As anyone who makes long drives in an EV will tell you, we need more public DC fast charging. Well, help is on the way. Back in 2023, Walmart announced plans to install chargers at thousands of Walmart and Sam’s Club locations by 2030.
Now the company has opened up three locations on a pilot basis—two in Texas and one in Arkansas—and revealed some more details of its plans in an interview with State Of Charge’s Tom Moloughney.
Walmart’s move into EV charging is big news. The company operates more than 5,200 Walmart and Sam’s Club stores in the US, in rural, suburban and urban areas—‘tis said that 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart or a Sam’s.
Doesn’t Walmart already offer EV charging at a lot of its stores? Yes—there are hundreds of DC fast charging stations, operated by the likes of Electrify America and EVgo, at Walmart stores (in 2023, the company said there were 1,300 chargers at more than 280 US facilities).
Walmart says the new company-owned and operated chargers will be in addition to the third-party chargers already in service. As far as we know, no numbers have been offered yet, but Mr. Moloughney speculates that “we are talking about the total installation of a five-digit number of charging stalls by 2030.”
Walmart plans to install 400 kW chargers with both CCS1 and NACS (aka SAE J3400) connectors: half-and-half for now, but shifting towards NACS in the future. (There are no plans to deploy legacy CHAdeMO chargers.)
Tom Moloughney visited one of the first sites, in McKinney, Texas, where Walmart deployed 400 kW Alpitronic HYC400 chargers, each with one NACS and one CCS1 port. Walmart says it will also acquire chargers from ABB.
Charging is enabled by the Walmart app. Tom scanned the QR code on the charger, selected the connector type, plugged in and charged at over 300 kW with no problems. Walmart plans to offer a pay-by-credit card option in the future, at least in the states that mandate it.
As Tom noted, there are several reasons to expect that Walmart’s charging network will be a good one. The company has years of experience with third-party charging, and obviously believes in the potential. The stores are very convenient charging locations, with enormous parking lots and plenty of stuff to buy while you wait. Walmart prides itself on low prices, and hopefully that philosophy will include EV charging (Tom paid $0.42 per kWh, slightly lower than competitors in the area).
Another hopeful sign: the project is led by Adam Happel, a charging industry veteran who previously worked at EVgo and Rivian.
Sources: Walmart, State of Charge