I’m an entrepreneur based in LA and recently moved from a house with a Tesla charger to an apartment in WeHo without a charging station.

I’ve realized there’s a large gap for fast charging in the West LA area. There’s only one Supercharger in WeHo (plans to build a second but unclear on timeline).

I’m curious what the viability is to set up a new fast charging station. I’m still in the research phase (talking EV Box to get a better understanding of startup costs etc) but curious if anyone here has first hand experience.

This area is very underserved - many apartments tons of Tesla & EVs.

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  • ScuffedBalataBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’m curious what the viability is to set up a new fast charging station.

    The one thing I know from a friend who did some research was that selecting the “box” was by far the easiest and cheapest part.

    Getting near-Gigawatt electrical service was NOT easy and heavily restricted the location that it could cost-effectively be installed.

    Also, getting permits from the city may be the reason Tesla doesn’t have it yet as they city may be stingy in this particular densely populated area.

    Also challenging is leasing the parking spots, as this kind of use reduces the number of zoned parking spots available for buildings and most in very urban areas are built right at zoning minimums, so they don’t actually have parking spots that they can legally give up. (which is why you see a bunch in parking ramps in urban areas).

    I’d expect half a million $$ in investment or so. Payoff is like 20 years.

    My friend bailed after getting a bunch of quotes for service. It wasn’t even close to profitable unless you HAPPEN to have a free parking location with high-voltage power already adjacent (which is decidedly rare in major cities) and major government subsidies.