The 30-Minute Opportunity: Electrification Isn’t Replacing Petroleum - It’s Expanding Retail

The headlines say EVs are slowing down. The data tells a different story.

In this episode of Field Frequency, host Jason sits down with John Eichberger, Executive Director of the Transportation Energy Institute (TEI), to cut through the noise around electric vehicles and public charging infrastructure. While retailers react to last week's news cycle, a quieter shift is reshaping the market: millions of used EVs are about to land in the hands of drivers who can't charge at home — and they'll need a place to plug in.

This isn't a debate about gasoline versus electrons. It's about relevance, retention, and whether petroleum retailers are positioning for the next decade or reacting to the latest swing in sentiment.

In this conversation, John and Jason explore:

- Why the "EV slowdown" narrative misses the bigger signal
- The coming wave of used EV buyers who depend on public charging
- Why the 30-minute charging window is a retail goldmine — and the Capital One data that proves it
- How agentic AI in vehicles is moving the buying decision from the pump to the couch
- What separates an early-mover retailer from a long-term winner: reliability, amenities, and integrated loyalty
- The retailer-vs-CPO data tug-of-war and how to actually share the customer
- Utilities, demand charges, and the road to true price competition
- Hardware fragmentation, J3400, and choosing partners that will still be here in five years
- What success looks like for a fuel retailer by 2030

If you operate at the intersection of energy, retail, and infrastructure — whether you run one location or a thousand — this episode is a playbook for staying relevant as the next generation of fueling takes shape.

Connect with John and TEI:
Website: transportationenergy.org
Email: jeichberger@transportationenergy.org

Field Frequency is powered by Field Advantage, an IT field services company specializing in the deployment, maintenance, and operation of critical infrastructure — including EV charging networks.

This episode was produced and edited by the team at Autozy. Learn more at autozy.co.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

On today's episode of Field Frequency, I sit down with John Eichberger, Executive Director of the Transportation Energy Institute. Fuel retailers, both national and regional, are watching EV headlines swing between boom and bust, but the signal is different from the noise. John is going to explain why EVs aren't going away and why public charging may be entering its next growth phase. In this episode, we talk about why the real competitive edge isn't just installing chargers, it's owning the customer relationship before they even leave their couch. This isn't a discussion about gasoline versus electrons, it's about revalence, retention, and whether retailers are positioning for the next decade or reacting to last week's headline. If you operate at the intersection of energy, retail, and infrastructure, this episode's for you. Today I'm happy to have John Eitberger, Executive Director, Director of Transportation Energy Institute. Hey John, how's it going? I'm great, Jason. How you doing, man? Doing well. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate you sharing some time and uh so hopefully some good information uh with the audience today. I know it'll be a great conversation. You always got a lot of great insights about the industry and space across the across the board. So we appreciate you coming on. Um I'd like to kick off the conversation with with your background, what led up to you leading the organization, uh EI and what TEI does. If you could also kind of share what TEI is doing. And additionally, we're we're both part of the Electric Vehicle Council, which is a group that sits within the Transportation Energy Institute. So I'd like for you to share also what that EV Council does and uh what what you know, so all of those things.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

I know it's uh a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit how long of a program do we have, Jason? I know, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:58

I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

So we started about in 2013. So as the Fuels Institute rebranded a couple years ago just because politics got ahead and you know, we're trying to educate congressmen and their staff, and if they thought fuels was dirty, they wouldn't listen to anything we said. Um, but we've always been all energy. So we've been looking at electric electrification, natural gas, L fuels, petroleum, you name it. If a power is surface transportation, we want to understand it. We were put together for a couple of reasons. Uh, we were founded out of the National Association Convenience Stores. Convenience stores sell about 85% of the gas in the country. And at the time, they said, you know, it seems like the stakeholders, the autos, the petroleum industry, and the biofuel industry weren't working together. They were pursuing agendas that weren't necessarily collaborative. The policies were being kind of disjointed, and it was the retailers and the consumers who had to kind of figure stuff out. And they thought, you know, we sell 85%, we should lead. And so they tasked us, but hey, can you put together an organization that brings these people together and fosters collaboration? And if you look at our board, there are 68, 69 individuals sitting on our board of advisors. That is our research arm, that is our peer review panel. We have major oil companies, EV charging companies. We have you guys, you know, on the on the service side, we have biofuel companies, engine vehicle manufacturers, fuel retailers, national lab engineers, public health organizations. We have a wide spectrum of stakeholders to make sure that we're looking at a very balanced view of the market. When we changed our name, the board said, look, we are non-advocacy. We don't lobby, we don't push an agenda. We love that we're unbiased, but what do we stand for? And so we came, the board came up and said, look, we are not gonna get involved in what the future of the transportation industry should be. Others are gonna make that decision. And at the time, things have changed a little bit. It was we have to reduce carbon. Global imperative, reduce carbon. We added you can't reduce carbon at the expense of criteria air pollutants. Got to make sure we're taking care of people's lungs while we're trying to reduce carbon emissions. And then the bottom line for us has always been any solution that is brought to the market to reduce emissions, if it is not economically sustainable, it will fail. And so we look at what we can do for legacy vehicles, new-to-market vehicles, how can we affect and advise the energy sector and how we reduce emissions in a way that preserves access to affordable, reliable energy for all transportation customers. What works in Palo Alto, California may not work for inner city Chicago, may not work for rural Iowa, may not work for tribal lands. We need to be thinking about all customers, all end users need to have access to affordable transportation. Otherwise, we're we're locking them into scenarios they can't get out of. And so that whole equity issue really became important to us a couple of years ago. And it comes down to affordable, sustainable solutions, not from an environmental perspective, but from an economic perspective, is the only way we're going to actually affect positive change in the market. Good. And I guess you asked about the L Vehicle Council too. Sorry, it's a I can't say that.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Yeah, no, that's good. Appreciate you unpacking TEI. Yeah, let's talk about the EV Council as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

