Up North businesses help fill Michigan’s EV charging station gap

• Businesses in Michigan tourist centers are slowly adding public EV chargers
• Charger use seems to be increasing, owners who have chargers say, particularly at lodging establishments
• The attention to EV charging comes as the state lags in building out infrastructure for the vehicles

Beer is an obvious draw at Stormcloud Brewery’s Parkview taproom, where the Frankfort destination produces its signature brews alongside a summer beer garden on the east side of the Lake Michigan town.

Despite the popularity of the taproom, occasionally customers during peak summer weeks can be found clustered near Stormcloud’s Level 2 EV charger instead.

“There’s a small line sometimes,” co-owner Rick Schmitt told Bridge Michigan.

Schmitt is not surprised by the lines, since Stormcloud is the only business offering a public EV charger between Frankfort and Glen Arbor, an area that includes some of the most-loved Lake Michigan shoreline in the state. 

As a result, Schmitt said, the brewery now welcomes customers to “pull up, plug in and enjoy some energy.”

Michigan has fewer than 3,400 publicly accessible charging ports, with about 780 the superfast kind that can mean a driver only needs to refuel for minutes instead of hours. Many are Level 2, which is only moderately fast and best for “topping off” a battery.

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Yet the state estimates it needs 100,000 publicly accessible chargers — 10% that should be fast chargers — by 2030. 

But as Bridge Michigan has reported, the state is far behind in building out a network, and it’s not clear how it will reach its 2030 goal of putting 2 million EVs on state roads. (Today, there are about 50,000 non-hybrid EVs on Michigan roads, 5% of which are commercial.)

Businesses are picking up some of the slack in tourist-heavy areas of Michigan, trying to make EVs a viable road trip option outside of the state’s population centers.

Business owners told Bridge that they weigh a host of factors when considering whether to invest thousands of dollars to install chargers:  Differentiation from competitors, alignment with sustainability goals and subsidies all play a role.

Consumers Energy, in fact, is offering incentives to add 1,500 public fast chargers to its territory in Michigan by 2030. 

“We’re projecting more growth in terms of businesses offering EV charging,” said spokesperson Brian Wheeler. 

For Stormcloud, a 2018 offer from Tesla to provide charging equipment inspired the charger addition. Since then, the taproom has been on the routes planned by EV drivers heading to Sleeping Bear National Park and the surrounding areas.

In Traverse City, a year-round base for much of the state’s Up North travel, communities and businesses “have been working to make travel easy for those using electric vehicles,” Trevor Tkach, president and CEO of Traverse City Tourism, told Bridge.

Leading the charge have been hotels and other lodging facilities, shopping centers and attractions, Tkach said. 

“It’s good for the businesses and it’s good for travelers,” he said.

Bigger resorts like Crystal Mountain in Thompsonville and Grand Traverse Resort were early charging-station adopters, Tkach said, and “it became another attribute in the decision to stay there.”

Today, most new hotels in Traverse City are making EV chargers a part of their plans, while other lodging operations in the region — including in Frankfort — are starting to explore options.

Airbnb operators also are increasingly adding EV charging stations, in response to an increase in customers filtering searches for them.

In Michigan, “searches using our EV charger filter grew more than 120% from 2022 to 2023,” company spokesperson Haven Thorn told Bridge. That compares to an 80% increase across the U.S. during that same period.

To meet demand, Airbnb recently launched a partnership with ChargePoint to provide Airbnb hosts in the US with discounts of up to about one-third of costs for EV chargers and $100 toward installation services. 

With the deal, Airbnb is “helping to make it more affordable for hosts to add this amenity,” Thorn said. In turn, company data shows that listings that offer an EV charger are booked for more nights and generate more income.

A cold reality

Still, costs remain a concern for businesses exploring whether they should add an EV charger. Seasonality of business is an issue for other businesses Up North that haven’t explored adding chargers.

Michigan’s winters — when EVs typically see lowest mileage due to cold temperatures — contrast with the tourist-heavy summer months. 

Schmitt of Stormcloud, for example, said he has no regrets about adding his charger, but another one is unlikely: “In the winter months, it goes unused for days,” he said of the charger. 

Ruth Eby, an owner of Castle Rock in St. Ignace, said seasonal tourism makes adding a charger less practical at the attraction. 

“We’re only open five and a half months of the year,” said Eby.

“I don’t believe we will get one,” she said, “unless the government came through and said, ‘Here’s some charging stations.’”

To address the state’s affordability gap, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) recently awarded 17 grants totaling $905,567 toward charging stations around Lake Michigan as Michigan joins other states to forge an EV-friendly tourism circuit around the lake.

Juice and wine

Chateau Chantal Winery & Inn on the Old Mission Peninsula received $5,000 from the awards, becoming the only business on the list. The state award, along with a grant from Consumers Energy, cut about $10,000 from the charger cost, leaving the winery’s out-of-pocket expense to about $13,000. 

“It’s certainly still an investment,” owner Marie Chantal-Dalese said. 

Customers have been requesting charging access, Chantal-Dalese told Bridge. Most of them have been overnight guests who have had to make do with an electrical cord running from inside the bed and breakfast.

By the time the Level 2 charger installation is completed this summer, guests at the winery also will have an option to plug in. 

“There is certainly some existing demand, but we really feel that as the years progress, there will be greater demand,” Chantal-Dalese said, “and we wanted to be prepared for that.”

Across Grand Traverse Bay, Mawby vineyards and winery has offered one of fewer than a handful of public chargers on the Leelanau Peninsula.

Co-owner Peter Laing said a subsidy offered by Consumers “pushed us over the line” when the winery added its Level 2 charger with two plugs in 2000 after at least a year of planning.

The charger fits the winery’s sustainability model, which soon could lead to solar power fueling operations, Laing said. And while Mawby isn’t tracking use over time, EV charging usage seems to be increasing, he added.

Setting up a charger in an area with few of them is “just sending a message that we need this infrastructure,” Laing said. 

“Hopefully we’ll continue to see increased usage, and we can justify putting in another one,” he added. “We think it's the right thing to do.”