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This week:
- EV chargers draw customers to local businesses, study suggests
- Protecting drinking water from toxic algae
- Cargo sailboat offers greener shipping option to Canadians
How EV chargers attract customers to local businesses while they wait
The gasoline-powered car has spawned a whole universe of businesses around it — especially the gas station, a place where drivers can fill up, pick up a coffee and buy a lottery ticket.
What happens to that ecosystem in a world of electric vehicles? A new study published in Nature Communications from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests electric vehicle charging stations open up their own world of possibilities.
By combining EV charger locations in California with data from payment card transactions, the researchers found that businesses near an EV charger saw increased sales compared to similar businesses not near a charger.
“There are huge efforts both at the government level and also for many like EV providers, they want to invest in EV chargers. But the investment in EV chargers often faces profitability challenges because the utilization rate of these EV chargers is still very low,” said Yunhan Zheng, a postdoctoral associate at MIT and lead author of the study.
Her research suggests there’s an incentive for businesses and governments to install chargers, because the cost could be partially offset by increased sales at local businesses. A 50kW DC fast charger with five ports runs about $280,000 US.
The study found annual spending rose at businesses near the chargers by 1.4 per cent, or $1,478 US, in 2019 and 0.8 per cent, or $404 US, between January 2021 to June 2023 when compared to similar businesses that did not have a charger nearby. (The researchers avoided using 2020 data due to the impact of COVID, which may have also depressed spending in 2021-23.)
While it’s a small percentage, for 2019 that amounted to almost $23,000 US, on average, in spending increases across all businesses near a single EV charging station. And the study found an increase in sales in lower-income neighbourhoods too, suggesting potential opportunities for some communities to attract more visitors.
“We have been waiting for an article like this to come out for years. We have intuitively known it to be true that if you install an EV charger, you’re likely to see an uptick in your business as a retail owner,” said Chris Thorson, chief marketing officer at Flo, a major electric charger company that’s installing stations across Canada and the U.S.
“Why is it important? Because people are naturally skeptical. There’s a lot of money spent on deploying an EV charger.”
The study could back up Flo’s argument that chargers benefit businesses by attracting more customers — and giving them a better experience while they wait to “fuel” up their cars.
“A gas station is typically not a place that you’re going to take your date, right?” Thorson said, explaining that an EV charging station could complement a driver’s other plans, like finding a place to eat or doing groceries.
“Instead of looking at EV charging like I’ve lost 20 minutes while I sit there and do nothing … I’m actually now being more productive because I’m doing the thing I really want or need to do — with shopping and eating or entertainment,” he said.
The federal government has allocated over $1 billion to help install EV chargers across the country, and provinces have their own programs — Ontario, for instance, has a program to subsidize EV chargers in communities outside major cities.
The Region of Durham, just east of Toronto, has used grant funding and its own money to install EV chargers, partly to attract new customers to downtowns and main streets.
“If you’re charging your EV, you’re typically going to spend at least, if it’s a fast charger, maybe you’re looking at 20 minutes, half an hour,” said Ian McVey, Durham’s sustainability manager.
“It is providing that opportunity for people to spend a bit more time in an area, visit a restaurant, coffee shop.”
— Inayat Singh
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Reader feedback
Toby Stewart of Montreal wrote: “Bravo on the report of the two métropoles of Montréal (to where I moved recently) and Toronto taking some baby steps to reduce fossil fuel industry advertising on their public transit vehicles.
However, if we are serious about reducing GHGs arising (pun intended) from fossil fuels being burned in our living spaces, then much more effective measures will be needed.
How about all provinces and major cities massively increasing their residents’ vehicle licensing and parking fees proportional to a) the vehicle engine size and b) the space it takes when parked on each city’s streets?
Then use this extra several billions of dollars to further subsidize both 1) sustainable public transit modalities and 2) building more safe/secure active transportation routes such as bike-only roads, larger sidewalks and jogging trails … and 3) only approving future suburban housing developments that are car-free and served only by public + active transport modes, subsidized in large part from significantly larger fees paid by property developers.”
