Why in the world would Disney, or any business, want to expand charging stations, based upon total EV registrations? Especially why would they want to do so at a Park parking facility? Disney isn't in the charging provider business. At most a few rows of paid charging stations might cover costs, but its not likely given current market conditions to be a revenue generating center.
Allow me a second to scream, not at you, but because I did the math, to show that within a year, a charging station could be profitable for Disney. And then my phone died. So I'll so the breakdown quickly on my laptop.
Some numbers and assumptions.
A commercial L2 charging station like what Disney has costs $6k on the high end. But Disney is known to be stingy and not pay retail. However for this exercise, let's assume that it was a cold day in hell and Disney paid retail.
Next, a HIGH commercial electrical rate in the area would be 17 cents per KWH. Disney won't pay that, but again, let's assume. In fact, because we know that Disney charges 35 cents/kwh to charge, let's say it's a 100% markup, and Disney is paying 17.5 cents per KWH.
Now, let's assume that the stations get 8 hours of use per day. It's likely more given their well known lack of availability, park hours varying (but rarely going below 8 hours) and that Epcot operates 12 hour days as their norm - but let's work with 8 hours.
That's $15.40 per charging station per day in profit. In 392 days, it's paid off and is pure profit. And that's using my assumptions. Add in the very real possibility of greater than 8 hours of usage, or that Disney's markup is over 100%, and they could be in the green in under a year.
And this isn't taking into consideration potential 24 hour use by nearby resort guests who need to charge.
At most a few rows of paid charging stations might cover costs, but its not likely given current market conditions to be a revenue generating center.
Here's the thing, to keep on par with EV adoption rates both in Florida and nationally (approx 1% of cars on the road), a few rows is all that's needed. That's it.
As to towing, or a large ticket for exceeding a timed parking space, its not all that complicated or large of a liability. It happens in cities around the country every day. Signs re towage and waiver of liability for costs/damages help reduce costs. And for the most part any intention or negligent damages by the tow company, who will almost certainly be an independent outside contractor would insulate WDW from the liability.
Yet Disney has previously cited liability as their reason for eliminating services in which their CM's or contractors would do anything to or with your car.
Your talking about suppling what is currently a subset market (EV) drivers, who go to WDW (a further subset) who DRIVE to WDW (further subset) who drive their own EV or rental EV car (even further subset) who are far enough away that they are not just charging at home (even further subset) and who are not just going to charge at end of day at either hotel or residence. Its not a big enough demographic to worry about.
I'm talking about 1% of parking spots. That's it. Beyond that, it's statistically shown that EV owners are wealthier and spend more.
It seems to me that Disney should have enough charging stations to keep those people in the park spending money (and spending money to charge)
