| Neil Johnson, reporter/anchor, Big Radio |

Janesville is in the running for a new, government-funded electric vehicle charging station.

It’d be part of a Wisconsin program funded by $78 million out of a bigger federal pot through the recently created National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program.

The program requires a vehicle fast-charging station at an exit or interchange every 50 miles along six Wisconsin highway corridors, including Interstate 90/39.

Janesville is one city shown on online maps that tout the program. Potential charging station locations along the I-90/39 corridor include at Milton Avenue and Humes Road on the northeast side, or Racine Street on the south side.

Two other maybe sites are shown along the Interstate north of Edgerton.

The city of Janesville in a tweet trumpeted the possibility, saying a charging station would lure a growing consumer demographic, EV drivers, to stop off at Janesville.

They’d have to stick around Janesville for about an hour while they charged up their rides, which the city thinks would boost they odds they’d spend money here.

People can comment on the proposal charging station locations by filling out an online survey by going to the Wisconsin Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment plan.

Janesville has a growing number of proprietary EV charging stations installed privately on the city’s northeast side, including a Tesla charging bloc.

The U.S. Department of Energy reports that at the beginning of this year, Wisconsin had about 15,700 registered electric vehicles. That’s the second lowest number of electric vehicles statewide next to Iowa, which has just over 6,000 EVs.

Illinois drivers have registered more than 60,000 EVs.