Two EV charging stations currently available in Terre Haute

Howard Greninger, The Tribune-Star, Terre Haute, Ind.
·2 min read
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Aug. 19—Vigo County saw its first public electric vehicle charging station open in 2016.

It's a Tesla charging station located at Meijer at 5600 New Margaret Drive, just off U.S. 40/Indiana 46. Meijer began offering Tesla charging stations in 2010 in select stores.

The Meijer location, open 24 hours a day with eight Level 3 DC Fast Chargers, is maintained under the Tesla network and available to Tesla owners. However, in 2021 Telsa started a pilot project to open its Supercharger stations to many parts of Europe to non-Tesla electric vehicles and has signaled it plans to do the same in the U.S. yet this year.

Tesla's own Supercharger network expanded from 1,200 sites last year to 1,407 locations in June. It is expected that Tesla will require motorists to sign up and use a Tesla app, similar to users of other networks such as Electrify America and EVgo. Owners of non-Tesla vehicles will likely be acquired to get special adapters enabling them to connect to the proprietary charging plugs used by Tesla.

President Joe Biden seeks to have 500,000 public charger ports in operation by 2030, a target date for having plug-based models account for up to half of the new vehicles sold in the U.S.

The Level 3 is the fastest type of charging available and can recharge an electric vehicle at a rate of 3 to 20 miles of range per minute. However, unlike Level 1 and Level 2 chargers that use alternating current and take longer to charge, Level 3 charging stations use direct current, which make them more expensive and not applicable for residential use.

In 2019, a second public electric vehicle charging station was installed, on the Terre Haute's east side, across U.S. 40/Indiana 46 from Meijer. That plug-in station, at Walmart's Supercenter, 2399 Indiana 46, is operated by Electrify America, a unit of Volkswagen Group of America, which has an agreement with Walmart.

The charging station, also open 24 hours a day, has 150 kilowatt and 350kW DC fast chargers — which can charge vehicles at speeds of up to 20 miles of range per minute.

Volkswagen Group of America created Electrify America with $2 billion in funding as part of a $14.7 billion settlement with federal regulators after an investigation into allegations the automaker cheated to meet emissions standards on its diesel vehicles.

Electrify America's DC fast charging station network in the United States has more than 730 charging locations and over 2,438 individual charging units as of March 2022.

Reporter Howard Greninger can be reached at 812-231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com. Follow on Twitter @TribStarHoward.