Panda Restaurant Group Funds Employee Assistance Program With EV Connect
As a forward-thinking company believing in being a responsible member of the community, Panda Restaurant Group partners with EV connect to provide additional electric vehicle (EV) chargers in their Rosemead facility parking lot for their employees.
Panda Restaurant Group is a fast food restaurant known for over more than 2,000 Panda Express locations, worldwide, 38,000 employees, and revenue that exceeds $3 billion dollars annually. The company is very focused on sustainability and has a history of developing unique initiatives to embrace greater sustainability within their operations, ranging from reducing landfill waste by recycling retired and unused uniforms to creating their own Innovation Kitchen that tests technologies to improve gas and water efficiency and savings. Because the company’s founders and co-CEOs, as well as, many other employees drive electric vehicles, installing additional charging stations in the Rosemead facility seemed like a natural fit.
Goals
Implement a flexible management software solution to manage dozens of EV charging stations.
Recruit talent by providing electric vehicle charging for employees.
Meet and report on achieving corporate sustainability objectives.
Use proceeds from the EV charging sessions to help fund the Panda Associates Assistance Fund.
The Challenge
Although, Panda Restaurant Group already had several electric vehicle chargers at their national headquarters in Rosemead, CA , because electric vehicle adoption began to grow, the company set out to install more charging stations for an all-electric future. However, other than the infrastructure and installation costs, they were concerned about not having enough power in the building to handle the additional load.
Panda decided to connect with Southern California Edison and EV Connect to accelerate through the stages of installation, deployment, management, and driver support.
The Solution
In order to help with the challenge, Panda Restaurant Group connected with Southern California Edison through the Charge Ready Program, which offered significant rebates and incentives to offset the cost of installing EV charging and help bring more power into their building, while partnering with EV Connect to provide hardware, installation, and charging station management software. to easily manage pricing while ensuring that minimal internal resources would be required.
Through it’s collaboration with EV Connect, Panda Restaurant Group chose 30 dual port charging stations, giving them a total of 60 new chargers on their facility. These stations are managed through EV Connect's open management platform to easily create a unique pricing structure for employees, visitors, and the corporate fleet while ensuring that minimal internal resources would be required. Employees were also pleasantly surprised that they were given an app to access charging at an extended charging network beyond the corporate campus.
Since adding the new charging stations, more employees and associates have been encouraged to drive electric and play a part in California’s clean energy future.
Ready to learn more about how EV Connect can help you with your EV charging needs? Check out what makes us different.