Seven of the largest automakers in the United States announced that they're teaming up to install 30,000 new electric vehicle chargers around the country.
General Motors, Honda, Kia, BMW Group, Mercedes-Benz Group, Hyundai, and Stellantis (which makes Fiat and Chrysler) are collectively investing at least $1 billion in the country's EV infrastructure in a move that will almost double the number of EV chargers nationwide, according to The New York Times.
The United States and Canada have around 36,000 fast EV chargers that can recharge a battery in 30 minutes or less. The first in the new wave of chargers should be operational by mid-2024, and all of them will be functional by the end of the 2020s.
The adoption of these fast chargers is intended to reduce range anxiety for drivers making longer trips, as the 125,000 standard-speed chargers across the U.S. and Canada can take between four and 10 hours to fully charge a battery, which, as the Times reported, significantly contributes to consumer skepticism in EVs.
In other words, drivers making long trips are often concerned with how far they can go without charging their vehicles, and the slow speed of standard chargers makes charging pit stops fairly undesirable because it severely impacts the efficiency of a trip, especially compared to gasoline-powered cars that can refuel in mere minutes.
Improving the country's EV infrastructure is one of the most impactful ways that we can build toward a greener future. Around the world, passenger vehicles produce around 3.3 billion tons of carbon pollution each year, per Statista, so switching to vehicles that run on clean energy is incredibly important to curb our emissions.
"The better experience people have, the faster EV adoption will grow," Mary T. Barra, CEO of General Motors, told the Times.
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