Earlier this month, General Motors announced it had partnered with Canadian charging company Flo to install Level 2 chargers for electric vehicles at various GM workplaces across the United States. The company has already shipped more than 350 chargers to GM plants and offices, with many of these chargers installed at various sites in New York, Texas and Michigan.
The timing of GM’s push to install electric vehicle chargers at its various U.S. facilities seems a bit odd on the surface, as The Detroit Free Press pointed out this week, seeing as many of the automaker’s white-collar employees are still working from home most days thanks to the automaker’s flexible ‘Work Appropriately’ policy. Sylvain Bouffard, director of communications and public affairs for FLO, told The Detroit Free Press that GM is installing these chargers two years in advance to ensure EV-driving GM employees will have a place to plug in once the pandemic has fully subsided and more workers are coming into the office every day.
“At GM, the installations they are making now will meet the needs of current EV owners and it will meet the needs of future workers,” Bouffard told the newspaper. “This will help convince people that electric vehicle ownership is easy and feasible in a couple of years from now, when it’s the right time.”
Bouffard’s point about EV ownership appearing easy and feasible is particularly important to GM. The automaker said previously that it is “aggressively going after every aspect of what it takes to put everyone in an EV,” amid a push to “make a meaningful impact toward building a zero-emissions future.” Some of the easiest car owners to convert to EV will be GM employees, so it only makes sense to get out ahead of the issue of charging access for these employees now.
GM spokesperson Maria Raynal reiterated the automaker’s commitment to improving EV charging access when asked for comment by The Detroit Free Press.
“We believe expanding access to charging for employees, regardless of location, is vitally important and we remain committed to doing so now and in the future,” Raynal said.
GM’s plans entail installing 3,500 EV chargers at its various U.S. facilities between now and 2025. Additionally, the automaker plans to install up to 40,000 Level 2 chargers at its various dealerships across the U.S. and Canada through its recently announced Dealer Community Charging Program.
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Comments
This seems like a good time to install them to me. Aren’t they planning on selling a bunch of EVs? Don’t their workers generally drive their cars?
Or do you think it makes sense to have them driving around in cars already that you don’t have chargers for?
Here’s a news flash for you All hourly employees still have to come to work every day And a lot of hourly employees have a GM electric vehicle I worked in Flint and the stations are usually full
It’s about management thought about the hourly work force
A lot of those chargers in Flint are full with Tesla cars using them.
I was at the Warren tech center and while numbers are reduced, people are coming in.
They already had quite a few chargers in front of the VEC.
And, I suppose, as long as you have a GM employee I.D. card, you can enter the property, hook up to a charger, and, maybe, go to the commissary, and have lunch, once a week, for an hour, while the car is charging, on GM’s dime.
Where in the article did it say that charging cost would be paid for by gm? I only skimmed the article but did not see any indication where charging was going to be free to employees. It would be a nice benefit, and maybe near-term gm may absorb the cost to persuade employees to purchase an EV but at some point when more and more people start driving them, I would think free charging would not be sustainable.
How about the same fast charging deployment like Tesla?
Put everyone in an EV, then shut of the juice on odd or even days to keep control in the name of saving the planet.
Here’s the great thing about electricity: if I’m really motivated I can even make my own with a generator, a stationary bike, and some batteries. Or I can maybe get solar panels or a small windmill.
I couldn’t create my own gasoline if my life depended on it.
I’m surprised they offer these relatively slow (8 hour charge being necessary on a dead battery) docking stations with the very expensive credit card – style access readers, when in previous years they just were all free for use.
Since it is an employee parking lot, it is more often than not an EMPLOYEE that is charging there… For the rare visitor to the facility, the added cost of the expensive card access equipment will never be anywhere near as low as the trivial expense incurred for the next 20 years by giving a smidgen of free electricity to an ‘unauthorized visitor’ – and even then are most likely there on Company Business anyway.
You want them to spend the money on chargers and give away free electricity, even during peak hours?
I doubt the cost of electricity is going to start going down once everyone is driving these EVs.
Well, Nate – electricity will never be free, although the price per kwh should go down with somewhat increased usage, as happened during the entire 20th century….
Of course, “Wokeism” policies arbitrarily increasing the electric utility’s expenses will of course throw a monkey wrench into everything… Think Texas Cold Snap last year where silly policies froze some people to death.
The only reason you made your comment is that you have no idea how much these access card readers cost… The one time it WOULD make sense is if “FLO” gave them out FOR FREE, as long as they could put SIGNAGE in the parking lot to get free advertising…GM might be big enough to insist on such pricing – in which case then it makes sense – but it would be nice if the writer of these articles could find out this background information – since that would determine whether the concept of these things is dumb or not….
Performing just a stenographer function as opposed to an ‘investigative Journalist’ (a real rarity these days, admittedly) is not performing much of a public service – other than getting in GM’s good graces.
Yep GM has lost its “collective” mind along with so many other auto manufacturers about these Electric cars.
Hybrid – I can get behind. I can’t drive 400 or 500 miles in an electric car. In a Gas car I can stop and fill up (100%) – use the rest room and get a snack and back on the road in about 15 to 20 minutes. Can’t do that in an EV !!!!!
Blame the EPA. That is why auto manufacturers are moving to EV. Trust me, if it wasn’t for the EPA and our government, manufacturers would not be spending billions upon billions of dollars developing them. Of course, there’s the Tesla affect too. It cost money to steal away sales from the competition.
How often do you think most people actually need to be able to do that?
Not so much an absolute need, other than a fringe benefit… As per my post above – the ‘Devil is in the Details’ – and determines whether this is a dumb idea or not.