An EV Charging Lounge In The Middle Of Arkansas?! Full Tour Franklin’s Charging 

this owner has a vision and heart and soul invested in this, need more people like him, and big time support of his facility

Absolutely love Franklin's setup and his whole attitude toward a sustainable future. Francie you did an awesome job on this one! I really appreciated this! Cheers.

If I lived in the area , I would charge there and buy coffee all the time just because of the kitten rescue alone! I love that!

A small town coffee shop just off the interstate would make a killing if they had DC fast charging.

This is the best charging site! Love the container garden!

Wow NACS connector. He is ahead of the curve.

The charging lounge looks nice and convenient. Wishing that we have the similar ones in California.

love your style Francie, watched Kyle's podcast of this location, now your here too, sweet, this charging station is awesome, what an experience, keep the content coming, drive safely, thank you dear God for this beautiful day

Fantastic to see it up and running. I thought about doing this myself but then I moved overseas... As Jack Rickard said about 15 years ago - start a charging business and you'll make more money selling HoHos and DingDongs than electricity. If they step up the drink & snack area that could be a major profit center.

I met JT back in March this year when I was hanging with my daughter for a volleyball tournament in Little Rock. I charged my Volvo C40 at Franklins charging and happened to use the Freewire unit, so I could test it. It wasn’t pulling a ton of electrons and JT was going to replace the unit not completely but just one of the parts. Hoping that was taken care of. The other CPs are awesome. JT personally came to check on me and ensure I didn’t continue charging at the FW and move my EV to the CPs. This was during the weekend of the solar eclipse. 😀. Awesome guy overall and I love seeing guys like him take charge and build out a cozy welcoming EV charging environment. He’s got another similar setup in Hot Springs. My hope is that JT can continue his expansion atleast in the Deep South like Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and maybe Louisiana. 👊🏽🔥

So amazing! When I do my "EV/camp cross-country" in 3 years , I hope to visit this site. Thank you for this content, Francie.

Francie at Franklin's! :) :) plus Bonus... Friendly pup serving as the "greeter." :) :)

What an absolute gem of a charging station! I'm really curious about what kinds of traffic volumes Franklin's is seeing right now and how JT thinks that new hardware for increased throughput will make a difference.

Nice!! Little Rock person here. Yeah this charging station is super cool! Nice shout out.

This is just really cool all the way around! Charging, coffee, kittens, container gardens, art and forestry... what's not to love?

I plan to pass through Little Rock on Wednesday evening on road trip to Memphis and will certainly come here instead of Supercharger. Thanks for letting me know about this place.

He should charge more per kw since he has added value in the cafe, covering against the heat and rain. $0.39 or more

They need a food truck 🍔🍟🌭🍕🌮

I am hoping that JT will get funding to expand.

Looks very nice

I remember reading an article about that old forest planting method. Very cool to see somebody putting it to practice!

If I still lived in LR I’d definitely be a patron. $0.35/kWh is on the low end of DC fast charging costs in western Colorado but home charging is much cheaper.

My favorite stations to charge at are Charge Point. A nice setup. I like the cats. When I traveled, the journey from Redding north was mountainous. The Leaf having a small battery was challenging. I would start with a full charge in Redding and would charge at Mountain Gate, with 2 solar canopies at a Shell station, before heading up to the Railroad RV park, where I plugged in with my level 2 station. On to Dunsmuir, then Shasta City. From there to Yreka and the Wiiaka RV park. Onward to Ashland to a West Coast Electric Highway station, after which Oregon and Washington had them all along the I-5 corridor. That was eight years ago and the availability of charging stations has greatly improved since then. You folks have found an unusual place to charge.Nice tour. Hopefully they can make it profitable. Best wishes to all.

Great podcast!,,

i drive by it everyday. i went there for the first time on Monday. Very nice facility. Needs more signage and a massive trimming of landscaping. i understand they are going for a natural look. But with it so overgrown and no signing it appears closed all the time.

Such a cool concept! Love the solar canopy, air pump, vacuum, on-site bathrooms, and coffee shop. Huge upgrade over most charging stops. In regards to the business model, any gas station operator can tell you the fuel sales alone are not gonna keep you in business. It's what you sell the people as they wait to refuel that helps pad the margins. In this case, you have a captive audience for even longer because charging takes longer than pumping gas. Add more convience items for sale or fresh baked goods.

What a great place, and setup 😊❤❤. Francie keep up with great work bringing us podcasts 😊

Thank You Francie for All that you are doing for our Planet Earth.... Peace.. Shalom.. Salam.. Namaste 🙏🏻 😊 ✌ ☮ ❤

Cheers Francie

Net operating lost type of business. If you could make it a 501 c 3 Or you have a lot of profit from some other business to shelter.Then I could see it.

I really hope there is a viable business model for Mom and Pop charging stations like this. This looks like a great operation and I'd love to see more of these.

A true labor of love. It's not fair that they now have to worry about the future of the FreeWire unit. Maybe start selling some used EVs? Don't worry about ChargePoint compatibility. Local Vinfast service says there WERE some issues but fixed in software and they have ChargePoint HQ people who own VF8s.

If only someone could open one of these up in north Georgia by Helen or by the mountains

Franklin’s Charging is very cool. I’ve been wishing someone would do that in my hometown. Even if it were just solar powered level 2 chargers. Now there’s a blueprint!

