- Love's added charging stations to two of its gas stations
- All future Love's Travel Stops will have EV chargers
- Love's started adding chargers to its gas stations in 2017
Love's Travel Stops is continuing to add EV charging at its locations, in part with federal funding from the Biden administration's infrastructure law.
On Tuesday, Love's announced the groundbreaking of two new "next-generation" charging sites in Ripley and Waterloo, New York. Each will feature two dual-port DC fast chargers (for a total of four charging connectors) albeit with a minimum power rate of 160 kw. All new Love's Travel Stops will also have space set aside for EV charging.
Electrify America charging stations at Love's Travel Stop
Love's has been installing EV chargers since 2017, and in 2020 partnered with Electrify America to add road-trip charging waypoints at its locations. The company now claims to have more than 100 chargers at 28 stores in 11 states. That includes a mix of Level 2 AC chargers and DC fast chargers, but future construction will be exclusively fast chargers under protective canopies.
Love's also confirmed that it had secured National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) funding to pay for some of its new charging stations. Created under the 2021 infrastructure law, the NEVI program provides $7.5 billion for a national network of 500,000 charging stations along 75,000 miles of highways, with said funding allocated state-by-state. Love's claims to be among the top three firms in terms of funding received.
Love's Travel Stop EV charging
Groundbreaking for four NEVI-funded stations in Pennsylvania, and four more in Kentucky, will start this year, according to Love's. Construction on additional NEVI-funded stations in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington is expected start in 2025. It's an encouraging sign after the relatively slow rollout of the federal charging network thus far.
Love's points to factors like proximity to highways, on-site amenities, and 24/7 staffing as plusses for co-locating EV charging with its travel centers. That's also the case with an EV fast-charging network at Pilot Travel Centers being developed jointly with General Motors. The first 17 locations opened in 2023, with about 200 planned by the end of 2024.
