A Taco Bell in San Francisco is installing 6 electric-vehicle chargers in its parking lot - and there could be more to come at locations across the US
- A Taco Bell in San Francisco is installing six electric-vehicle chargers in its parking lot.
- The new charging station will take up 16 spaces: six for the chargers, 10 for solar panels.
A company that runs 216 Taco Bell restaurants is installing an electric-vehicle charging station at one of its San Francisco locations, and could install more across the US, Forbes first reported on Tuesday.
The chargers are built by Tritium and managed by software from ChargeNet, and they're being installed in the restaurant's parking lot, per a press release from Tritium. The 75 kilowatt chargers can give cars up to 46 miles of range within 10 minutes, the company said.
The six chargers will take up a parking spot each, while a solar array that serves as a backup of renewable energy for the chargers will take up 10 spaces, Mike Calise, Tritium president of the Americas, told Forbes.
Tritium and ChargeNet are working with Diversified Restaurant Group (DRG), a restaurant company that runs 216 Taco Bell locations across California, Nevada, Kansas, and Missouri and has more than 5,000 employees, per its website. The group also runs some Arby's restaurants.
The partnership wants to expand the project to other Bay Area Taco Bell restaurants and may also expand it to other parts of the US, Tosh Dutt, CEO of ChargeNet, said in the press release.
Calise told Forbes he expected the combination of fast food and electric-vehicle charging to take off because people would feel comfortable charging their cars at a place they're familiar with. It could even boost electric-vehicle adoption, he said.
"If you can put these DC [direct current] fast chargers in local proximity neighborhoods, like this is, then people feel OK, it's safe to dip my toe in the water, not only that, I'm gonna buy an EV and I'm gonna get a charge really quickly and oh, by the way, I'm gonna get some really good Taco Bell food," he said.
ChargeNet was working on a way for people to order food from the charging stations, Forbes reported.
The companies are getting funding for the project from the California Energy Commission's California Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Project (CALeVIP) and the California Public Utilities Commission's (CPUC) Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP).
DRG, Tritium, and ChargeNet didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment
This isn't the first-ever electric vehicle charging station at a Taco Bell - others are run by different companies, such as Electrify America, which has a charging site at a Taco Bell in Washington state.