So in 2000, we started the EV Council. And we did it because clearly electric vehicles were gaining a lot of traction. It was right before COVID. Great timing for recruiting for new organizations, right? Hey, I know COVID just said let's have meetings. It was a little slow to get off the off starting gate. But the idea here was, and again, we don't get into our electric vehicles good or bad. We really don't. We're agnostic. But we do know that if electric vehicles are going to be successful as part of the transportation sector, we need a robust, reliable charging infrastructure. So the EV council is put together to say, okay, how do we help the market figure out what a good, reliable charging system is going to look like? What are the fundamental attributes that customers, drivers need, that site hosts are looking for? And how can we help the market identify opportunities to deliver value to the driver as well as deliver value to those who are investing in the infrastructure so that it is a reciprocal positive experience? You put charges out there, you don't make any money, that's not a sustainable model. And so the EV council is all dedicated to how do we help the market build a charging system that satisfies all stakeholders involved. Because if it doesn't, and we don't build the infrastructure, EVs are never going to get the traction and get the market share that they're likely going to get or that they should get because they're fantastic technology. But if that infrastructure is not in place, then we're really going to struggle getting that market share built.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Good. Well, you gave a good background on the Transportation Energy Institute and what the EV Council is doing, but I'd like to hear your background too. How'd you get in the seat? How did you become executive director of TEI? What's what led up to that?

SPEAKER_00 6:51

I drew the short straw. Oh, I look, this is the best job I've ever had. I love what I do. I get to talk to guys like you, I get to talk about these things that I'm passionate about. My background, I was a history major, Cold War foreign policy. My goal was to be national security advisor to the United States when I was in early 20s. I moved from California to Virginia, got a job working for a trade association, ended up working on Capitol Hill for about two years, doing energy, environment, agriculture, trade policy, national defense policy. And at that time, I started, I read Daniel Jurgen's The Prize. Thought, wow, the oil industry is fascinating. And at the time Bush and Cheney were in the White House, they were oil and men. I thought maybe that's my path to world domination on the national security front, right? So I started, got a job in the convenience industry representing gasoline retailers. I did that for about 13 years. And then we launched the Fuels Institute. And what's interesting is I was a lobbyist, but I hate politics. I really do. It just drives me nuts. I'm a wonk, I'm a policy wonk. I love the nitty-gritty. And I I used to get frustrated. I talked to members of cons and go, look, here's the positives, here's the pros, the cons, here's the opportunities, your challenges. And they go, hmm, yeah, that's not going to play well with my voters. So I'm can't, I can't be with you. And my my every essence of my body said, you know what I'm saying is the right thing. Do the right thing. But in politics, that's not always the way decisions are made. Shifting to TEI, I get to talk about what we think might be the right thing. And if you don't believe me and don't agree with me, I really don't care. Because if the politicians make a decision that changes the market, we'll evaluate that. And our job at TEI and the EV Council is constantly how do we help people make better informed decisions? Whatever decision they make is on their shoulders, their decision. And we don't judge, we don't ask them to make a decision A or B. But we want them to use information to help them be informed. And everything we do is designed to push information into the market, into the policymakers' hands, so that when the decision time comes, at least they're making a more informed decision. We may not agree with it, but it's more informed, and that should yield better outcomes, is the Pollyannish hope, at least.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Yeah. Well, I'd like to like to double click on a couple things. You, you know, you mentioned that prior to TEI, that was uh with the National Association convenience. You didn't mention it, but I knew that that's who it was uh and the and the role you held there. So so with that background, and then of course what led up and and then your role at TEI. I'd like to double click on electric vehicles within the context of of petroleum retail fueling. Um there's obviously been uh a progressive shift within the retailer space, the the petroleum retailer space to embrace EVs, to embrace EV charging uh infrastructure, et cetera. Um, we can go back as early as 2012, 2013, 2014, with some retailers kind of opening up space and easement to Tesla, et cetera. And so uh they didn't own and operate, they just kind of gave some space and let them have have some space for charging, and little data was no data was shared essentially. And the compelling narrative behind let us put our chargers here was they might come inside and buy, you know, inside, they might come inside and uh and spend some time, et cetera. And conversions around that wasn't tracked, wasn't shared, it wasn't known to the retailers. So fast forward, uh, now we have plenty of retailers operating chargers. You you've been kind of a full full comp uh full company in in information and education for the retailers uh at a national level. So what uh what do you wish that petroleum retail leadership fully grasped in 2026 about EVs? Because it's been a you know, it's been up and down, left and right, not a straight path, but like right now in 2020.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

