In this article, I’m going to explain what’s holding rural EV charging back, why that matters, and what non-profit and governmental entities in rural areas can do to fix the problem. It’s still going to take a lot of work, but it’s a worthy effort thatDecades ago, the United States revolutionized transportation with the Interstate Highway System. The interstates meant safer, faster, and more convenient car travel, but they came at some pretty significant costs that are easy to forget about.
What they’re saying reveals an ugly truth about the state of EV adoption and infrastructure in 2023. It’s a sort of “Catch-22” or “chicken and egg problem,” where people want rural charging access to be able to buy an EV, and the people who could put in an EV charging station want it to turn a profit. Without drivers , there will be no stations. And, without stations, there won’t be drivers…and so on forever.
Even when the favorited highways do get their charging stations, they’ll only have one station every 50 miles with four stalls, and no extra stations to serve as a backup during outages or extra stations to serve the growth of EVs when those four stalls get swamped. So, even rural interstates are going to need more stations than the best federal programs are going to cover between now and 2035.
The way around this is battery storage. Instead of pulling hundreds of kilowatts from the local grid, charging batteries with just a few tens of kilowatts is a lot cheaper. When an EV pulls up to charge, the batteries can deliver the speed drivers want.The second big issue is paying for both the station and the batteries, and with multiple stalls , we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars.
With each small town needing at least two stations, it makes sense for the governmental or non-profit entity to put the stations at two or more local businesses to keep it fair and impartial. As long as they’re close to each other, they can still serve as a backup.The final piece of the puzzle is marketing.