Post by Loren McDonald

In "The Field of Dreams," Kevin Costner’s character famously stated: "If you build it, he will come". That phrase morphed into common usage as: "Build it and they will come." That mentality has been common in the charging industry, with many CPOs deploying a "land grab" strategy of finding and building stations at good locations, and then waiting for EV sales and charging sessions to grow. But the reality is, that strategy has worked for a handful of major CPOs such as Tesla, EVgo, and Electrify America (and soon Walmart and Ionna) — because they have a national presence, strong brand identity, partnerships with automakers and ride-share drivers, millions of customer accounts, and show up in the in-car navigation of many BEV models. If you are not one of the majors, how will you compete? How will you attract and retain customers? In the last 10 years I have seen thousands of LinkedIn posts, webinars, reports, and presentations about picking the right site location, ensuring the site has enough power, utility coordination, having amenities, getting the power-level and connector mix correct, etc. and then focusing on reliability and CX once the station is open. But I don't think I've ever seen a post or presentation on what is arguably the most important driver of high utilization, sessions, and throughput: How will you attract and retain customers and differentiate your station from nearby competitors? Please read my full LinkedIn article" "Build it and they may NOT come.