Australian outback will get 70 electric vehicle charging stations

Electric vehicle (EV) champions and detractors alike have long pointed to the limited range EVs can travel on a single charge as a major—ahem—roadblock to mass EV adoption. What’s been called “range anxiety”—the uncertainty that comes with attempting to complete long car trips when charging stations are few and far between—really dampens the romance of the cross-country road trip.

That’s due to change in at least one place: A new program by the Australian Electric Vehicle Commission will roll out 70 electric vehicle charging stations across the Aussie state of Western Australia, which, aside from the coastal capital city of Perth, largely consists of dry outback.

As Inhabitat notes, this is encouraging news not least of all for companies like Tesla, but consumers too. The more EV charging stations there are, the greater the likelihood of surmounting that “range anxiety” to successfully complete longer trips.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve reported on progress in the world of electric vehicles and EV charging stations: Recently, German company Ubitricity unveiled a plan to turn street lamps into charging hubs. In Los Angeles, an electric carsharing program kicked off in the city’s Westlake neighborhood, following in the footsteps of similar programs as far and wide as Indianapolis and Paris, France. And in May, we reported on data that suggests private car ownership could dip by 80 percent by 2030, if shared electric cars become the hot new way to get around cities.

You can read more about all of that here, and learn more over about the plans in Western Australia at Inhabitat.