governors promoting electric vehicle charging station effort

States in the West may see a significant increase in the number of new electric vehicles charging stations, particularly along vast open desert roads.

Leaders with the Denver-based Western Governors Association are currently involved in a process that will not only see the construction of more such stations, but stations that are built in a uniform manner.

The effort comes in the wake of several studies looking at the challenge of what is known as “range anxiety.”

That anxiety is centered on the fear that would-be electric vehicle owners have of running out of power on the road before making it to the next charging station. The wide and empty spaces of the West only exacerbate that fear.

According to a Harris Poll survey released last year, nearly 60% of respondents pointed to range anxiety as the number one reason for not purchasing an electric vehicle.

In announcing a regional approach to the construction of new stations, Oregon Governor Kate Brown told a working session of the Western Governors Association that the need for such infrastructure was “an issue that bolsters our current economics and creates a roadmap, both literally and figuratively, to the future.”

The group’s Electric Vehicles Roadmap Initiative hopes to lay out a strategy for more charging stations, as well as the installation of strategically-placed signage alerting drivers to the existence of such stations.

The roadmap initiative will also place an emphasis on the development of similar station standards and the sharing between the states of best practices.
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Plans now call for a series of workshops to be hosted by the governor’s association in the months to come with the goal of having an expanded regional agreement in place by next summer.

​By Garry Boulard

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