After success in the electric car charging business in Norway and other parts of northern Europe, Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. is now looking to make a move on the EV charging market in North America, reports BNN Bloomberg.
Headquartered in Laval, Quebec, Couche-Tard owns Circle K–a global chain of convenience stores. According to CEO Brian Hannasch in a recent interview, the company hopes to enter the North American EV charging market through its convenience stores, installing charging stations at locations across Canada and the west coast of the United States.
Couche-Tard owns 15,000+ outlets all over the world, including locations in 48 of the 50 states in America.
“We’ll have chargers deploying in the next 12 months in Canada and in the U.S.,” said Hannasch. The company and a partner seem to have already settled on a few hundred locations to start with.
With gasoline consumption and sales on the decline, the growing EV market in North America is a breath of fresh air for a company like Couche-Tard that makes the bulk of its revenue from fuel sales.
Couche-Tard has been working on EV charging for years in Norway, so the company is well aware of the first-mover advantage this market offers. In addition, a lot of what the convenience store giant learned during its time in northern Europe will translate over well to its efforts in the U.S. and Canada. Hannasch hopes to follow the same blueprint the company used in Norway.
Couche-Tard’s endgame looks to be expanding into at-home EV charging, which the company is already in the process of doing in Norway as well.
Volkswagen’s Electrify America charging stations are also fast expanding in Canada and the U.S., and with more EVs hitting the road daily, expect even more chargers to pop up as the months and years go on.
