Charging across the country
Electric vehicle charging stations are spreading throughout the U.S.—but planning trips around them still requires some effort
Dorothy and Nathan are a fairly ordinary thirtysomething couple. They own a house in Washington, D.C., in a neighborhood near the edge of the District. They're into cooking, science fiction, and the Eurovision competition.
They'd been content enough living a car-free life for as long as they'd known each other, but the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly made everyday transportation routines—public transit, ridesharing apps, etc.—a whole lot riskier. And so, in early 2021, they decided to buy a car. After extensive research and test driving, they opted for an all-electric, plug-in vehicle.
If asked, a year and some change later, they'll both go on about the many benefits they've enjoyed from owning an electric car. They greatly appreciate the money they've saved, of course, having calculated what they're not spending on gas in the course of a year. The tax incentives they received for purchasing the car and installing a charger at their house were a nice bonus, too. They insist the driving experience is smoother than any gas-powered car they've gotten behind the wheel of. And they just generally feel good that they're contributing that much less to the burning of fossil fuels.
However, as they discovered not long after becoming electric vehicle (EV) owners, there is one element of driving an EV that requires a little extra thought and planning: the longer-distance road trip.
Classifying chargers
Electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the United States has come a long way in a very short period of time. Just a decade ago, there were fewer than 12,000 publicly available outlets for plug-in vehicles. By early 2022, that number had grown to roughly 110,000—a nearly tenfold increase, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Outlets are now spread across more than 45,000 locations. A quick glance at a map of them shows how much the ability to charge an electric vehicle has expanded to cover most of the continental U.S.
Places to charge an electric vehicle are becoming more and more commonplace in the continental U.S.
What any electric vehicle owner quickly learns, though, is that not all chargers are the same.
They differ in two critical ways that affect which charging stations are suitable for a given car and its driver.
Going for speed
One major distinction in electric vehicle chargers is in how quickly they're able to fully charge the vehicle's battery. EV technology has evolved to the point that there are now three "levels" of charger:
A close-up look at a J1772 Level 2 charging port.
- Level 1 is essentially a standard wall outlet, and can take literally dozens of hours to charge a car; these are now largely obsolete as a method for charging (and thus are not included in the Department of Energy database that's used in this story).
- Level 2 chargers, while much faster than their predecessors, can still take from 5-10 hours to fully charge most EVs.
- DC Fast Chargers (often referred to as "Level 3") are the most advanced type and can fully charge a car within a couple of hours.
Level 2 chargers are sufficient when you have time to leave a car somewhere—say, overnight—while Level 3 chargers are usually required when you're trying to keep moving. But Level 2 chargers are still the most widely available; in terms of total outlets, for every two Level 3 chargers, there are nine Level 2 chargers.
A brand exercise
The other consideration when searching for an electric vehicle charging station is the connector type. As with mobile phone chargers, the ports where you plug a vehicle in are not universal.
At both Level 2 and Level 3, for instance, electric cars manufactured by Tesla charge using a port that is unique to that brand. Most other electric vehicles use what's called a J1772 Port at Level 2 and the SAE Combo CCS at Level 3 (though certain Japanese makes use a CHAdeMO connector at Level 3).
Schematic outlines of the plug formations for the various charger types at both speeds.
Keeping those factors in mind, the electric vehicle charging landscape now looks a little more complex, especially when you're behind the wheel of one and trying to find a spot to plug in. And while most online maps and apps for finding EV charging stations easily allow users to filter based on charging speed and connector type, it still means that, in many cases, prior planning is highly advisable. It's a lesson that Nathan and Dorothy learned the hard way.
The Rehoboth incident
A few months into their electric car-owning tenure, Nathan and Dorothy felt it was perfect for their everyday needs. They had a Level 2 port installed at their home, and, on top of that, a number of D.C. neighborhoods—places they were already likely to spend a few hours eating out or shopping—were home to public chargers. Feeling confident, they were ready to take their first longer-distance trip.