I have been successful with the Chargepoint chargers in both Ontario and Pennsylvania on my 2024 Plus. Where I have experienced issues is with EV Connect. I could not get any of the 4 units that I tried to work for me (at 2 different locations) I reached out to them and cannot get definitive details or answers. Hoping that these charging providers are reaching out to Vinfast in an attempt to fix this. Would like to do more road trips next summer but a bit anxious.

I’m over the pond in the U.K. and the owner of an EV in Oxfordshire and am so happy that the way forward is electric. I wish this family all the happiness in this wonderful future of EV charging stations to come.

Really great to see what Franklin is doing here, I am planning a road trip New York to Florida, and alot of going off course. Would diffently like to stop by for a charge and say hi!🎉Hi! Also great to hear someone mention about all the rooftop solar we could have, I mention this all the time. We have a ton of big box stores we I live and apparently no incentive to do anything.

Francie, when you are excited you have much less vocal fry. Sitting in a studio will always make us relaxed and increase the fry. And (I'm a musician) close micing boosts fry AND compression boosts fry (and and and) audio tech is not helpful to woman's fry because it amplifies it 3 to 4 times louder than men who also have it. That's not fair. But with all of that in mind the thing you can do, which you ARE doing here is enjoying your subject and being as happy and enthusiastic as you are being here. That enthusiasm will help you breath deeper as you are doing here. Enthusiasm makes for both good content like here but also good audio.

Location, location, location. At the turn of the twentieth century personal transportation went from horses and bicycles to automobiles and motorcycles, "service stations" popped up all over cities, towns and rural areas. It wasn't long service stations started closing because of lack of business and new ones started to cluster where folks wanted to refuel. Then the interstate system hit the market place and ICE vehicles became more reliable the market adjusted again with more service stations closing and gas stations started clustering around popular sites. Tesla knows where to build and expand charging sites, because of the data they get from their customers vehicles, everyone else? It's been challenging to witness, and learn about so much opportunity/funding wasted by bad players during EA's launch." "If we don't learn from history we are doomed to repeat it." is at tension with profit taking and "winning" at all cost in all aspects of the human experience in the 21st century. Thank you for sharing.

Wonderful charging location. I love everything that JT is doing with the property. It is tough to pay all the expenses of installing and maintaining fast chargers. Expanding to include a complete local coffee shop for regular commuters, ICE or EV, may be a way to help with the bills. Maybe find a barista that wants to open their own local shop and rent the space to them.

I love this video and I hope the owners will start making money on this project. So awesome in so many ways ❤

Curious how much revenue they get from people in gas cars stopping by for coffee on the way to work. You don't have to actually charge to patronize the coffee shop.

Which process to charge ? Connect charger > Read Vin ID from VF8 > Auth this Vin ID with Charge Point data server > Wait a min to check > Auth succeed > begin charging. If Vinfast can charge another charger, Vinfast is NOT FAULT. Because Charger Data server cannot complete.

I would %100 hang out at a place like this & catch some L2 charging. This is the future.

This couple looks familiar from another video.

This is exactly the kind of business I want to run.

really cool..... thanks for sharing.

Will be stopping by this weekend.

Three stations sharing 125kW? That's a whole 41kW per car if all three are in use? Do I also get a haircut, fresh cooked meal, mani/pedi and massage while I'm waiting for that? Glad to hear the boss knows there's some need for improvement there.

This concept is so cool! I hope it is contagious

Super nice guy and GREAT place BUT he admits in the video several times it is time for faster chargers. All of the rest doesn't matter if the chargers are slow. Slow charging is 110% deal breaker for me. In the end, what is the cost per KW and how fast is the charger? Boutique is fine. Slow is NOT.

I wasn't burning to watch this video. I'm glad I did. Thanks for both of you for bringing me into your worlds. (Live interviewer and charging entrepreneur) I'm an American living in Denmark driving 10 year old diesel. I'm staying on the front end of the knowledge curve for EVs for when my car eventually dies. And presently hyper-miling my car while driving 30 minutes to work each day. Trying to lessen the impact of the car I already own for as long as it will exist on thus earth (rather than buying an ev and selling my problem to another person who would then push it to its max pollution levels)

Well, you ARE a Crazy Woman! Great interview with a good ‘ol Arkansas Boy, a place where I grew up. All the best to JT. Love the kitties! 🙏🏻

didn't they do a vid at this site previously? or was that a very similar setup? EDIT: oh yeh, they've been here before.

I can see this being a big part of the charging future as you have an owner right there who will want make sure the charging experience is good and a place to hang out that’s not just a parking lot. I can see paying more for reliability and quality. I’ll be charging at home, so I plan on only using fast charging when I’m traveling long distance.

Interesting that he didn't seem to have any problems connecting with the grid and working with the power company.

I really hope this type of station is created in other areas, energy generation, storage, and distribution. With decent amenities included. Love it.

Great to see a charger with a NACS plug in the field, hope Freewire are still giving full support!

I like this. It will be interesting to see how this charging sight develops and if he can start making a $.

Very impressive. I would love to open and operate something like this near me.

Kempower sounds like they’d be perfect for their site

👍👍😎✌️🤟

Great episode!

This site is nice. Now they just need a landscaping crew to clean up the overgrowth of weeds. Unless they're going for the "natural area, don't mow" look, which is code for "we're too lazy and cheap to have landscaping". It just looks bad. His whole talk about the "garden" sounds like more code.