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The Big Picture: Protecting drinking water from toxic algae
Blue-green algae blooms are encroaching on lakes across Canada, posing a risk to aquatic life, recreational activities — and drinking water.
To future-proof against the threat, scientists are teaming up with a local water utility in Kingsville, Ont., to create an early warning system that uses smart buoys to forecast when a toxic bloom is likely to form.
CBC got a behind-the-scenes look at the innovative project — joining scientists on a boat on Lake Erie.
You can read the full story here.
— Jaela Bernstien
Hot and bothered: Provocative ideas from around the web
Cargo sailboat offers Canadians greener shipping
Guillaume Le Grand is trying to bring cargo shipping back to its roots: wind power.
Standing on the deck of an 82-metre sailboat docked in Quebec City’s port, Le Grand, a sailor and CEO of the French company TOWT, says he was inspired to harness the natural resources around him.
Hundreds of years ago, ships sailed into the Port of Quebec carrying supplies. This month, that tradition was revived with the Anemos — a modern sailing cargo vessel built by TOWT that can transport up to 830 U.S.-format pallets on board.
“It is not something from the past, but actually for the future in terms of properly decarbonizing shipping,” said Le Grand.
“I’ve always been sort of astounded by the power of wind and we don’t do anything with it instead of just for pleasure-seeking purposes.”
Exporting wine, spirits, jams and other French products to the United States and Canada, part of the shipment arriving through the St. Lawrence River on Oct. 5 carried coffee beans from Colombia for Café William — a business in Quebec’s Eastern Townships.
Scheduling is a potential issue with a boat of this kind, says Pascal Raby, vice-president of operations for the Port of Quebec. But he says the port was happy to be part of the premiere of the boat in Quebec.
“[It] is the first time [in] many years that we saw that and for us it’s important to be a partner for this event,” said Raby.
But despite reliability concerns, Serge Picard, Café William’s co-owner, is attracted to the shipping option.
The company came across TOWT when they started looking for better ways to bring in fair trade coffee from Colombia.
“It’s the cleanest form of transportation [and] one of the oldest ones,” said Picard.
With 325 pallets on board the Anemos, Picard says the boat actually transports his containers faster than a container ship, which would make more stops.
Leaving Santa Marta, Colombia, on Sept. 21, he says it arrived in Quebec City in under 20 days despite variability with the wind.
WATCH | See what a wind-powered cargo ship looks like and learn why some importers prefer it
Some companies have found a unique way to reduce their carbon footprints by importing products using a sailing cargo ship, one of which recently stopped in Quebec City.
From a supply chain perspective, coffee is one of the commodities that may lend itself well to shipment by sailboat, says Saibal Ray, a professor of supply chain management at McGill University. That’s because it has a consistent demand throughout the year and can store well.
“But there are many other sectors where the issue of the length of the travel time is a very, very important issue,” said Ray.
He says it will be interesting to see if this type of environmentally sustainable project can be financially sustainable.
“If you think about the larger picture, it will not have a big impact until it can be scalable,” said Ray.
“Can this be done by not one ship … [but] 1,000 ships? That’s the thing because you have to think about the amount of marine transportation.”
The sailboats are slower than a conventional cargo ship, travelling at a speed of about 10.5 knots. But Le Grand says they save time on logistics once they’re docked because there are no shipping containers to unload, just pallets.
Le Grand hopes to expand his fleet of two sailing cargo vessels as early as 2027. The main hurdle for the company has been coming up against a shipping industry structured around speed and cost.
But he points to the fact that the ship makes fewer stops and requires fewer staff — eight compared to the dozens of crew members on a cargo ship.
“All the companies that we work with, they have very strong initiatives in terms of decarbonizing,” said Le Grand.
“We know our planet is probably going to be unlivable in the forthcoming, you know, just a few centuries or so. So what do you want to do … at least we’re going to try.”
— Rachel Watts
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Editors: Emily Chung and Hannah Hoag | Logo design: Sködt McNalty