What you know, it's interesting, Jason. My narrative hasn't changed much, but the way I deliberate's evolved in the last 12 months. Retailers are traditionally very now focused, morrow focused. And they pay attention to the trends and the headlines and they can get kind of nervous. For years, um, they'd asked me, John, I mean, are electric vehicles going to take away my business? And my response has always been electric vehicles are coming. They're not going to destroy your petroleum business tomorrow. It may never destroy it, but it represents an opportunity to serve your customer. And I always present it this way: you have a customer comes in your store, they buy a tank of gas, and they come and they buy a sandwich and a soda and something else. Then they leave. That weekend, they trade their ice vehicle for an EV. Do you want them to come back for that sandwich, soda, and something else? Well, yeah. Then you need to offer them EV charging. You need to show them that you're paying attention to their needs and you're serving their needs. Most EV customers today are charging at home. But when they forget to charge or they're desperate for fast charge, where are they gonna go? They're gonna think, where did I used to get gas? And that's their first instinct. They show up to your store and you don't have what they're looking for, they may not come back. So that was my message for a long time. I also told them you may not be in a market where EVs are growing today. Start talking to your utility, start talking to your service providers. Get your ducks lined up so when the time is right, it's easier to execute and enter that market. Timing is going to be really important to total ROI. Fast forward to 2025-2026, the max show in 2025. Headlines have been well, the EV incentive's gone. All the OEMs are pulling back their EV investments. Clearly, it was a fad. It's going away. That's what a lot of retailers are starting to believe. So I stand up and go, hold on. EVs aren't going away. It is a very nascent industry. We're going to have ups and downs. We're going to have trials and tribulations. We're going to have booms and busts over time, but there are 8, 9% of new vehicle sales, about 5.5%, 6 million in operation. That's going to continue. The message I'm delivering now, and I think this is the most poignant for retailers: most charging occurs at home because most of the early EV buyers have homes with garages. More than half of the vehicles EV sold last few years released. They're coming off lease and they're going into the used car market. They're going to sell for $25,000 to $35,000. The next economic demographic customer can buy an EV, which two years ago they couldn't afford it. Now they can afford an EV. These customers may be lower demographic, lower economic status. They may not have a place to charge at home. So now you have millions of EVs entering a consumer group that cannot charge at home. Where are they going to go? There is a huge opportunity for EV charging business in the next couple of years that I think was not necessarily as strong the last five years. But if we start thinking about that demographic profile, who's going to be driving EVs, we're going to continue selling a million to two million new ones a year, but we're going to be selling millions of used ones a year too. We're going to start churning, it's going to become much more popular. There's going to be more EVs, and there's going to be a much the typical convenience for customers that are going to be driving an EV and they're going to want to charge quickly. And so I honestly, I mean, for my message to the retailers, like, look, if you have been holding back, and now you think, well, the incentives are gone, I don't want to get into it. That's the worst idea. I honestly believe we have a boom coming on public EV charging demand that we were talking about for years, but now I think it's actually going to come to fruition. And the time to get into business is now.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Yeah. So component of the messaging is early on, those that are moving from ICE to EV, the messaging is about customer retention. Fast forward to the secondary market scenario that you propose that is very legit. Used markets coming into coming into play and a lower stratosphere of a demographic that can acquire those and use them and really operate them at a total cost of ownership, at a lower, lower total cost of ownership. So again, the message continues is customer retention. So the message to the retailers is those that have invested in EV charging infrastructure up to this point, it's it's not lost. It wasn't lost. And so some strategically moved that way forward, uh, moved forward with with deployment. And I I I don't know. My my view when I started the in the EV industry, I was I was focused on infrastructure within the petroleum retail space. And so my view was anyone that bought a charger for me kind of pre-2020 was visionary forward thinker. There was VW money out there, and that was just we'll see what happens, you know, throw something at the wall, see if it sticks, type thing. But those investments in EV charging aren't lost. It's about retention and and remaining relevant and competitive. Would you agree with that? Is that is that accurate?

