The days of "range anxiety" for electric vehicle drivers appear to be behind us, as charging stations are popping up everywhere, even in the places where you'd least expect to see them.
A new story in Bloomberg details the efforts to bring EV chargers to Route 50, also known as the "Loneliest Road in America."
Having been given its nickname by a 1986 article in Life magazine, which described Route 50 (at least in Nevada) as having "no points of interest," the "Loneliest Road in America" now has several points of interest for environmentally conscious drivers — namely, charging stations that allow them to travel its entire span from Sacramento, California, to Ocean City, Maryland (though two stretches in the Midwest remain a bit tricky, according to Bloomberg).
The arrival of an EV charging network on Route 50 signals how expansive the overall network in the United States has become. Thanks to a robust federal funding project that has promised over $900 million in funds for new EV charging stations across the country, taking worry-free road trips in your EV is becoming more feasible than ever.
While that $900 million is being put to work immediately to build a network of EV chargers across 53,000 miles and 35 states, a total of $5 billion for EV charging stations has been earmarked as part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
The easier things get for EV drivers, the better for the environment and overall health of our planet, as more consumers could be moved to switch from a gas-powered car to an EV. According to the International Energy Agency, gas-powered cars, which run on dirty energy, produce more than twice as much planet-overheating pollution over their life cycles as EVs.
"It feels like the country is at, or about to be at, full coverage," Steve Birkett, a marketing consultant and EV-related content creator, told Bloomberg. "At which point it just becomes about density."
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