Love's Helps Expand the West Coast Electric Highway

OKLAHOMA CITY — More than 150 miles of California's Central Valley are now supported by fast-charging stations for electric vehicles (EV) at three Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores locations.

A partnership between Trillium, Love's alternative fuel business unit, and EV Connect is responsible for the expansion of the California Electric Highway, a network of charging stations along Interstate 5, Highway 99 and other primary roads throughout the state.

The new charging stations expands California's portion of the nearly 4,000-mile West Coast Electric Highway, which seeks to provide charging stations every 25 to 50 miles. The initiative is funded through incentives and grants from the California Energy Commission.

The new Love's charging sites, which are located in in Ripon, Madera and Tulare, Calif., have feature rates of 50 or 150 kilowatts and can charge up to four vehicles at a time. The charging stations, which include DC fast chargers and level-2 chargers, use EV Connect's EV Cloud, a software platform for managing EV charging infrastructure.

"We can now provide electric vehicle drivers the same safe and well-maintained travel stop services that we've provided to professional truck drivers and everyday motorists since 1964," said Frank Love, co-CEO of Love's. "We're excited to welcome motorists along Route 99 and play a part in reducing emissions through our electric vehicle infrastructure."

EV Connect provides the industry's largest open-standards EV charging cloud platform for managing networks of charging stations, their interaction with utilities and the improvement of the driver experience, the company said. Drivers can access the status of Love's charging stations in real time through the EV Connect driver app.

"Love's Travel Stops are a mainstay of the American road trip, and we are excited to help roll out charging locations on the nation's highway system and bring long-distance mobility to electric vehicles," said Jordan Ramer, founder, and CEO of EV Connect. "We are pleased to work with Trillium to deploy their DCFCs in strategic locations to fulfill part of EV Connect's deployment program under the California Energy Commission grant program."

Oklahoma City-based Love's operates more than 510 locations in 41 states.