The photo at the top is from the kickoff event for a cross country electric drive. The two women attired in pink are Daphne Dixon, Executive Director of Live Green CT, who is making the drive, and Alyssa Murphy, also of Live Green, who is accompanying her. Ford has loaned a Mustang Mach-E for the trip that will conclude in Sacramento, where Dixon originally hails from, after stops in CT, NY, PA, MD, DC, VA, WV, KY, TN, AR, TX, NM, AZ, UT, and 8 cities in CA, 27 cities in total.

Range anxiety isn’t completely a thing of the past, but it is much less of a concern than it used to be with longer range battery packs and more public charging stations. There will be continued improvement on the charging access front in the coming years with Infrastructure Bill funds and state incentives. Of course, there is no time like the present to make this drive with unusually high gas prices causing more people to look seriously at EVs.

Speakers, from left to right, are Marriott Dowden of United Illuminating, Jim Motavalli who is an automotive columnist and author, Barry Kresch of EV Club CT, Matt Macunas from CT Green Bank, and Charles Rothenberger of Save the Sound.

D-Day for the trip was June 6. It concludes June 27th. Clean Cities chapters will be organizing press events at each stop. You can follow their progress on the Life on the EV Highway Facebook page. As Dixon said, she is “hoping to reduce range anxiety one state at a time.”

Route 7 is now an EV Corridor as officially designated by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). These alternative fuel corridor (electric is only one of them) designations are intended to raise awareness among current EV owners and the public at large of the access to nearby charging. This is part of a strategy to promote interstate cooperation and a national build out of charging corridors. All corridor designations have to be re-certified every 5 years. This designation currently applies to the section of Route 7 from the I-95 interchange to New Milford.

Along with the designation, the ceremony held at Fodor Farm in Norwalk also acknowledged the donation of a level 2 charging station by JuiceBar, a Connecticut manufacturer (based in Norwalk) of EVSE.

The presenters were (left to right):

Tammy Thornton, Wilton Go Green

Barry Kresch, President, EV Club of CT

Senator Bob Duff (Majority Leader)

Carlo Leone, CT Department of Transportation

Mayor Rilling of Norwalk

Daphne Dixon, President of Live Green CT

First Selectman Dunn of Brookfield

First Selectman Marpe of Westport

Senator Will Haskell (Transportation Committee co-Chair)

Paul Young of JuiceBar