Walmart, the country’s largest retailer, is planning to install thousands of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at its stores and Sam’s Club locations across the United States.
In a press release drafted by the company’s senior vice president of energy transformation Vishal Kapadia, the big-box retailer announced it would be expanding its EV fast-charging network.
“This plan marks the latest investment in our efforts to transform our business and product supply chains to be more regenerative, in this case helping reduce emissions and increase efficiencies for customers,” wrote Kapadia.
He went on to note that roughly 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart or Sam’s Club, claiming that the company’s move to grow its EV charging network will be a “game-changer” in terms of incentivizing more people to spend the extra money on an EV since there would, in theory, be significantly more charging stations to access.
It is currently unclear just how many stations Walmart plans to install, but Kapadia suggested the number would be in the several thousand by 2030.
As previously reported in The Dallas Express, EV sales made up roughly 10% of the global market share in 2022, an increase of 68% over the previous year. However, S&P Global Mobility’s projections suggest that EVs will constitute 40% of new vehicles sold in the United States by the end of the decade.
Walmart’s move to install more EV charging stations is part of its goal to become a zero-admissions operation by 2040, an ambitious project announced in a press release last April.
“We aim to galvanize collective action across the retail and consumer goods sector through our advocacy, supplier engagement, philanthropy and innovation in product supply chain practices, while taking steps to strengthen the resilience of our business against the effects of climate change,” the company stated.
Some experts, however, do not think it will be that easy to shed carbon emissions in that timeframe.
“These pledges are powerful, visible, simple … and utterly insufficient,” wrote Rahul Tongia, a senior fellow for the Brookings Institute. “At best, we still over-emit. At worst, these discriminate against poor, low-emitting countries, and could even push greenwashing — creating the false impression that countries’ policies are more environmentally friendly than they actually are.”