Their weekend destination was Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, a laid-back beach town on the Atlantic Coast, a drive of about 120 miles. One rule of thumb when driving an EV is to avoid dropping much below 15 percent battery power, which meant roughly 200 miles for Nathan and Dorothy's car. Their plan—a reasonably sound one—was to make the drive out starting from a full charge, then utilize a fast charger in the vicinity of Rehoboth on Sunday morning before heading back to D.C. in time to make a mid-afternoon prior engagement.
If you look at a map simply showing all chargers in the greater Rehoboth Beach area, it seems like Dorothy and Nathan would have had plenty of options.
But given that they couldn’t afford to spend a significant chunk of the day charging, they’d require a Level 3 charger. Removing all the Level 2 chargers suddenly changes the map quite a bit.
On top of that, they had to consider that their particular vehicle is compatible with the J1772/CCS ports, ruling out any Tesla- and CHAdeMO-only charging stations. When that filter is also applied, it turns out that, for Dorothy and Nathan’s needs, they really only had one option all along: a gas station on the outskirts of a about 20 miles from Rehoboth Beach, with just one Level 3 port available.
Having done their homework, Nathan and Dorothy knew ahead of time that this was the station to target—and it was even directly located on their route back to D.C. (now highlighted on the map). But what they didn’t take into account was how little margin for error it left. What if someone had already been plugged into that single Level 3 port? Or—as turned out to be Dorothy and Nathan’s situation—what if that charger was out of order altogether?
One alternate option was to forge on to the Level 3 charging location on the way back to D.C., an additional 50 miles to the west. Covering that distance would have pushed the car's battery into uncomfortable territory, though. It was a risk Nathan and Dorothy weren't willing to take.
Instead, Dorothy and Nathan realized that their only real choice was to head back to Rehoboth and use one of the time-intensive but plentiful Level 2 J1772 chargers.
There went the afternoon, and while there are certainly worse fates than having to spend an extra half-dozen or so hours hanging out at the shore, it meant they had to scrap their preexisting plans. At least the experience would prove to be invaluable.
The bigger picture
While just one isolated incident, the situation Dorothy and Nathan found themselves in that weekend does raise broader questions when it comes to planning a long-distance trip in an electric vehicle. D.C. to the Delaware coast is a relatively short trip to a region that, while not too densely populated itself, is surrounded by major metropolitan areas and is generally equipped to handle a huge influx of people during the summer.
But what about more ambitious plans? What does the EV-charging environment look like elsewhere in the country?
Let’s return to the map of the entire continental United States and first depict all Level 2 charging locations. These are represented by blue symbols, with lighter blue for J1772 and darker blue for Tesla.
Now we'll add the Level 3 chargers to the map as well, all in shades of orange: darkest orange for Tesla, lighter orange for CCS, and the lightest shade for CHAdeMO. (Note that some charging locations have more than one speed or connector type.)
At a smaller scale, it looks like there are chargers, well, pretty close to everywhere.
But zoom in a bit and certain patterns start to emerge. There’s a clear urban–rural divide, for one thing. Chargers are clustered near urban centers, which makes sense, as that’s where more people, and thus more electric vehicle owners, tend to be located most of the time.
This trend is especially noticeable in a place like Texas, where the metros in the state’s eastern half are teeming with charging locations, in contrast with the sparsely populated western portion of the state.
Eliminate Level 2 chargers from the picture and the difference is even more stark. A string of fast chargers (of all three types) extends westward from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and the Austin/San Antonio region, but their spacing means that anyone trying to make it across the state quickly can’t exactly afford to be choosy about where they stop to recharge.
While the various connector types are often evenly distributed, there are pockets of the nation where certain types of connectors are more readily available than others. In the upper Great Plains, for example, Tesla's Level 3 charging stations are interspersed in a fairly orderly fashion along the Interstate Highway network, while the locations of CCS chargers are more sporadic. In urban areas such as Denver, on the other hand, CCS chargers are much more prevalent.
Use the slider bar to compare the array of Level 3 Tesla charging stations (left side of the window) with those for CCS and CHAdeMO (on the right).
Character counts
Many charging stations are located on commercial premises, such as this one outside a mall in Miami, Florida.
Yet another factor to bear in mind when planning a long-distance tour in an electric vehicle is the character of the places you’ll be stopping to charge. Many chargers have been installed at preexisting gas stations, shopping centers, car dealerships, hotels, or other service-oriented businesses. Once you stray from heavily urban areas, such amenities frequently tend to be found on the outskirts of a town or near highway exits.
