Retail Retold

The episode contains a handful of genuinely useful operational nuggets - the used-EV lease tsunami timing, the 18-month LOI-to-open timeline, and the CPO utilization breakdown - but a large fraction of the runtime is consumer-level EV education (what is a CPO, CCS vs NACS, how long does a charge take) that offers little to a B2B operator who has been approached by EV charging companies for years.

“there is a tsunami of lease vehicles that are entering the used car marketplace”

“there are only really three CPOs currently that have the sustainable business model when it comes to utilization. I'll name them. There's three are Tesla, electrify, America and US and everybody else's sub 5%. Some are even at 2%.”

The deliberate rejection of the gas-station model in favor of leaning on retail amenity operators is a coherent and somewhat counterintuitive strategic framing, and the two-part landlord evaluation framework (business model + ongoing utilization thesis) is practically useful; however, most of the conversation recycles standard EV industry positioning and the 'meet the customer where they are' thesis is well-worn.

“EVGO is not going to make the best coffee. That's just not our bread and butter. Right? We're EV charging.”

“What is this company's main thesis? Is it EV charging only, or is it part of a company, you know, that's doing automobile sales?”

Lane Chaplin is a genuine practitioner - Tesla charging real estate lead for North America, a startup stint, now EVgo - with direct deal-making experience relevant to the retail real estate audience; Scott Levitan brings a growth/tech lens from Google but his contributions stay at a higher altitude and are less operationally grounded.

“Started out at LA Fitness in the real estate world. Um, from there I went on to Tesla where started out in the real estate department, eventually went on to the charging. Org, um, where I led real estate for North America.”

“I've been uh, at EVgo for two and a half years. Um, I spent uh, most of my career uh, in technology, uh, working at companies like Google for over 10 years.”

The episode delivers a solid number of concrete data points - CPO utilization percentages from named third-party data (Perrin), the 18-month and 8-week build timelines, ~300 Pilot Flying J stations, the April 2023 lease-incentive wave, and the sub-5% utilization figures for most competitors - though EVgo's own utilization rate is conspicuously never stated, and several financial claims (e.g., EV charging is 'substantially less expensive') are asserted without figures.

“this is third party data from a company called Perrin P A R E N, um, which anybody can have access to. Um, there are only really three CPOs currently that have the sustainable business model”

“we built almost 300 different charging stations on these truck stops”

The host asks a few genuine follow-ups (pressing on home-charging electricity costs, the used-car market, battery replacement economics) and frames the chicken-and-egg market penetration problem astutely, but he largely plays the role of an admitted novice and lets promotional claims go unchallenged - EVgo's own utilization rate, profitability, and the specifics of past landlord failures are never pressed.

“If I combine the increase in my electric bill with charging up, is it still, uh, at a charging station when I'm out and about, am I still less than gas?”

“Well, Scott and Lane, thank you so much. This was fantastic. I really appreciate the time today.”