Jeremy Michalek, a professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, tells Popular Science that you have to consider where people are currently charging and how charging needs to adapt depending on where people are traveling.

“The priority is in two places. It’s along highway corridors so that if you own an electric vehicle and you go to visit somebody in another part of the country, you don’t end up without a place to charge,” Michalek says. “The other focus is for communities that don’t have much off-street parking. Those households aren’t going to have a charger in their garage, especially if they don’t have a garage, so they’re going to rely on public infrastructure for charging the vehicle on a day-to-day basis.”