My Bojangles order is usually the classic: Cajun filet biscuit combo with cheese, fries with extra seasoning, sweet tea.

But I also appreciate that North Carolina’s unofficial home of fried chicken is not afraid to experiment.

They focus on their chicken-and-biscuit staples, but will add twists to the menu like wings, breakfast burritos, cheese biscuits and berry biscuits. Even the “Bo’s Bird Dog,” which is a fried chicken strip in a hot dog bun.

And their latest addition to the “menu” is not a food item at all.

It’s electric vehicle chargers.

The Charlotte-based restaurant chain announced a partnership Monday with Smart Big Box, Alyath EV and Energy and Environmental Design Services to install EV charging stations at most of the Bojangles locations.

That process will start to roll out in the fourth quarter and the company expects those stations will be “largely accessible” next year.

In related news from the Tar Heel state this week, Durham-based IONNA — a joint venture between automakers to provide a nationwide EV charging network — announced it will be opening Rechargeries at Wawa convenience stores, starting with one next week in Daytona Beach, Fla.

(BTW, my go-to Wawa order: Italian hoagie plus “The Crab Chip” from Utz).

And in the same spirit of trying something new, we fellow North Carolinians at Cherokee Media Group are also thinking outside the Bo Box with a new EV venture.

A major focus of our new conference — the Used Car Industry Summit, set for April 13-15 at the waterfront and luxurious InterContinental Miami — will be used electric vehicles.

Tailored to benefit dealerships and other entities that might touch a used EV, Cherokee Media Group is collaborating with Recurrent, an Emerging 8 honoree in 2022 that analyzes electric vehicle battery health.

We’re partnering with Recurrent to put together multiple conversations and presentations on used EVs, focused primarily on dealer best practices.

Recurrent chief executive officer Scott Case explained how enthused dealerships and their used-car managers should be about the volume of electric vehicles that are now being leased and will eventually return to become quality inventory.

“The number of off-lease EVs is poised to triple next year because we’re approaching the three-year anniversary of the EV lease origination wave caused by the Inflation Reduction Act,” Case said. “And it increases year over year from there for the next four years. In a world where new EVs are likely to increase in price due to tariffs and rebate removals, and consumers are still scared about older used EVs, the 3-year old, off-lease EV, is going to be the sweet spot next year.”

Case elaborated about how important it is for dealerships to plan for how to structure their strategies for a potential well of nice used EVs coming.

“We have less than six months before the surge of EV lease returns begins,” he said. “Some of the leading OEMs, captives and dealerships are working out the details of EV-specific remarketing strategy right now — from lease-end inspections to decisioning on distribution channels to pricing to CPO programs.”

Case is sharp intellectual guy who often sees gaps in the playing field before they open. For example, Recurrent’s partnership with Plug, where the online EV auction will purchase consumer vehicles listed on the Sell with Recurrent platform and then sell them to dealers.

So, we’re leaning on his EV expertise and that of his team to help craft the used EV portion of the Used Car Industry Summit agenda.

More details to come but suffice to say that we will tackle the used EV topics most important to dealers: sourcing, figuring out the customer needs/demands, answering difficult questions from consumers, range, battery health and more.

It’s all part of what we hope to achieve with the Used Car Industry Summit: highlighting the best of the used-car industry.

With an emphasis on retail, remarketing, and auto finance, we’ll offer a more focused networking experience for business-building conversations and stronger connections. And do so with waterfront views.

“The Used Car Industry Summit represents an expansion and growth of our annual April meeting and will be the spring event for the used-car industry. Dealers, lenders, the remarketing industry, vendors and suppliers all will enjoy the ease of travel to an East Coast location and Miami is the ideal fit,” said Cherokee Media Group president Bill Zadeits.

“Building on the tremendous Used Car Week brand, blended with new topics and a fresh approach, we are very excited for what UCS will bring to the industry.”