Giving a charge to grocery shoppers: More places to plug in
San Francisco-based Ecotality Inc., which operates the nation’s second-largest network of public electric charging stations for vehicles, announced today that it plans to install 225 new chargers at Kroger Co. stores in California and Arizona.
Kroger is the country’s largest grocery chain, and includes Ralphs and Food 4 Less. It will invest about $1.5 million to install Ecotality’s Blink charging stations and DC Fast Chargers.
The installations in California will be made in Los Angeles and San Diego. Others will be installed in Phoenix, according to a statement by Ecotality.
“As plug-in electric and hybrid cars are becoming more popular with our customers, we are pleased to offer the convenience of electric vehicle charging stations at more of our stores in markets with the highest demand,” said Keith Dailey, a Kroger spokesman.
Ravi Brar, chief executive of Ecotality, said: “We are thrilled that the nation’s largest supermarket chain, Kroger, chose to expand its EV charging station roll-out with Blink.”
In March, Ecotality and Campbell, Calif.-based ChargePoint Inc., which operates the nation’s largest network of public electric charging stations, announced the formation of Collaboratev, a company set up to allow Ecotality and ChargePoint customers to use each other’s charging stations.
This will allow Ecotality and ChargePoint customers access to about 90% of the nation’s approximately 15,000 electric charging stations.
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