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Yeah. And you know, early mover, you were trying to capture that market leadership position. You're trying to get ahead of the curve. And I think the priority has to start shifting. So now that you start seeing more EV public charging available, now the question comes into how do you differentiate yourself? Reliability is number one. If you're if your equipment's not reliable, forget about it. Somebody pulls up and they can't charge, they're not coming back. You have one chance to thrill them. But you have to think about what are my amenities that I'm offering. We did a study a couple years ago. They want safety, they want food service, they want lighting, they want security cameras, they want to feel the 20, 30 minutes that are there, they're safe and they can access food, beverages, clean restroom. Those are, those are, I think that's jacks or better, right? We're moving into a new era that as demand gets stronger and as competition for the EV customer grows, okay, how quick can you recharge? What other services you have near the charger? Do you have a canopy over the charger for inclement weather? Do you have trash cans? Do you have different features of your charger that the customer wants? What does the customer want? We're getting ready to do a study right now and to understand what the customer wants from the actual experience of charging them at the time because we need to customize that. We are not yet to a point where price is deciding where people go, which as a fuel retailer, that's the number one custom thing customers look for is price. 72% of all customers look at price first. We're not we're gonna get there. We're gonna get to a market that is saturated to a sufficient amount that customers are going to say, okay, you're all reliable, you've all got the amenities I want. Now, where am I getting the most miles for my buck? And that's gonna become interesting. And that's where the utility situation becomes so challenging. Most retailers aren't making money on charging. The utility rate structure just isn't built for retail transactions like EV charging. You've got demand charges, you've got different times of use charges, you've got all these different rates that are fluctuating and really makes it difficult for a retailer to make money on the charger operations itself in absence of massive throughput. And so you have to be able to monitor how many customers am I getting, how do I spread my costs out. Once you start getting into price competition, we're gonna have to really partner with the utilities to figure this out. And there's been a lot of friction between retailers and utilities at the PUC level and all that stuff, and TEI doesn't get into that at all. I honestly believe there was friction between the retailers and refiners for years, too. No love loss there at all. But you cannot sell petroleum without a relationship with the refining company. You cannot sell electricity without a relationship with an electricity provider. Now, it could be battery buffered, it could be however you do it, where you get your electricity, we're not making electricity on site. Maybe you have solar, but you still, that's not you. How are you engaging with your electricity provider to make sure you can offer the service you need to offer at the price you need to offer? That is going to become even more important down the road when price becomes a more critical element in the consumer's decision tree.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Yeah, yeah, that and with there, there's even a variable that you see in Eevee that you don't necessarily see in traditional fueling. Now, get it, you know, the the delivery truck comes and brings the fuel drops at the tanks, they set the price on the sign, it is what it is. The price paid for that fuel won't always run parallel to the price on the sign because there's market fluctuation. There is a dynamic like that in EV charging, and that is that is actually a good technology piece that I think enhances the experience, and that's dynamic pricing. Um and it but again, it it goes back to your to your point about retailers and utilities having a collaborative approach to the way energy is being priced and energy is being retailed, because I I think that the idea of a dynamic pricing and the visibility from a technology standpoint, whether it's on your phone or on your dashboard, et cetera, knowing that if I'm going to be charging at this site, you know, on a four o'clock afternoon in August or September, the price point might be a bit higher because of grid constraints, et cetera. And there's a there, but there's dynamic visibility on that. I mean, we have something like that similar to petroleum. It's it's to your point about the price awareness, it's on a sign out on the on the corner of the of the parking lot. You you see it, it's lit up well. And so, but those same touch points are available in in charging. I think that's where technology comes in as a play that can be leveraged for the retailer. And I've I've heard you speak and and touch on barriers around data and how retailers can use that data, specifically taking the cars and leverage them as retail touch points. I've heard you speak on that and kind of building on that. I would I'd like your view on how retailers can tap into that connected vehicle data and dashboards to leverage retail opportunities, loyalty opportunities, and and basically send signals back to the driver, charge here. Because you you talked about there's there's for the most part in traditional fuel, and there's retail parity, there's price parity. People are looking at the pricing, but then the differentiations are going to be the amenities. Same thing with the chargers or with EV charging.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

