Electric vehicle lending has been a small part of credit unions’ portfolios for years, but some cooperatives are shifting their green efforts into high gear by installing EV charging stations at their branches.
EV adoption across the globe is still tepid, with battery-powered vehicles comprising just 6.5% of the global auto sales market, according to Edmund’s. But younger consumers have shown a definite interest in purchasing EVs, and charging stations could not only showcase credit unions to a new demographic but also bring in a bit of non-interest income along the way.
CorePlus Federal Credit Union ($335.1M, Norwich, CT) installed charging two stations at a branches earlier this spring, but the road to get there was anything but smooth. The credit union began a branch-renovation process more than three years ago with the intent of modernizing its facilities, including installing EV charging stations. Supply chain issues slowed down that process, and the chargers didn’t make their debut until about two months ago. CorePlus hopes to add stations at additional branches later this year, but for now is believed to be the only financial institution in Eastern Connecticut with EV charging on-site.
“They’ve literally been sitting in storage because we couldn’t get the meter sockets we needed to run them,” says Ray Currier, president and CEO of CorePlus. “Putting chargers in isn’t as easy as buying the units and having your electrician come in and wire them into your panel. If you get a charger that will actually do anything for somebody that uses it, it draws a lot of amperage.”
EV drivers who are CorePlus members can charge their vehicles for free; non-members can pay 35 cents per kilowatt hour via an app. The stations cost approximately $60,000 to install, and although the credit union will make some non-interest income from non-members using them, Currier doesn’t expect it to be a substantial revenue stream. He’s OK with that.
“We just want to make sure we’re charging a fair rate as a credit union,” says Currier, adding that the chargers are primarily intended to be a benefit for the community, rather than a vehicle to drive additional revenue. “We’re not looking to gouge anybody. All we wanted to do was cover our costs, and if we can make a small profit on it, that’s fine. But it’s going to take a lot of charging before we see a return on investment on these things.”
A little more than 1,500 miles away and deep in the heart of oil country, Tinker Federal Credit Union ($6.0B, Oklahoma City, OK) has charging stations at two of its 32 branches. Those amenities have been exceedingly popular despite Oklahoma having just over 16,000 EVs on the road statewide, according to government data. Pickup trucks constitute nearly 20% of all vehicles on the road in Oklahoma, and Andrew Akard, vice president and facilities director at Tinker, says that despite a location that wouldn’t seem receptive to EVs, Oklahomans are defying that trend.
“Larger vehicles are well represented in Oklahoma and Texas for any number of reasons, but the people who use our stations love them,” he says, noting that many leave comments via the charging-registration app.
Tinker hosts fast-charging machines that Akard says can get an EV up to an 80% charge within about 30 minutes. That kind of power requires Tinker have an extra electrical meter and transformer set on the corner of the property to power the stations. It also has a separate utility fee.
The credit union offers the service at no cost to members and non-members alike, although the utility costs associated with the chargers run Tinker as much as $25,000 per year.
“Members and the community benefit from this, and we’re not looking for an ROI,” says Nicole Emmons, Tinker’s vice president and director of marketing. “Like our community rooms at our branches, it’s a service to our members in the communities we’re in.”
Although it’s still too soon to determine if CorePlus will see enough demand to merit more stations, Tinker’s Akard says he’d put them anywhere he can.
“We’re constantly evaluating what makes sense for us as amenities we can offer to our membership,” he says. “We have no active plans to retrofit [existing branches] but we have a number of things we’re evaluating for different branches. This is on the table, and if it makes sense for the community and the location, absolutely we’d consider doing it.”
There’s been a quantifiable environmental benefit, too. An online portal used to manage the stations indicates that over the lifetime of the equipment, more than 143 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions are avoided — the equivalent of planting 3,600 trees and letting them grow for 10 years.
As CorePlus gears up with its machines, it is preparing to begin promoting their availability and even photographed young staffers who drive EVs to help promote their usage. Currier admits he’s expecting a slow build with the chargers. After all, in a state of 3.6 million people, there are only about 22,000 EVs registered.
Currier and his team are working to boost that number, though he says most of the credit union’s EV deals come in through its indirect lending program. While the credit union also offers loans for solar energy and green home energy efficiency upgrades, Currier sees the indirect lending channel as a way to recruit new members inclined to purchase an EV.
“Like many credit unions, we want to be more effective at being relevant to a younger demographic,” he says. “That’s one reason we wanted to upgrade to more modern facilities and why we’re making investments in digital technologies and in EV chargers. Hopefully, this will help position our brand with the younger generation. We don’t want to be thought of as your grandparents’ credit union.”