Even if it's equipped with a fast charger, there’s only so much you can do in a parking lot while trying to whittle away a couple of hours. If your only option is a Level 2 charger, well, six hours or more in a parking lot just doesn’t seem like the most efficient (not to mention pleasant) use of time when you’re on a long-haul trek.
Take Garden City, Kansas. It has exactly one charging location, which offers two Level 2 J1772 ports. In a vacuum, posting up in a small town for a few hours—or even for an overnight stay—can be eminently enjoyable.
The issue in Garden City, though, is that those chargers are located in the parking lot of an electric utility company well outside the core of the town.
If you're looking for something to do while your car charges, it's a 30-minute walk to along a fast artery with sidewalks often absent.
Compounding the situation is the fact that the next nearest charger for vehicles that use the J1772/CCS plugs is in , nearly 70 miles to the south.
There’s a big caveat attached to those Level 2 ports, however: They’re only for use by overnight patrons of a particular hotel. Such restrictions are another element that needs to be taken into account when examining the map of charging locations. (There is a no-strings-attached Level 3 CCS charger another 20 miles down the road, .)
A sample itinerary
After reading about all of the nuances that go into electric vehicle charging, it may now seem like a daunting task to plan a long-distance road trip in one. But on the contrary, the point here is that it just takes a little more diligence and advance research to craft an itinerary that’s every bit as efficient and enjoyable as one in a gas-powered vehicle.
To demonstrate that, let’s actually try to put together a real-life route across the country—say, from Washington, D.C. to Seattle. We’ll allot a week to get it done, which averages out to between six and eight hours of driving time per day. That's a feasible amount for most drivers, especially with built in multi-hour charging breaks (and it's an acceptable pace if you're not desperately trying to get somewhere as quickly as possible). Including time spent recharging, total time in transit shouldn't eclipse 12 hours in a day at the very most, meaning you could get on the road at 8:30 a.m. and expect to be at your final destination by 8:30 p.m., which is a reasonable schedule. Here are the parameters we’ll need to keep in mind:
- We'll pretend we're driving Dorothy and Nathan's J1772/CCS-compatible car.
- Following the 15 percent rule, we'll try to make sure we're able to recharge roughly every 200 miles.
- We'll only use Level 2 chargers when we have the opportunity to plug in overnight, or if there are ample things to do within easy walking/public transit distance to occupy several hours.
See the U.S.A. and plug in along the way
A streetside electric vehicle charger in Macon, Georgia.
So now you've gotten a taste of how much of the country you can experience in an electric vehicle without having to sacrifice leisure or sightseeing objectives—and hopefully you've even seen how planning for a trip in an EV can actually be a fun sort of challenge.
All of that is only considering what's available at this moment in time. When looking at the distribution of electric vehicle chargers across the United States, it's important to remember that long-distance EV driving in the U.S. is only going to get easier and more convenient.
The federal infrastructure bill that was signed into law in November of 2021 includes $5 billion that is earmarked for continuing to build out the EV charging network to at least 500,000 charging ports. The faster chargers should also become more prevalent. And the ports themselves may become more universal; already in parts of Europe, Tesla has opened use of its Level 3 “superchargers” to other makes of electric car.
The web map below is automatically updated daily with the latest charging station data from the Department of Energy, so you can use it to explore what’s possible in an electric vehicle in close to real time. Toggle the checkboxes in the legend to hide or display the different speeds and types of chargers.
(Please note that the maps in this story are primarily meant to be illustrative and used for bigger picture exploration of the data; they are not intended to be used in a fine-grain trip-planning capacity. Always perform additional research when planning a long-distance trip in an electric vehicle.)
Additional resources
To learn more about and really sink your teeth into the data used in this story (or even download it yourself), visit the U.S. Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center:
If you've been exploring the EV data and are looking for some advanced ways to visualize it, this learn lesson walks through the process of building a dashboard using EV charging station data:
Esri's video team has put together a beautiful animation examining the EV charging locations state by state along major Interstate Highway corridors:
