Skip to main content

Another section of West Coast Green Highway EV charging infrastructure announced

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has selected AeroVironment to manufacture, supply, install and operate a network of nine fast-charging stations for electric vehicles on Interstate 5 and US 2. Stations will be located every 40 to 60 miles along stretches of I-5 between the Canadian border and Everett and between Olympia and the Oregon border, as well as along US 2 between Everett and Leavenworth.
April 19, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
RSSThe 451 Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has selected 2132 AeroVironment to manufacture, supply, install and operate a network of nine fast-charging stations for electric vehicles on Interstate 5 and US 2. Stations will be located every 40 to 60 miles along stretches of I-5 between the Canadian border and Everett and between Olympia and the Oregon border, as well as along US 2 between Everett and Leavenworth.

“A network of charging stations linking Washington to Oregon and Canada will make electric vehicles more attractive to consumers and businesses, and transportation better for the environment,” said Paula Hammond, Washington secretary of transportation.

The fast-charging stations will be operational by the end of November and will power an electric vehicle from zero to fully charged in less than 30 minutes. Each station also will include a Level 2 “medium-speed” charging station, which will cost less for users and take up to four to six hours for a full charge. The stations will be located at private retail locations such as shopping malls, fuelling stations and travel centres with easy access to the highway.

In the area between Everett and Olympia, additional charging stations will be installed through a federal programme, The EV Project, administrated by the US Department of Energy. Combined, the two projects will connect Washington drivers along the entire 450kms of I-5 between Canada and Oregon.

While AeroVironment helps power the electric-vehicle charging network in Washington, the company will simultaneously electrify I-5 in Oregon through a similar project managed by the Oregon Department of Transportation. Both states’ projects will complement The EV Project, which will install thousands of home and public electric-vehicle charging stations in six states, including Washington, Oregon and California.

Washington’s electric-highway infrastructure is a key component of a future West Coast Green Highway. When complete, it will extend a seamless network of recharging stations along all 2,200 kms of I-5 from Canada to Mexico, serving more than two million electric vehicles that market analysts say will be sold in Washington, Oregon and California in the next decade.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Berlin introduces wirelessly-charged electric bus Line
    September 4, 2015
    Berlin has become the first capital city to introduce a wirelessly charged electric bus, as part of a project funded by Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. The Berlin Transport Authority, Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) has introduced four Solaris Urbino 12 electric buses equipped with the Bombardier Primove inductive charging system and traction equipment from Vossloh Kiepe. The buses now operate on the 6.1 kilometre line 204 between Südkreuz and Zoologischer Garten (Hertzallee). Vos
  • Electrify America unveils robotic EV charging
    August 22, 2019
    Electrify America has joined forces with Stable Auto to deploy a robotic charging solution for self-driving electric vehicles (EVs) at a demonstration site in San Francisco. The partners are hoping to charge autonomous EVs without human intervention using a robotic solution attached to a 150kW DC fast charger. The site is expected to open in early 2020. Electrify America will evaluate the hardware, network, operations and billing of its charging systems to best suit autonomous charging fleets. It has pro
  • New system expedites border crossings
    October 28, 2016
    Enforcing border controls can create long queues for travellers, David Crawford looks at potential solutions. Long delays at border crossings in both North America and Europe have sparked the development of new queue visualisation and management technologies that are cutting hours, even days, off international passenger and freight journeys. At the westernmost end of the 2,019km (1,250 mile) Mexico–US frontier, two parallel crossings between Tijuana, in the former country, and the border city of San Diego,
  • Volvo and KPMG find buses are key to urban air quality
    September 13, 2016
    Buses can play a key role in the battle to improve air quality in towns and cities as David Crawford discovers. A city with a population of half a million would gain about US$12.3 million in annualised societal savings if all its buses ran on electricity instead of diesel. This is the conclusion of a wide-ranging analysis carried out by Swedish bus manufacturer Volvo Group and global business consultants KPMG.