US National Electric Highway Coalition Formed

US National Electric Highway Coalition Formed

For electric vehicles (EVs) to gain adoption will require infrastructure like we see for vehicles with internal combustion engines (ICE). The experience of recharging an EV should be as similar as possible to the experience that we are used to at the moment. That means fuel stations at very regular intervals, almost instant access to chargers and as short a wait at the charger as possible. As such, many thousands of charging points will be needed in the very near future to support the roll out of EVs, especially as deadlines to halt the sale of ICE powered vehicle get closer in many countries. This change is probably an easier task for countries and areas that have a high population density, such as most of Europe. The US is a different story, especially away from the coasts, where the population density can be very low. Charging is a commercial enterprise like much of the economy, meaning it may prove difficult to get chargers installed in areas that could be unprofitable. Despite many EV breakthroughs coming from the US, some automotive giants are less than ambitious with their targets for the US market. For example, Nissan hopes to have 75% of its European sales be electric by 2026, however its target for the US is a less than inspiring 40% EV sales by 2030.

Hopefully, for the US at least, the recent $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill signed by president Biden could help to fund chargers in those more remote areas and close the gap between the coasts to provide a complete charging network across the country. The bill specifically sets aside $7.5 billion to go to building a nationwide network of plug-in electric vehicle chargers. That financial help should be of interest to the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), which has recently formed the National Electric Highway Coalition, merging the Electric Highway Coalition and the Midwest Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Collaboration, while adding further participating electric companies from across the country. The National Electric Highway Coalition currently consists of 51 investor-owned electric companies, one electric cooperative, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. The coalition will provide EV fast charging ports along major U.S. travel corridors by the end of 2023.

EEI’s member companies have already invested more than $3 billion in customer programs and projects to deploy EV charging infrastructure and to accelerate electric transportation. As EV sales continue to grow, EEI estimates that more than 100,000 EV fast charging ports will be needed to support the projected 22 million EVs that will be on U.S. roads in 2030.

“By merging and expanding the existing efforts underway to build fast charging infrastructure along major travel corridors, we are building a foundational EV charging network that will help to encourage more customers to purchase an electric vehicle,” said Kuhn. “We owe a great deal of gratitude to the electric companies that created so much momentum at the regional level, paving the way for us to expand this effort nationally.”

If we are to change away from fossil fuels as quickly as possibly to try and stop global warming, it is vital that large rich nations, such as the US, lead the way. The $7.5 billion dollars set aside for EV charging in the infrastructure bill won’t solve the issue on its own, but hopefully it will provide the impetus for organisations like the National Electric Highway Coalition to quicken their efforts to provide a network of chargers that covers the whole of the country, incentivising consumers to make the change to EVs sooner.