Electric vehicle (EV) drivers in Tennessee and Georgia will soon have the opportunity to charge up their cars while enjoying some classic breakfast fare.
EV charging company EnviroSpark is building stations at two Waffle House locations in Lakeland, Tennessee, and Tifton, Georgia, with the help of National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) funding from the states’ transportation departments. NEVI provides federal funds to states in order to grow the number of public charging stations across the country, with companies like EnviroSpark vying for allotments that cover up to 80 percent of the costs.
Competition for those installation contracts is tough. Georgia awarded funding for just five locations during its first round of NEVI deployment earlier this month. That included a second project from EnviroSpark at a Shell convenience store. Less than half of the proposals submitted for Tennessee’s first phase of funding were approved. The state dished out $21 million for projects led by 10 companies that will create a total of 30 chargers.
In both cases, Waffle House was the sole restaurant and practically the only non-gas station site in the allocations. So, what makes the breakfast chain so special?
NEVI Funding comes with a few key requirements, explains EnviroSpark founder and CEO Aaron Luque. There are rules about power levels and payment methods, and states are encouraged to place chargers at locations with restrooms, sheltered seating, and food and drink options. They also need to be available 24 hours a day year-round.
“Waffle House has a big community focus, and they’re famous for staying open and never closing down, unless there’s an extreme natural disaster,” Luque says. “They have backup generators and everything.”
In fact, the chain’s reputation for 24-hour, 365-day service is so strong that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) uses an informal metric called the “Waffle House Index” to determine the severity of a storm and the level of assistance expected for recovery.
The location of the restaurants matters, too. While some estimates project that EVs could make up 40 percent of the country’s total car sales by 2030, the vast majority of charging will take place in the home, so Luque says the demand for public charging stations isn’t as high as many people might expect. That’s why the federal government is mostly concerned with installing them along major highways to support long-distance road trips.
“One of the primary barriers to adoption is the fear of getting stuck somewhere, so each state has selected exits based on where the biggest gaps in the charging network are,” he says. “It’s more of a route-enablement piece. It’s giving people that comfort that they’ll still be able to travel if they purchase an electric car.”
The Waffle House locations in Lakeland and Tifton check all of the boxes for NEVI funding. Bigger picture, Luque believes placing chargers at restaurants makes the most sense for drivers going long distances.
“Your typical dwell time for a stop on an interstate when you’re on a road trip is around 30 minutes, so the idea of being able to eat, sit down, use the restroom—that’s all an added plus,” he says. “I can tell you that from personal experience, after driving for three or four hours, I’m always that guy raising his hand and saying, ‘Let’s grab a bite to eat.’”
It also makes sense from the restaurant’s perspective, even if they don’t own the stations and directly profit from charging fees. That’s the case for Waffle House. EnviroSpark is handling all of the technical aspects of the projects, including engineering, design, utility coordination, power supply planning, and construction. It also will operate and maintain the chargers once they’re installed.
“Because they’re not traditionally in the business of refueling, they asked us to actually provide and operate the stations,” Luque says. “We don’t always do that. We have other customers, like convenience stores, that operate the stations themselves.”
Whether a restaurant chooses to own the chargers or has a company like EnviroSpark handle things for them, there’s a significant benefit that comes with integrating an additional offer for their customers. States are primarily looking to fund projects in places where there’s nowhere else to get a charge within at least 50 miles. That all but ensures at least some level of additional traffic as travelers are funneled into the restaurant’s parking lot.
Luque says EnviroSpark is able to predict how much usage stations are going to get. That information was a big selling point for Waffle House.
“We have to make some assumptions about how many of those people are going to go into the restaurant,” he says. “We did some back-of-the-envelope calculations, and even with the most conservative approach, the benefit of that extra foot traffic is highly compelling. It can bring in some additional customers at all hours of the day and night, including those slower periods when the staff is underutilized. It really just aligns everybody’s interests.”
EnviroSpark has plans to work with Waffle House on future NEVI projects and has submitted proposals with other brands, like the family-dining chain Shoney’s. Plenty of other restaurants, including some of the industry’s biggest players, are working with EV charging companies to install stations on their properties.
Subway is teaming up with GenZ EV Solutions and Red E Charging to build Subway Oasis charging parks. Chief operating and insights officer Mike Kappitt told QSR last year the partnership will offer canopies with several ports, picnic tables, restrooms, Wi-Fi, playgrounds, and green spaces. The pilot phase of the project kicked off last year with smaller-format, fast-charging stations at a few new or newly remodeled restaurants.
Diversified Restaurant Group, a Taco Bell and Arby’s franchisee, is partnering with ChargeNet Stations to install chargers at more than 100 restaurants in California, with a focus on building up the infrastructure in underserved communities. Starbucks has worked with Volvo and ChargePoint to build stations in parking lots along a 1,350-mile route from Denver to Seattle.
The EV charging industry is innovating to make it easier for restaurants to get on board. XCharge North America, a provider of smart grid and EV infrastructure solutions, developed a direct-current fast charger that can be installed on a restaurant’s existing 208 service, enabling businesses to offer a fast-charging experience without bringing additional power to their site. EV charger manufacturer FreeWire just launched a new program that pays restaurants to host its ultrafast battery-integrated chargers.
“There’s this idea that you have to rebuild the entire gas station ecosystem in order to support electrification, but the truth is that the EV charging happening outside of the home is going to be a lot more diversified than refueling has been historically,” Luque says. “Anyone with access to power in a parking lot is now a potential refueling provider, and I think restaurants are starting to realize that there’s some real value to this opportunity.”
