National Grid has joined seven major utilities in the Electric Highway Coalition, which will enable more electric vehicle charging stations near highways across the United States. With more charging stations, more drivers may adopt EVs and existing EV drivers can travel longer distances without range anxiety.

Each utility within the coalition is taking steps to provide charging solutions in their service territories and collaborating to ensure accessibility, reliability, and a positive customer experience. This effort will support a network of fast charging stations along major highways from the Atlantic Coast, through the Midwest and South and into the Gulf and Plains regions. Other participating utilities in the Coalition include American Electric Power, Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Entergy Corporation, Eversource, Southern Co., and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

“In the Northeast, only 2-3% of all new vehicle sales are electric today. We need 100% of vehicle sales to be electric in the states we serve by 2035 if we are going to reach our ambition of net zero,” said Badar Khan, U.S. president of National Grid. “That means millions of EVs and the build out of thousands of chargers. It’s an understatement to say we have a lot of work to do. Over the next decade, we will work with other utilities, charging stations providers, automakers, policymakers, regulators, and our customers to put more EVs and charging stations on our streets.”

National Grid is providing charging ports for the stations across its territories in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. National Grid has already deployed 1,400 charging ports with 16,000 on the way, one of the largest EV charging programs outside of California. Many of these ports are in environmental justice communities, so that all customers of varying incomes have access.

Forty percent of the northeast’s greenhouse gas emissions are from transportation, making it a larger source of emissions than any other sector. National Grid has committed to electrifying their entire light duty fleet by 2030 and exploring zero carbon alternatives for medium and heavy-duty vehicles. The company is also helping put electric city and school buses on the road and is one of two companies in the U.S. to adopt electric backhoes.

The Electric Highway Coalition will provide DC fast chargers that will allow drivers to charge and be back behind the wheel in up to 30 minutes. It is designed to coordinate EV charging station planning.