"It could soon become a lot easier to take an electric car on some pretty cool road trips. A group of powerful utilities said Tuesday that they’re teaming up to make chargers for electric cars more accessible on highways.

The newly-formed Electric Highway Coalition is made up of six big regional utilities—American Electric Power, Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Entergy, Southern Company, and Tennessee Valley Authority—that provide electricity across the South. The utilities said they will work together to “provide EV charging solutions within their service territories,” according to an industry press release announcing the move. A map provided in the release shows a map of the projected area of the network, which includes more than 15 states, with highways stretching from Texas to Florida up to Virginia and over to Indiana.

The details of Tuesday’s announcement are pretty thin, though. None of the utilities named provided specifics on how many charging stations they’re planning to install, where they’ll be located, how those locations would be determined, or any other details, really. But the fact that utilities are moving on a project like this could be a big development both in terms of electric vehicle adoption and how utilities think about electric vehicles’ presence on the grid."

Molly Taft reports for Earther March 3, 2021. [2]