EV Charging for Malls and Retail
Retail sites usually have two dwell patterns at once: staff who park all day and customers who stay an hour or two. One charger type serves only one of them.
That is the defining characteristic of retail charging and it is why a single specification applied across the car park tends to disappoint both groups.
Assess a centreFor Retail property owner, centre manager
Decide what charging is for
Driving footfall and generating revenue lead to different bay counts, pricing and technology. Retail sites frequently pursue both and end up optimising for neither.
Visit length decides the technology
Where customers stay two hours or more, AC serves them fully at far lower supply cost. Where visits are short, only DC delivers meaningful energy. Most centres have both populations and need a ratio derived from their own dwell data.
Staff and customer bays are different problems
Staff park all day and need low-rate charging that can be managed aggressively. Customers need availability during a short window. Mixing them without policy means staff occupy customer bays all day, which is the most common complaint at retail sites.
Supply is usually the constraint
Retail sites have substantial existing load from lighting, cooling and refrigeration, and it peaks in trading hours. Charging stacks onto that, so managed charging is normally what makes a useful bay count viable.
Size against dwell time, not against the fastest charger available
Retail dwell time is typically one to three hours, which is enough for an AC point to deliver a genuinely useful amount of energy to almost any car.
That makes the usual specification argument the wrong one. The question is not how fast a single bay can charge, it is how many customers can charge during a normal visit. More points at lower power answers that better, from a smaller supply, with less civil work.
Where a mall does want fast charging, it is usually for a different reason: it draws drivers in rather than serving those already there. That is a marketing decision with a charging bill attached, and it is worth being clear which of the two you are buying.
Want this applied to your own site?
Assess a centreTechnically reviewed by Deepu Joy, Director of Products and Delivery. Last reviewed 2026-09-01.
Frequently asked questions
AC or DC for a shopping centre?
It depends on visit length, and most centres have two populations. The ratio comes from your own dwell data rather than a rule of thumb.
Should charging be free?
That depends on whether it is a footfall measure or a revenue line. Both work; pursuing both simultaneously usually optimises for neither.
How do we stop staff occupying customer bays?
Policy and separation rather than more bays. Staff and customers have different dwell patterns and need different treatment.
Will we need a supply upgrade?
Frequently not with managed charging, because retail sites already have significant load and the headroom is what constrains the bay count.
Assess a centre
Tell us the site, the parking and the dwell pattern, and we will tell you the mix it needs.
Assess a centre