Some folk have their gas station convenience store affiliations, and they run deep. You’ll rarely see my Shorti-hogging ass set foot in a QuickChek, for example. But I suppose if I drove an electric car and didn’t happen across one of the 50-odd Wawa locations with EV charging, I’d put aside my preferences for a minute or 20 and stop at a 7-Eleven, especially since the latter is making a push to install more charge points at its locations across the country.
7-Eleven announced Tuesday that it plans to install 500 EV charging ports at 250 stores in the United States and Canada by the end of next year. They’ll be DC fast chargers reportedly provided by ChargePoint, according to our friends at Roadshow.
That’s still a drop in the Slurpee cup, considering 7-Eleven claims almost 10,000 stores in North America. But it’ll make for a sizable boost in EV coverage from the 22 ports across 14 locations 7-Eleven currently operates.
Honestly, good for 7-Eleven and its customers; love that for you guys. I actually hadn’t visited a 7-Eleven in as far back as I could remember until just this April, when I embarked on a long drive to check out a Vemac. I think I bought a Red Bull and two Clif bars. It was nowhere near as satisfying as my usual Wawa iced coffee and soft pretzel, but it did the trick. (Right now, somebody is reading all this Wawa love and shouting “Sheetz!” at their screen. I’ve only ever seen like one Sheetz ever, who are you people?)
Anyway, back to 7-Eleven. The chain was recently in the news this year, albeit not for its EV charging facilities nor anything it was doing on this side of the world.
7-Eleven happens to be an institution in Japan, and there are in fact more 7-Elevens in Japan than in any other country in the world. One 7-Eleven franchisee there decided he wasn’t going to run his store 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so corporate retaliated by opening its own 7-Eleven in his parking lot. It looks like a trailer, with steel wire adorning its walls and a roof made of girders. The New York Times has the full story, and it’s a fascinating read. This concludes today’s report on 7-Eleven’s global affairs.