General Motors is paving the way for electric vehicle chargers in parts of rural America – as many as 40,000 to be exact. They plan to implement the chargers in spots where EV drivers leave their cars parked for a few hours – think parts, sports venues, and retail centers.

Through the Dealer Community Charger Program (DCCP), GM will install Level 2 chargers with industry-standard J1772 charging plugs so that any electric vehicle will be able to plug in. Tesla vehicles will be able to charge using an adapter. They are working with the EV charger company Flo to build and install the chargers, sporting the Ultium branding, which is GM’s name for its EV and charging initiatives.

This program supports GM’s goals of exclusively selling zero-emission passenger vehicles by 2035. Currently, there are about 43,000 charging stations of this type in the country – this means that if GM installs all 40,000 chargers, the current amount of stations would double.

GM dealership owners are signing on to install chargers – not at the dealerships themselves, but in the surrounding areas where the dealerships are located. Specifically, GM is focusing on providing chargers in rural areas away from major coastal cities, areas that tend to have fewer electric vehicle charging opportunities.

Most chargers are concentrated in urban and suburban areas and around major highways. Though given these chargers will be in rural areas, the distance between EV drivers’ homes and the charging facilities will be important for overall use, especially considering the number of EV drivers who charge at home. As the article notes, “publicly accessible chargers are widely seen as crucial to helping sell electric vehicles because people want to see that they have other opportunities to charge”. Are more initiatives like GM’s Dealer Community Charger Program needed to accelerate charger adoption in underserved areas?