As U.S. pushes a shift toward electric cars, where should the chargers go?

The Biden administration sees the plug-in network as critical groundwork for cutting carbon emissions.

December 30, 2021

Depeswar Doley has come up with a quip for the confused, and sometimes irked, drivers who stop by his longtime gas station while trying to buy gas, the Washington Post reports.

Donning a bright smile and blue-striped RS Automotive shirt, he tries to disarm them with a chipper: “Give me the money! It’s almost my lunch time!” That often nets a friendly expression as he explains, again, that heavy-duty electric plugs are all he’s got.

Frustrated by the whims of gasoline suppliers and sensitive to his daughter Teresa’s environmentalism, Doley dug up his tanks and converted his Takoma Park, Md., station into an electric-vehicle charging pioneer two years ago, prompting a wave of headlines and inquiries from station owners from Seattle to New Orleans.

Compared with a new bridge or long-needed transit connection, the infrastructure enabling electric cars receives little attention, but the Biden administration sees the plug-in network as critical groundwork for cutting carbon emissions.

As federal officials draw up guidelines for billions in new spending on chargers, issues surrounding policy, technology and practical questions have bubbled up — among them, where new charging spots should go, how powerful they should be and how to cover busy corridors and harder-to-reach communities.