Charging can make or break electric vehicles (EVs), and the state of Texas is planning to make public EV chargers commonplace by installing charging stations every 50 miles on its interstate highways.
If you own or plan to own an EV in Texas, the city is planning to make your charging experience as smooth as possible. The state wants to provide EV charging stations supporting 1 million vehicles. The program aims to make traveling long distances with electric cars a good experience.
The Texas Department of Transportation is embarking on a five-year plan to install chargers on the main corridors and interstate highways, although it will still cover rural areas. There will be enough charging stations that drivers won’t go more than 50 miles before coming across another station, alleviating range anxiety.
Each station will have multiple stalls to ensure that drivers have a good chance of finding an available connector.
The Lone Star State is funding the $408 million EV charging program with money obtained from the federal Infrastructure and Jobs Act.
While less than 1 percent of Texas registered vehicles are electric, records show that the number of EVs in the state has tripled since 2020, pointing to huge growth in the sector.
Meanwhile, Drive Tesla reported in April that Tesla did not get any state support in installing Superchargers in Texas. The EV company applied for a grant from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TECQ) but was not selected as a recipient, even though it submitted the lowest cost per charger, which would have allowed the program to install 700 chargers.
However, with the recipients selected, the fund would only be able to set up 170 chargers.
