Electric cars may soon get a superhighway from Chicago to Orlando

Power companies have a strategic interest in building EV charging stations.

Depending on the model, a fully charged Tesla can go a little more than 300 miles before needing to re-charge, roughly the six-hour driving distance between New York City and Norfolk, Virginia. For daily commuters who rarely drive that far before returning home, that kind of range might be fine. But what about a road trip?

Before electric vehicles really stand a chance of overtaking gas-burning engines, charging stations need to be as common along highways as gas stations. In the US, there are two main EV charging networks, Electrify America and EVgo, with more than 1,300 stations between them. But both are concentrated on the West Coast and the Northeast, with big gaps in the Southeast and Midwest. Long-distance “range anxiety” is still a major barrier to EV adoption, according to consumer surveys and peer-reviewed studies, and stations near highways are a key solution. Now, some power companies are spotting an opportunity to fill the gap.

On March 2, a group of six electric utilities announced a plan to build an extensive network of highway EV charging stations spread across 16 southeastern states. The plan is sparse on details, including a timeline for completion and the number of stations, but aims to allow EV drivers to travel between cities as far afield as Washington DC, Chicago, San Antonio, and Orlando. Stations in the network will be equipped with DC-voltage fast chargers that can fill a battery in under 30 minutes, according to a press release from Dominion Energy, one of the utilities.

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