The locally owned, privately held three-store grocery chain will offer the charging stations at no cost to electric car owners, “as a service to our customers,” Mayne said.
The charging stations will be located in the store parking lots, so customers can charge their cars while they shop. The Washington Square store is equipped with plug-ins for one 30-amp Clipper Creek charger that is compatible with a wide range of electric cars, and with two 80-amp chargers that are used by Tesla owners.
DLM Springboro on Ohio 741 will have a similar setup, with two Tesla and one Clipper Creek plug-ins, while the smaller Oakwood store will include one of each type of charger, DLM officials said.
Mayne said he hopes to open charging stations at the DLM Springboro and Oakwood stores within about a month.
The installation cost will be “a few thousand dollars” per store, Mayne said. DLM officials examined the power requirements of such a station and decided against charging money for a plug-in power battery refill.
The continuing cost, even if the plug-in stations are used fairly heavily, will amount to only a few dollars a day, Mayne said.
Electric-car proponents believe the popularity of electric cars will surge as improved battery life expands the number of miles that can be driven on a single charge.
Until DLM’s installation at Washington Square, the only Tesla Motors “supercharging station” was located at 9200 N. Main Street (Ohio 48) in Englewood, in the parking lot of a Meijer store.
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