With technology and the evolution of the customer mindset, the customer's path to purchase has changed. It's starting to change. So one of the things that we work very collaboratively with Max on a variety of things, and there's several projects they're working on that we're kind of supporting. We're moving into an environment where the drivers are no longer making all their own decisions. They hop in and say, Hey, car, Android, auto, whatever. Take me to get such and such. And it takes them. And they don't ask kids today, how do you get to someplace? They don't know the street names, they don't know anything. They just turn when the GPS tells them to turn. Well, now we're moving into a situation with a gentic AI in the vehicle. You can say, Hey, I I have to get to X location. I need to pick up this, this, and this on the way. Help me find a place I can do that. And the car goes, oh, by the way, you need to charge before you get there. So here are three areas, three spots you can go on your route that you can charge and you can pick up the things you want to get to and get to your destination at the time you want to get there. That's step one. Okay, now from a retailer perspective, how do you make sure you're one of those three sites? Right. And so there's search engine optimization. There's a program called Thriver at NAX to help you make sure your site is being because people don't go, take me to a convenience store. They say, hey, take me to a place I can get a soda. Take me to a place I can get a case of beer. Take me to place I get a coffee. And if you're not being recognized on those search engines as providing those services, they're going to go to Starbucks or a grocery store or someplace else. When they can get it all at your site. So you got to make sure you're being viewed there. Second is how do you embed your loyalty system into those search engines? How do you make sure that that search pops up and your AI agent knows that you've got a loyalty program with John's gas station? Hey, by the way, of these three, you've got loyalty points over at John's. And right now, John is offering you an incentive. If you come charge and buy this, you get an extra discount. Here's your digital coupon. All those things have to start working together. Now, the challenge is there's 152,000 gas stations in the country. And they're not all running on the same rails. They're not using the same standards. And so one of the things we really want to do is work with the technology developers to say, look, there is a huge opportunity here in this industry. Convenience industry serves half of the American population every single day. 160 million transactions a day. How can we make sure that your search engine in that data stack and that tech stack in the car, whether it be embedded in the vehicle or be part of your smartphone environment, how do you make sure you're connected to these services to enhance the value to your driver? And the retailer needs to be thinking about how do I connect with that driver before they even leave their house.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Because their decision tree starts on their couch, not when they're driving down the road to go, oh, look, there's a sign. That's we're moving away from visual decision making on where I'm going to buy gas, where I'm going to charge my car, where I'm going to buy a soda. We're getting into much more predetermined destination selection before you even leave your home. And the retailers need to figure out a way to tap into that, become part of that mind share long before the customer even knows what they want to buy.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Of the 152,000 retailers that are out there in the US, obviously without naming names, but percentage-wise, who are even thinking about that from an from a from a technology standpoint? What's the percentage of those innovators that represent that 152,000 that are actually really looking at that and considering, is it is it 50%, is it 20%, is it 10%? I mean, what's that look like?

SPEAKER_00 25:02

You got to think, you know, 60%, 65% are single store operators. The vast majority of them aren't thinking this way. They're thinking about how to keep the lights on tomorrow. They're dealers, they're just family-owned operations. They're great stores, but they're not going to be on the cutting edge of innovation. I'd say you're looking at five, 10%. Wow. That are thinking about this. And we're engaged with several, several organizations, several companies that are very forward thinking, how do we get in, how do we get ahead of this? We've got a retail to vehicle working group at TEI dedicated to helping connect this kind of emerging vehicle technology with the built infrastructure. Because one of the things that concerns me personally is we have invested so much money in physical brick and mortar infrastructure that if the virtual world doesn't recognize that, how many strand, how much stranded assets are we going to have? And so these vehicles, no matter how technologically advanced they are, they need energy. And they're going to need energy in the market. And so that built infrastructure has to be represented in this new tech environment. And so making sure we connect those pieces is really important. Otherwise, we're going to have a very dysfunctional market. We're going to have customers and vehicles that want something that they can't find because there's no interconnection. And so, yeah, we've got we've got some key companies that are engaged with us right now in our early stages. Nax is engaged with us, Connexus, which is the technology standard for the convenience retailing industry, is engaged with us. And we're really trying to figure out how do we connect with the tech developers on the vehicle, on the smartphone side, so that we have a relationship that is collaborative, that benefits their users and benefits the industry and benefits the mobility market as a whole. And yeah, that's that's kind of where TEI is. We have no competitive bent at all. We are about how do we help the market be successful? How do we bring the people together, the experts from different sectors, different organizations to work together to really develop and help support a successful market for the next 15, 20, 30 years?

SPEAKER_02 27:08

It would seem that to your point of the small percentage of the retailers that are looking at that technology shift, it not to paint a dystopian picture, but it almost seems like survival will simply be based on on the experience. So the local operator is going to retain its customers simply by the experience they provide to them and the familiarity aspect. That's where I've always go, that's where I pass on the way to work, et cetera, that experience. But but yeah, without evolving, we'll it's just a matter of time before there's a phasing out. So there's there's a couple of different types of experiences we we've covered here in terms of of the intersection of of the fueling retailer and the charging that sits in that environment. And so we know the the cars can be used as a retail touch point. That can be something that the the retailers can use for leverage to bring the the guests in and keep them in, to keep them being the ones they choose. On the charging experience, from from a benchmarking standpoint, if you've driven a Tesla, you know the Super Child Starger styled UX is is is easy. It's seamless. You pull up as you're headed there, you're gonna know what stalls are available, how many stars are available, what stalls are available. If all stalls are in use, you're gonna get a projection of how much you're probably gonna wait three to five minutes before the the car empties out and you can you can you can exit out and you can pull in. So and then you can get a very small but sometimes visualization of nearby amenities. So you have that on the test list. So for the retailer, using the car as the retail touch point to bring them in, and then the experience when they do come in. What what are the practical ingredients that you've seen from the research, from the data where the retailer can create an experience that maybe even exceeds the supercharger experience? Because when I pull up at a supercharger, yeah, I'm gonna know I'm gonna have visibility, but I might have to, there might not even be anything in walking distance. There might be nothing there. The retailer has has a has an opportunity here.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

