We’re making progress on building corridors for fueling alternative-fueled vehicles. The latest round of Alternative Fuel Corridor designations was announced, and with the announcement all 50 states (plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico) will have alternative corridor designations with funding to establish an electric vehicle charging network.
The Federal Highway Administration established the Alternative Fuel Corridors in January 2017, with corridors having alternative fueling sites for a variety of alternative fuels, including compressed natural gas, electricity, hydrogen, liquefied natural gas, and liquefied petroleum gas.
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This latest funding is part of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program that specifically focuses on charging infrastructure for EVs. This is the sixth round of funding for the alternative fuel corridors and includes 249 new designations. This latest round of funding covers 190,000 of the 200,000 miles of the national highway system.
The lack of charging infrastructure is one of the biggest impediments to the scaling of battery-electric vehicles. Having charging stations in various corridors across the country will help fleets use EVs in applications where trucks run further than the current range of the battery. Today, most battery-electric vehicles are operating in applications of fewer than 200 miles so the trucks can return to base to recharge.
A lot of things have to fall into place as we move from the nascent stages of battery-electric vehicles in commercial applications to widespread use of these vehicles as the trucking industry tries to do its parts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move to a more sustainable movement of goods in the future. Having a far-reaching charging infrastructure is one of the main components—along with lower purchase prices for the vehicles, increased range, etc.—to get us to an all-electric transportation future.
NACFE applauds the efforts of the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, the Alternative Fuel Corridors program, and the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula program.
Working together with the trucking industry, these agencies and programs are helping us tackle one of our biggest challenges. Well done!
Michael Roeth has worked in the commercial vehicle industry for nearly 30 years, most recently as executive director of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency. He serves on the second National Academy of Sciences Committee on Technologies and Approaches for Reducing the Fuel Consumption of Medium and Heavy-Duty Vehicles and has held various positions in engineering, quality, sales, and plant management with Navistar and Behr/Cummins.
