What has been dubbed the “New Nevada” now meets the Old West in the state’s hardscrabble mining communities like Beatty and Tonopah. There, electric vehicle charging stations can be found amid the last-chance saloons, sagging buildings and “haunted” hotels typical of fading boomtowns.

Those stations are a product of the Nevada Electric Highway, an initiative that began in 2015 after Tesla decided to build its $5-billion Gigafactory in the state.

The first phase of the NEH saw EV charging stations installed along the 450 rural miles of U.S. Highway 95 linking the state’s two big population centers—Las Vegas and Reno, home of the Gigafactory.

现在，电力高速公路的第二阶段正在内华达州农村开发新的充电站点，并在15号州际公路上增加了贯穿拉斯维加斯的能力。

“It’s an important improvement to our infrastructure that sends a message to Nevadans and those who come to and through Nevada that [electric vehicle] ‘range anxiety’ should not be a factor,” says state Sen. Chris Brooks, a Las Vegas Democrat and major voice on energy, clean tech and environmental issues.

As a member of the U.S. Climate Alliance and by state statute, Nevada has pledged to remain in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and cut greenhouse emissions nearly in half by 2030.

“对我们这些目标,我们需要to do a lot of things,” Brooks says. “One of those is to electrify transportation, which is our state’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses.”

Begun by former Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, the electric highway has been adopted by his successor, Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, who took office in early 2019 with an ambitious green agenda. The NEH originally involved the Governor’s Office of Energy; the Nevada Dept. of Transportation; NV Energy, the state’s major electric utility; and rural power providers.

“Our support of the Nevada Electric Highway aligns with NV Energy’s own goals to bring more clean energy options to our customers,” says Sarah Chatteree, NV Energy’s director of renewable energy programs. “We have two sites already complete and are currently developing up to 13 additional charging stations at NEH sites throughout the state, which we plan to have completed by the end of 2020,” she says.

With the utilities and government underwriting the costs, the original sets of chargers are free for public use for the first five years of operations. Subsequent rates will be set by owners of the charging locations, typically gas stations and convenience stores. For the second phase and beyond, all charging costs will be determined by site owners.

总部位于康涅狄格州的国家充电站承包商的Verdek安装了美国95个站点，并正在寻求其他工作，因为NEH扩展了其八个车站。Verdek创始人兼首席执行官Guy Mannino说，一个挑战是在几个农村县开发标准语言，并在下一轮充电站的乡村中开发其他官方文件。

“We would prefer [a faster] permitting process, but we understand that applications for EV chargers are a novelty in many counties,” Mannino says.
His company develops the sites “soup to nuts,” he says, but his firm does have a database of more than 400 subcontractors nationwide, particularly engineering and other vendors that are familiar with specific jurisdictions.

Phase 2 of the project began in 2017 with plans to cover more heavily traveled corridors and the vast interior. The state set aside $3.7 million in settlement funds from the Volkswagen emissions scandal for the second phase. Regulators also approved NV Energy’s proposal for the utility to invest up to $500,000 per station along the electric highway.

官员们计划在越过内华达州北部的80号州际公路上增加新站。美国50号公路，被称为美国最孤独的道路；美国93号公路通过内华达州东部；并沿着15号州际公路。

内华达州运输部主任克里斯蒂娜·斯瓦洛（Kristina Swallow）说：“由于内华达州涵盖了110,000平方英里，因此将收费地点挑战可能具有挑战性。”“因此，由于可用的基础设施之间的广泛跨度以及所需的车站要求（包括安全，电源和访问），因此找到适当的充电位置可能很棘手。”

尽管如此，州官员仍希望在2020年底之前完成计划中的大部分电力高速公路充电器。

内华达州州长能源办公室主任David Bobzien说：“内华达州电力高速公路为实现我们州的气候和经济发展目标并确保内华达州作为运输电气化的基石国家的作用提供了重要的工具。”“该项目还强调了内华达州的机构，公用事业和私营企业之间的牢固伙伴关系。”

In November, the electric highway opened a charging station in Jean, just outside the bright lights of Las Vegas. The small commercial town sits 30 miles south of Las Vegas and a dozen miles north of the California border, along Interstate 15.

在接下来的几周内，在梅斯基特（Mesquite）拉斯维加斯以北的另一个NEH充电站的接下来的几周，该州将其124英里的I-15延伸为I-15，被联邦高速公路管理局指定为“替代燃料走廊”充电站的可用性。

15号州际公路每年从南加州来到拉斯维加斯的1000万游客中，范围焦虑可能会阻止潜在的游客，这些游客是金州大型且快速增长的EV社区的一部分。

在加利福尼亚州，全电动车比该国其他任何地方都更受欢迎，有近200,000辆注册。根据联邦数字，这是华盛顿下一个最近的州的10倍，是内华达州的60倍。

“尽管人口少，但内华达州仍可能是更高接受电动汽车的关键人物，”位于拉斯维加斯的能源顾问玛丽·斯蒂尔（Marie Steele）表示，官方国家蓝图的共同作者涉及运输电气化。

“By pursuing the electric highway, joining regional EV alliances and promoting zero-emission transportation, Nevada can pull the EV market out of California and across the country through Tahoe and Reno in the north and Las Vegas in the south,” she says.

斯蒂尔（Steele）也是NV Energy的EV计划的前经理，他补充说：“随着电动汽车的范围有所改善及其数量的增长，投资于充电站和其他基础设施是必要的，而不是一种选择。”