The retailer has a huge opportunity. So our data shows that the typical charge time dual time is about 30 minutes. And that's the national average. Um and it does it hasn't varied much, it's gone down a little bit. Clearly, with uh Tesla chargers, a little bit lower because they're preconditioning the battery and all that stuff. So you have some advantages with that technology, but 30 minutes is a long time. So we've looked at it and said, look, if you have one charging port, you're typically getting a hundred charging sessions, 180 to 200 charging sessions a month at that port. They're there for 30 minutes. How many hours a month does somebody sitting there? And you usually have four ports. So you're looking at several hundred hours that people are sitting on your floor court. What are you going to do for them? If you can't convert them to an in-store customer, you need to really think about your in-store offer. And so one of the things, the holy grail of all this is customer plugs in, they go in the store, they buy something, they get back to the car, and you understand that entire trip. You know what they bought, you know what they bought last time, you know their loyalty platform. And now you can customize an offer to satisfy that individual customer. You really need to get that individualized. For the retailers that are really looking at how to do this, if you have access to the data from your charger. Now, if you got a third-party operator, maybe you don't, but try to negotiate that. You need to have access to that customer. That's your customer. I know some of these CPOs go, no, that's our customer. Yeah, but they're also the convenience store's customer or the or the retailer's customer or their grocery store's customer. And you need to be able to offer them your loyalty package. You need to be able to communicate with them. Digital coupons are starting to gain traction. You can offer them digital coupons and entice them in the store. Now you have the opportunity to thrill them, exceed their expectations. Convenience stores don't always have the best reputation. Okay. But some brands really do, and other brands want to. How can you take that customer and make them loyal? How can you really exceed their expectations? Capital One did a presentation at a conference a couple years ago, and I worked with them a little bit. They they analyzed the buying behavior of their card customers. And they said, look, we don't always have the address where the charger is. And so that's difficult to do because the charger, sometimes the address goes back to the headquarters. But we can we know if our credit card is used to charge a vehicle, then within 15 minutes is used in the convenience store, they're probably co-located. Jason, what they found was cards used in a convenience store that weren't associated with a charging event, average about $7, $8 a transaction. Cards that were used at a charger and then came into the convenience store were $11 to $12 a transaction. Why? We don't know that. But that customer's there 30 minutes. Maybe that customer is more affluent. We don't know. But if you have a situation where the average transaction, that your charging customer is 50 to 60% more than your non-charging customer, that's an opportunity to thrill that customer. And so I think what we're seeing is the cust the retailers who are really looking at EV charging as not just something to try, but a critical component of their strategy, they're integrating it with their point of sale, integrating with their loyalty system. They are customizing their offer to fit the demographics of their charging customer. And that's when you can start creating a loyal return to the business. Now, as you move into the apartment dwellers, condo dwellers buying EVs and not being able to charge at home, that becomes even more important because now you know that you have to charge once or twice a week. How do you make sure that you're the destination? I've always sought a great model. If I had a store and had chargers near an apartment complex, put my chargers out there, have a robust breakfast offer, seating area, free Wi-Fi, follow the Panera bread model. Invite them in for 20 minutes while they charge before they go to work. Get them to come in once or twice a week, and you are in good shape. You've got to customers coming back all the time, and guess what? They're gonna come back when they don't have to charge too. And that's a critical element. Make sure they feel welcome, make sure they feel embraced and valued, and that's gonna create loyalty.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

To your to your point, an example about Capital One's data point in that it was double, you know, double for those that had charging. There is a similar data point that I know it may even be fastly approaching eight years old. And it was with Target that did the same thing where they were examining baskets for drivers, EV drivers versus those that weren't in EV where they had EV charging. And there was a f there was a 50% increase in terms of of of spin because they were being more intentional with their time and they had that time. Their car was on the charger, whether it was an L2 or a DC fast charger. I mean, I've seen I've seen targets with both, uh, but as a general rule, you know, if you're on an L2, you're gonna be a little bit more intentional about the time that you're spending in there as you net that energy. Um yeah, that's uh that and you know, to the point of of those that are in uh multifamily dwelling context where there's not on-site charging, they're dependent on public charging, that is a captive customer, and they're gonna come to you. And again, it's about the choice, the choices that they have to where they go. So in in the vein of of data, because I know you know you we've talked about uh data visibility. You made the example of the CPO saying that's our customer, the retailer saying no, it's our customer, really, it's a shared customer. That that that transparency and that data sharing, maybe without the the cannibalization aspect or or maybe the gate walling aspect, either way you want to look at it. There's a there's obviously several tension points in visibility. Uh obviously those that are stewards of of of data as the ones processing the transaction, they've got a responsibility to protect that because they're the the merchant of records, so they've got to bear that transaction safely. There, so there's all the these tension points between you know retail data and sharing and and how is that navigated? What is it what does that path look like in any given direction? Is are the retailers are they willing to fight for that from the CPO? Are the CPOs willing to collaborate, or is it just stalemate?

