Completing the EV charging network
Garrett Brown waited 20 years for the electric car he purchased in 2011, so range anxiety was never something he needed to conquer. His first road trip from the Tri-Cities to Anacortes in 2012 required careful calculations to plot out the mileage between charging stations. Even with meticulous planning, his Nissan Leaf needed a recharge every 60 to 80 miles. For that first leg of the trip to Kirkland, Brown and his wife left well before dawn and arrived long after dark.
“I’ll just say that that was beyond the limits of the infrastructure at the time,” said Brown, who founded the Mid-Columbia Electric Vehicle Association.
At one point, a sympathetic barista let them plug in for a few hours at a coffee shop after an unexpected headwind left Garrett questioning if the car had enough juice to make it to their first planned stop.
“We obtained the grace of several people in several locations to help us,” Brown recalled.
Switching to a Tesla a few years later allowed Brown to tap into the company’s proprietary charging station system that far outpaces today’s public system in its reach. There’s talk of Tesla opening up its charging stations to other EVs, as state and federal government money flows into the industry, but for now it’s a big selling point for the company.
The same trip from the Tri-Cities to Seattle’s Eastside now nearly rivals the time it takes in a gas-powered car, requiring just one recharge, he said. New destinations still require some forethought while a few other places, like Mount Rainier, still remain out of range.
Washington leads in EV adoption, along with California and Oregon. These three states banded together to create the West Coast Electric Highway. But large gaps still exist in the charging network, especially outside urban areas. Some of the charging infrastructure is almost becoming obsolete – as ever speedy charging options emerge and larger batteries become available – and many don’t meet the requirements set out in the NEVI plan.
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About 1,650 electric vehicle chargers can be found statewide, but fewer than 200 locations offer DC fast chargers. Transportation officials say only 27 of those sites meet NEVI program standards. Some sites don’t have enough charging stalls or enough power capacity to be a fast charger, especially the older sites. Many Tesla sites meet, or even exceed, the NEVI requirements, but aren’t publicly available.
NEVI funding stipulates that states start outfitting highways designated as alternative fuel corridors, making sure there’s coverage at least every 50 miles, before tackling other roads. Washington’s NEVI plan prioritizes charging coverage along I-5 and I-90, followed by I-82/I-182, US 395 (south of Spokane), US 101 and US 195.
“A very important part of the NEVI program is really to build charging stations just ahead of the demand for the charging stations to then really spur on and trigger accelerated adoption of electric vehicles,” said Molly Middaugh, director of business development at EVgo. The company builds and operates charging stations while also consulting on how to build out EV infrastructure.
“I think having these stations every 50 miles on all the designated major highways and corridors will be a huge step in helping to accelerate transportation electrification,” she said.
When deciding where to build EVgo sites, Middaugh said the company takes into account the number of EVs registered, nearby amenities, traffic patterns and types of housing in that area.
Still, even with the new federal money to build stations, Middaugh said EVgo has no plans to bid out projects on its own and own stations built with NEVI funding. Instead, the company plans to partner with companies like Pilot Flying J, the ubiquitous truck stop chain, on proposals for the money.
Buell, with the state Department of Transportation, said officials hope to encourage investments in all sizes of communities by bidding out NEVI-funded projects along entire highway corridors or segments, not just individual sites. She noted that approach, which WSDOT used to distribute state EV funding, still hinges on additional guidance from the federal government.
“That’s likely the strategy we’ll use for contracting, particularly to avoid vendors cherry picking the best spots and skipping the rural areas where usage is anticipated to be lower,” Buell said. “So they’re gonna get some high-usage locations, then they’ll have to put some stations in that aren’t going to get as much usage.”
In the end, WSDOT does not want to own these stations, but rather create public-private partnerships to build these stations, and leave operations and maintenance up to private companies or utilities. Some rural sites might also require ongoing subsidies for maintenance and operations to meet reliability standards, which can be done with NEVI funds for up to five years.
As proposals come in, WSDOT will consider different amounts of ongoing support between urban and rural sites depending on anticipated usage, Buell said.
Part of the NEVI funding also requires that 40% of the overall benefits from the program go to disadvantaged communities. To do that the state is also developing a publicly available mapping and forecasting tool that shows existing EV drivers, daily traffic counts, employment, existing chargers along with health and environmental disparities data and racial demographics to help guide the state in choosing new sites.
