Electric vehicles aren’t perfect, but progress is constantly being made. One of the areas that need to improve if government targets on EV uptake are to be met is access to charging ports. There simply aren’t enough in many areas of the country, the ones that exist aren’t spaced out enough to facilitate many long-distance trips, and the ones that do exist may be out of order or occupied. Things are improving, though.
As things stand, there are around 50,000 charging stations in the United States. That’s around a third of the total number of gas stations currently operating in the country. Plans are in place to install half a million additional charging stations over the next few years. Major companies like Tesla, General Motors, Pilot, BP, Hertz, and EVGo are all on board with the plan and investing heavily in charging infrastructure. The issue is a bit more complex than charging stations alone.
Battery technology will have to keep improving to win people over. Some high-end EVs can get 500 miles from a single charge, but the average electric vehicle currently manages less than half of that. Then there are upgrades to the power grid which will need to be made if millions of new EVs will be relying on it as a fuel source. These are all plans for the future, and charging anxiety isn’t going away any time soon. But hopefully, Waze’s new feature helps take the edge off it a little bit.
