Remote and rural areas are considered charging deserts because of the lack of EV charging access the locations have. States and federal government have been working to provide charging access to these areas so that long-distance travelers have charging availability while they are on the road. Through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program, there will be EV charging stations on highways across the United States with hope that they will only be, located 50 miles apart. In states that have a lot of desert and rural areas, like Nevada, this goal may be too ambitious and harder to accomplish than it would for other states.

“There are a lot of areas in the American West, including Nevada, that do not have any type of electrical service,” wrote Kristina Swallow, the director of the Nevada Department of Transportation, in a comment letter to the FHWA. “Placing charging stations every 50 miles would be extremely challenging, very expensive, and may not make sense in some cases, let alone providing 600 kilowatts of power at each location.”

One of the biggest roadblocks a lot of states are coming across is how to get access to electric in some of those remote areas and have enough electricity for numerous EV charging stations. In Pennsylvania, they are attempting to solve an issue similar to this by adding solar panels and having solar fields to offset the electricity being used by the charging stations.

Click here to read the full article, originally published September 12, 2022 by Route Fifty.