It can be hard to take the road less traveled when you're driving an electric car.

Better charging infrastructure could make all the difference.

From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty-Karino.

Sales of electric vehicles have really picked up in the last year or so.

But at just shy of 6% of all car sold in the US,

they've still got a long way to go before they hit mass adoption.

Sort of like the long way to go to find a charger in many areas of the country.

There are currently about 100,000 public chargers in the US.

The federal government wants to reach about half a million chargers by the end of the decade.

And the bipartisan infrastructure bill includes billions of dollars to help make that happen.

Reporter Ray Solomon of KUNC in Colorado has this story about how rural areas fit into the electrification plan.

Roadtrippers Jason Fleming and Abby Barclay plug in their electric Kia Nero

at the back of a gas station in rural Julesburg, Colorado.

That's a rising.

There are a couple hundred miles into a 1,200 mile roadtrip.

We're coming from Boulder, Colorado going to Jackson, Michigan.

Thank you.

The town of Julesburg sits way up in the rural northeastern corner of the state.

It's not an area where locals own a lot of electric vehicles.

There's only one registered EV in the entire county.

But the federal government aims to change that.

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