Six firms to jointly build electric vehicle charging network

Electric vehicle charging is about to get much simpler in America as Electric Highway Coalition has announced plans to build a seamless network of chargers.

The coalition is made up of six major utility companies. They are American Electric Power, Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Entergy Corporation, Southern Co., and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

It stated that the planned network would be built focusing on DC fast-charging to allow people to more easily cover great distances in their electric cars, with locations planned along major highways and near other services.

Each independent utility company will select its own sites and build its own charging stations, according to the group.

If this network comes to fruition, and if it’s genuinely seamless for drivers — a single app needed to pay, enough charging spaces, etc. — then it could serve as a blueprint for a future nationwide charging network run by utility companies and subject to the same kind of regulation and oversight.

Theoretically, it would also incentivize utility companies to improve America’s electrical infrastructure, more so than the added load placed by private charging networks, anyway.

Right now, there are a few major brand-agnostic electric vehicle charging networks available to use in the US.

The problem is that they are run privately and not a part of an energy company. That means they are subject to the same kinds of issues with the power grid as anyone else.