Oil major CITGO is sticking its toe into the electrification pond: It’s launched its first-ever EV charger in Battle Creek, Michigan.

CITGO’s very first EV charger

CITGO says in its announcement that its EV charger at the CITGO and PS Food Mart is a pilot program at a location that “now offers both regular transportation fuel and EV charging stations.” CITGO’s longtime partner Folk Oil Company owns the PS Food Mart there and 42 other retail stores in Michigan and Ohio. There’s also a Subway restaurant onsite.

CITGO only says that its pilot EV charger features  CCS and NACS plugs. PlugShare specifies that it’s a 200 kW DC fast charger with two plugs (see above). It’s currently offering free charging for a limited time, but the first comments about the charger on PlugShare, posted from Saturday onward, complain that it’s charging slowly.

The oil giant worked with AGI ELM, which provides turnkey EV charging infrastructure and is helping CITGO tap into grants from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the US Department of Transportation’s Utilities.

It sounds as though CITGO plans to continue to roll out EV chargers at more Folk Oil Company properties. It also says its modus operandi will be to provide upfront financial assistance while still giving retail stores full ownership of the EV charger.

Electrek’s Take

I don’t want to sound negative because every new EV charger is good news, but CITGO is more than a little fashionably late to the EV charging station party. But hey, at least it’s here now.

CITGO is enormous – it’s the fifth-largest independent oil refiner in the US, and it supplies a network of around 4,200 locally owned and independently operated branded retail outlets east of the Rockies. So, yes, this is a pilot, but CITGO doesn’t indicate that it has plans to be more ambitious on the EV charger front beyond Folk Oil’s 43 properties. Let’s hope it’s going to surprise us.

Read more: Walmart is rolling out its ‘coast-to-coast’ network of DC fast chargers

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