Parkland opens largest open-access EV charging site in Canada

Dive Brief:

Parkland Corporation has opened the largest open-access electric vehicle charging site in Canada, according to a company LinkedIn post.
The location — in Hope, British Columbia — opened on July 27, a company spokesperson confirmed. It can charge 12 vehicles at a time and saw 300 customers use it within the first week of opening, the LinkedIn post noted.
Parkland’s Hope location is one of 30 EV charging sites the retailer has opened so far as it seeks to reach 40 active sites this summer and 200 by next year.

Dive Insight:

To date, Parkland has already seen 100,000 charges across its charging network, as it joins other large c-store retailers like 7-Eleven, Circle K and Pilot in planning a broad rollout of electric vehicle infrastructure.

“We’re breaking new ground as a network here,” said Scott Sharabura, vice president of EV charging for Parkland, in the video. “We opened it up a couple of weeks ago and we’re already seeing fantastic traffic.”

While the location saw strong uptake in its first week, Parkland is “continuing to see traffic grow as more people discover the chargers,” the spokesperson said.

In addition to the Hope site, Parkland also announced the opening of a charger in Kananaskis — its second in Alberta.

Parkland is also continuing to develop its stores as well, with leadership talking about its new standalone, fuel-less stores during its most recent earnings call. There are two such sites so far, with one of them also featuring its new Bites On the Run foodservice program.

The menu at Bites On the Run includes 30 restaurant-quality items and was created in conjunction with M&M Food Mart, a frozen-food retailer Parkland bought in 2021. The concept took about a year to develop, CEO Bob Espey said.

With 1,860 stores in its Canadian network, Calgary, Alberta-based Parkland is the largest independent fuel retailer and second-largest c-store operator in Canada. In the U.S., Parkland supplies fuel to independently owned gas stations and operates 212 c-stores under a variety of banners, including On the Run, Rhinehart Oil, Hart’s, Superpumper, and KB Express.