Dive Brief:
- Parkland Corp. has seen “much higher demand and higher levels of utilization than anticipated” about a year after launching its electric vehicle charging program, President and CEO Bob Espey said during the company’s 2023 investor day on Tuesday.
- Specifically, high consumer usage and backcourt conversion rates along with government support have been key in Parkland seeing success with its charging stations, Espey and other Parkland executives noted during the presentation.
- To date, Parkland has added EV charging to 37 convenience stores in Canada, Espey said. This brings the company close to its goal to bring chargers to 50 On the Run c-stores throughout British Columbia and into Alberta.
Dive Insight:
Parkland’s “very encouraging” backcourt conversion rates — getting customers to enter stores while their vehicles charge up — are “actually higher than what we see in the gasoline vehicle,” Espey said during the event.
Parkland currently brings EV charging stations to two types of markets: highway locations such as its open-access store in Hope, British Columbia, and dense urban markets like downtown Vancouver, Darren Smart, senior vice president, energy transition and corporate development for Parkland, said during the presentation.
Moving forward, Parkland will “continue to expand where we see demand,” Smart said.
Despite this growth, Parkland has yet to bring its EV charging stations to the U.S.
When asked by one investor at the meeting if Parkland sees an opportunity to tap markets for EV charging where they don’t have a fuel advantage, such as California, Smart noted Parkland will stick to where it has a notable footprint.
“We aren't thinking about going into other markets like California where we're not present in our business today,” Smart said.
In Canada, Calgary, Alberta-based Parkland has over 2,300 convenience stores across Canada, including 800 company-owned locations. In the U.S., Parkland USA operates 655 retail sites across Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Florida.
