West Coast Electric Highway

The West Coast Electric Highway Project was launched in 2011 to provide a widespread charging network of AeroVironment brand DCFCs to enable EV travel along the western coast of the United States. The network is designed to allow EV drivers to travel between major metropolitan areas and to reach other popular destinations in the region using fast chargers spaced at 25 to 50 mile intervals. West Coast Electric Highway chargers were only located outside of larger cities because The EV Project, also launched in 2011, installed a network of Blink brand EVSE in metropolitan areas of the Pacific Northwest, among other regions. In the states of Washington and Oregon, a total of 56 AeroVironment and 12 Blink DCFCs were installed within 1 mile of interstates and highways as a result of these two projects. Idaho National Laboratory received charging data from 45 AeroVironment brand DCFCs and 12 Blink brand DCFCs along highways in Oregon and Washington. Analysis of these data determined how often each DCFC was used. The period of study for this paper was January 1, 2014, through December 31, 2014. All DCFCs in the study had CHAdeMO connectors and could be used by any CHAdeMO-compatible EV.