photo by: Gage Vota

The future electric vehicle charging station at Pilot Travel Center in Morristown is taking shape and will open soon.

Pilot Travel Center in Morristown will soon be one of the first of many locations to provide electronic vehicle charging stations along Ohio’s interstates, state routes and U.S. routes.

The funding for the stations came from the National lectric Vehicle Infrastructure program, which is administered by a division of the Ohio Department of Transportation called DriveOhio. The state has pledged to award roughly $16 million in funding to install 45 new charging stations to accommodate the rise of electric vehicles traveling through the Buckeye State.

“The $16 million NEVI funding will be matched with more than $4 million from the private companies selected to install and operate the new EV charging stations, including Electric Era, Francis Energy Charging, Jule, Love’s Travel Stops, Meijer, Red E Charging, Sheetz, Tesla and United Dairy Farmers. Winning proposals include site plans at existing shopping centers, grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, hotels, and a bowling alley,” Gov. Mike DeWine said in a press release.

The inclusion of the local Pilot Travel Center is part of the first of a two-round initiative to provide charging stations across most of Ohio.

“As more electric cars and trucks make their way to Ohio roadways, we’re continuing to build the infrastructure needed to enable easy and convenient travel,” DeWine said.

DeWine announced the first round of the NEVI program in July 2023, followed by a first-in-the-nation ground breaking the following October. The second round of the program is expected to begin in late 2024 and 2025.

The chargers that are being installed by the state are fast chargers unlike the chargers you’d see at places such as hotels or restaurants. The fast charges only take roughly a half hour.

“It’s a little bit longer than stopping to get gas, but it’s not the same as a low charger where it takes several hours if not overnight to charge your vehicle,” DeWine’s Press Secretary Dan Tierney said.

The goal of the program is to help travelers and Ohio residents alike effortlessly drive their electric vehicles in Ohio without the fear of not being able to locate a charger.

“When you often talk about economic development you hear stats like Ohio being a day’s drive of more than half of the country and a significant portion of Canada. This type of infrastructure certainly helps travel and tourism because people know that they can come to Ohio in their electric vehicle …” Tierney added. “It provides our citizens with more options, but it certainly helps our economy in general as well. We will see more and more vehicles as technology progresses that become electric. So if a company wants to have an electric fleet of shipping vehicles and they want to send them from New York to Chicago or Cleveland to Pittsburgh, having this type of infrastructure where Ohio is halfway on those stops and they know in Ohio they can do that charge. Associated with that is usually some economic stops where you grab a meal or a beverage while you’re waiting for your vehicle to be charged.”

Tierney believes that Ohio has been fairly aggressive compared to the other 49 states when it comes to working to build up the infrastructure of charging stations that would be necessary to supplement electric vehicles.

“One of the barriers of adoption to electric vehicles if people so choose to want to use them is ensuring there is a charger along the way that can increase the range of your trip,” Tierney said. “This is a very exciting thing for Ohio to be at the forefront of because it gives people options of how to travel or what vehicles to buy.”

Although there isn’t an official start date yet, the goal is for the electric vehicle charging stations at Pilot Travel Center to be up and running by the end of summer.