director of light duty EV and infrastructure at Pilot, and the first-half additions deepened its presence in those markets.
“All new sites in the first half of this year grew our charging network’s footprint based on guest preference in states where we already have charging locations,” Hundley added.
Pilot surpassed 200 total sites in September 2025 as part of its partnership with GM Energy and charging company EVgo. The travel center chain now operates more than 275 total sites, Hundley said.
The retailer also announced earlier this year that it is expanding its electric semi-truck charging ambitions through a partnership with Tesla. That partnership calls for about 20 truck chargers in California, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas.
Kwik Charge adds 23 locations
Kwik Trip’s EV charging program, Kwik Charge, has added 23 locations to its network in the 18 months since the program debuted, according to a LinkedIn post from Adam Schwartz, Kwik Trip’s electric vehicle charging program manager.
A map Schwartz posted, which is also on Kwik Trip’s website, showed locations already open in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Upcoming sites were also marked in both of those states along with Iowa. A Kwik Trip spokesperson said the retailer does not have a timeline established for when those new locations will come online.
Kwik Trip’s direct-current fast chargers offer both combined charging standard and North American charging standard connectors and provide up to 400kW of power to a single vehicle or at least 150 kW of power if four vehicles are charging at once, according to data the company shared when the program was first announced.
Onvo plans 12-site partnership
Onvo and EV charging company ChargePoint announced they are bringing EV charging to 12 of the travel center company’s locations in Pennsylvania and New York.
The companies have been working together for about five years, Harman Aulakh, vice president of marketing at Onvo, said in an email.
Two locations — in Dorrance, Pennsylvania, and Fultonville, New York — are already in operation, Aulakh said. Several others will come online this year, with the rest in the design and planning stage. The sites will include ChargePoint Express Plus fast chargers, which are equipped with both CCS and NACS connectors, meaning most EVs on the road will be able to charge at them.
The sites were chosen to help address gaps in the current EV charging landscape, according to the announcement. The partnership may expand in the future.
“We are very much open to evaluating new opportunities as they arise, whether it be at a new-to-industry site that's in our pipeline or an existing location that meets certain criteria for us,” Aulakh said via email.