SPEAKER_00 35:09

It all depends on the personality and who it is. So a retailer may be leasing parking spaces to a CPO and that's all they care about. I'm getting some money, and maybe I get some answer sales, but I'm not really tracking it. I really believe that if the retailer wants to have the relation with the customer and the CPO wants that site to be successful, they need to talk. Too often, and look, I come from the political world, right? Too often people say, This is my position, boom. You know, this I guess, well, I guess there's no point talking about it then. That's ridiculous. Both parties in the EV charting space want those charters to be successful, they want the customers to be satisfied. That is enhanced by collaboration, by cooperation. So, I mean, I encourage retailers, look, if you want to have access and insight into that customer, talk to your charging partner. Ask them, okay, what are you willing to do? What can we do together? How can we build a more successful model? And for the CPOs, you've put chargers in this location for a reason. Talk to the host, find out what they need. Look, if we want charging to be a profitable enterprise, I think everybody installing equipment wants it to be profitable at some point down the future and you know, never never land, we have got to work together to make that happen. And the only way it's gonna happen is that that customer's thrilled. And so, you know, just because you may have a predetermined perspective of where the other party is, doesn't mean you don't pick up the phone and talk to them and come up with a strategy to make sense. Um, I think that's the number one thing is we get so entrenched in what we think the other party thinks. And if you talk to them and be flexible and say, this is what I'm thinking about, not sure how to do it. I have an idea, but I'm not sure if that's the right idea. Think about what the goal is, not the path to the goal. Because the other party may have a different path that makes better sense. What is your objective? And be flexible on how you get there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

You know, there's there's some retailers that made a decision early on that they would never co-create charging destinations with a retailer. They'd never let Tesla on to operate. They want to maintain that experience. I know we've we've worked with various retailers that that kind of taken that position. So they have a different, they have a different uh, you know, kind of burden to bear uh when you go that direction. There's no CPO to collaborate. They are the CPO fully for all intents and purposes, because they are procuring the hardware, they're installing the hardware, they're operating the hardware, they've got a EMSP in the background, either that they've they've they've spec designed or they they're they've partnered with a provider for that. And so for the retailer that's looking at looking at that business model where they're going to own and operate it all across the board, they they are they've got their own challenges and they're having to navigate fragmented hardware brands, networks, mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies, you know, incentive programs that they could leverage if they buy this, this, and this, but not that. And so from from TEI's perspective, where how do you advise the retailer across the you know, navigating this? How do they scale? Because there's there's a there's a need for some standardization, but there's retailers that are own and operate, and they've got multiple brands of hardware across their portfolio. That fragmentation is is almost it's been a barrier to progress.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

It has been, but you know, it's also early, it's early. I mean, we are in the very early stages back in the beginning of the oil industry. How many oil companies did we have? And how many pump providers do we have? And how many technologies did we have? Um that's the thing, you know, you and I have been in this for quite a while. We feel like it's mature. It is so far from mature. Um, I mean, if you take a look at the next uh expo, the next show floor, I mean, the rotation of EV service providers that have been there and are gone, and the new ones showing up, and they may not be here in two years. On the bright side, I think we're starting to get some stability. I think those equipment service providers that are really driving the market, they're here for the long haul. And I think that's a good thing because that's gonna breed standardization, that's going to promote consistency. So to the retailers, my advice has always been choose your partners wisely. You know, think about not just now, but think about five years from now. Think about where you want to be, think about how you want to integrate your systems. But for a lot of them, they're going, I just want to try it and I don't want any risk. So I'm just gonna go ahead and give it to this guy and see what happens. And maybe I can make a little money on the side. That's fine. I think those days are starting to get behind us because those who are getting into the EV market seriously, those are making the news, they're doing it strategically. And I think you're gonna see much more consistency across brands, you're gonna see much more consistency in between, you know, across the whole industry in terms of how we go to market. We're finally starting to get some consistency on what kind of connector we need to have, which is huge. And I mean, you know what? Two years ago we thought CCS is gonna win. Now J3400, I can't call it NACs because seriously, I mean, yeah, as soon as Eon came up with we're gonna call it the North American Charging Standard, and they see us like, whoa, whoa, I called the NAX general council. Do we have a case here? Like, come on, this is not good.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

