Costco and Electric Era partnership brings more fast chargers to the U.S.

  • Washington-based electric vehicle charging startup firm, Electric Era, has opened its first charging location based at a Costco Wholesale site, also located in the state of Washington.
  • Electric Era has already partnered with a growing number of retailers to bring EV charging to their sites, such as convenience store brand Plaid Pantry, and is hoping to sell its expertise to even more potential customers in the future.
  • On Costco’s side, this new addition adds to a growing number of chargers available at Costco stores worldwide – with the retailer hoping to translate the traditional offer of cheaper fuel prices to cheaper public charging prices, for its members.

Costco expands its U.S. EV charging offering

These Costco-branded chargers, which will remain exclusive to Costco members, are capable of charging speeds of up to 200kW, which is installed in conjunction with an on-site battery energy storage system. This battery is charged up at lower times of demand, which can then discharge its power when demand is higher, overcoming grid constraint – a factor that can be a deal maker or breaker when it comes to choosing the location of EV charger installations.

Electric Era is hoping to construct another 50 charging stations by the end of 2025, and has a fast-installation proposition that it hopes will sway retailers to choose them over other EV charging providers. At this Costco site in particular, Electric Era says it installed these charge points within just seven weeks of the contract originally being signed by Costco, representing significantly fast deployment. According to Green Car Reports, Electric Era is already in discussions with Costco to look at building further charging locations together.

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With Costco continuing to expand its EV charging offerings in the U.S., and in other territories such as the UK, it remains to be seen how hard the retailer will lean into the value aspect of its charging, considering that historically, it has managed to offer the lowest fuel prices in the area. In the UK, for example, it prices all its chargers at 50p per kWh – much cheaper than that of many other CPOs in the country.

Electric Era CEO, Quincy Lee, who held various roles for over six years at SpaceX before founding Electric Era in 2020, commented:

“This installation exemplifies how Electric Era delivers on unmatched deployment speed and ensures reliable charging infrastructure to meet the growing demands of Costco’s EV-driving members.”

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