Most of us don’t have an advance team on a road trip or a Secret Service escort. U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm did.

When she went on an electric vehicle road trip from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Memphis, Tennessee, the police got called in. An Energy Department staffer parked a nonelectric vehicle in an electric vehicle charging spot to hold the charger for one of the caravan’s electric vehicles.

A family who was blocked out called the police, as NPR reported.

Nobody got arrested or ticketed, because that’s not illegal in Georgia.

But it sure makes a point about electrical vehicle charging today: Needs improvement.

Around town, if you have a home charger, it is not much of an issue in many places.

Go on a road trip and there’s got to be planning to ensure there will be charging along the way.

There may be a wait for high-speed chargers. Some won’t work. And high-speed charging won’t be fast enough for some people.

Filling up with electricity is cheaper than gasoline. And charging networks are improving. Still, what stops a lot of families from buying an electric car are worries about charging.

There’s a deadline in Oregon. By 2035, auto manufacturers will have to be providing 100% new zero emission battery electric or plug-in hybrids to Oregon. It’s more than 10 years away. The time to start getting more things right is now.

The Oregon Department of Transportation committed $100 million over five years for electric vehicle charging. The plan is to have a network of chargers every 50 miles on Oregon’s highways. That should give people more confidence that they will be able to get where they want to go. Major construction on the project won’t start until 2024.

Oregon ranks high in the nation when it comes to electric vehicles per capita — about fourth. It was 69,950 vehicles as of April 2023. It’s still a small percentage overall.

If state government is going to force Oregonians to make the switch, it needs to continue to make the switch easier.