Yeah, you know, the the consternation around J134 uh 3400, J3400, uh, and the nomenclature with Knaxx is that only resonated with those that are in the petroleum space. Those on the outside, they they it's just NACs, it's North American charging. But yeah, it it stood out. It was a lot of cause for confusion in and in the petroleum retail world and and in the vein of Knacks, not the charging protocol, but the organization. But like you said, that that ebb and flow of EV charger, EV network, EV solution provider participation in NAX, the organization, and the in the the annual conference that happens. I've seen that ebb and flow personally because field of vantage is always going to be at Knaxx, the event, because our customer base involves the petroleum retailer space. But I lead our e-mobility, and so I'm focused on EV. I'm very myopic to that side of the business. That's where I'm focused. And even Knaxx is it's it's hard to track because 2022, 2023, NAX, man, there was a lot of EV charging providers there. And then 2024, I don't know, 2025, I don't know. And it's like, should I be there? I know our team's gonna be there. Do I need to be there? I don't know. You know, that whole thing. And so who knows what 2026 will look like in terms of of representation. But again, it's it's it's it's compounding that two-step forward, two steps back, you know, and that's that's that's rough. It's rough to be in the in the retailer shoes. I've got a lot of a lot of sympathy for them because I've been at that intersection of retail fueling and EV charging for for some time now.

SPEAKER_00 41:58

Yeah, it's tough. You know, we have we have education sessions at the Max Show. And a couple years ago, we had like three EV sessions that were standing room only. In 2025, we had one, it was half empty. And that's just that's the impact of headlines.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

And you know, in two years, people pay attention when they're afraid. And when they feel complacent, then they stop paying attention. And that's the challenge we have through TEI and NACs is to educate the membership, the retailers that look, this is not going away. The opportunity is getting better. Yeah, and so you have an opportunity here to really make a difference in your customers' lives and your business. Don't be swayed by the headlines. Headlines always, if it leads, it leads, which means that they're going to take the extremes and make them seem like it is across the board. And it's not. I think the OEMs redefining their investment strategies is exactly what you needed to do. And I think what we're gonna see is a much more customer-first electric vehicle market. That is sustainable. That is something that can be successful. A compliance, a placating the powers at B strategy will never be successful. And so I'm excited to see what the next round of EVs come to the market are gonna be because I think the customers are gonna respond positively, and that's going to be a great thing for the EV market.

SPEAKER_02 43:16

Yeah, that's right. You you you make a good point there, John. The headlines are what they are. Headlines and headwinds aren't always the same thing. And there's sometimes a conflation of there, there are headwinds to navigate. There's tailwinds that follow. There's we understand that. That's the nature of business. But headlines aren't always headwinds. And you know, it's just like every every Eevee that catches on fire, everybody's gonna hear about it.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

But you know, there's never been a gasoline powered engine that's ever caught on fire. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Only the EVs. Eevees are the only ones that catch fire.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, you know, John, that's been a great conversation. I appreciate all the insights you've shared with us in the in the vein of headlines, headwinds, uh, maybe some parting some. Parting wisdom, let's say let's pull off the crystal ball. If you could set a scoreboard for what success looks like for the petroleum retailer in terms of electrification, maybe, maybe three, five years, maybe we just say 20, 30, since that's been a buzz year, what's gonna what's success gonna look like for the retailer that embraces electrification?

SPEAKER_00 44:17

I think it's gonna be a balanced offer. Electrification is not gonna replace petroleum while you and I are alive. I really believe that. It's gonna take a long time. But I think it comes down to do you have chargers that are being used on a regular basis? And do you have customers that are plugging in the cars and coming into your store? That's that's success. I mean, but bottom line, are they using your chargers and are they coming inside your store? And are they smiling or are they coming in to yell at you? That's always the metric you got to pay attention, right? But the convenience industry, and you know, Jeff Leonard, who's head of communications and actually that talk, it's a fun industry. People don't typically don't go to the convenience store and not find something fun. And as the days get longer, people are out and about more. I mean, I really do believe I don't see a difference in the customer between the petroleum customer and the EV customer. If we stop thinking of them as different and just think of them as our customer, that is a foundation for strategic success. Now you have to you have to make your choices right, you have to find your vendors right, you have to figure out the right policy and the right strategies. But if you think about the customer first, who cares what kind of car they're buying? They have to buy energy. Where do they want where do you want them to buy energy for their vehicle and for their body? Fuel retailing, convenience retailing industry is a great model. Um, and I think it's gonna grow and become more important as that demographic of the EV driver shifts. And I'm excited to see. I think 2030 is gonna be a very interesting year. I think there's gonna be much, it's not gonna be viewed as new and innovative. It's gonna be part of its time.

SPEAKER_02 46:01

Well said, John. Thank you for for coming on Field Frequency. For those that are have been listening, they want to connect with you directly, they want to follow what what TEI is doing, they want to learn more about the EV Council. What's the best way for them to connect with you?

SPEAKER_00 46:13

Transportationenergy.org. And you can uh send us direct emails from there, or you can reach out to me at J Ikeberger at transportationenergy.org. And uh we look forward to talking to you. We've got an open open door. We want to talk to anybody who wants to talk to us, and we want to bring people together. We want to learn more, we want to learn from each other, and uh that's kind of how we're how we're built.

SPEAKER_02 46:31

Thank you, John, for coming on Feel Frequency. This episode was produced and edited by the team at Atozi. To find out more, visit autosy.co a-t-o-z-y.co.