Larger battery packs and more widely available public charging options are two things that should soon ease range anxiety and make electric vehicles a practical option for many more drivers. What?s often omitted from the conversation, however, is that a different sort of anxiety remains, centered around public charging, which for newbies can be downright confounding. Public chargers aren?t often well labeled for format, let alone power, and it?s not unusual to see someone pull out the charging connector, look back and forth to see what fits, and then simply let an unfamiliar charger run awhile to get a grasp of its speed. It isn?t that way at the gas pump, of course. You know whether or not you need to go high octane, the nozzles almost always look and fit the same, and if not, it?s a sign that something?s wrong (such as, you’re trying to use a diesel nozzle to fill a gasoline car). A new system called Chargeway aims to set a straightforward language for understanding car-charging options. Simply put, the color corresponds to the plug design (J1772, CCS, CHAdeMO, or Supercharger), while the number corresponds to the power and the potential charging rate. The system would clarify charging times for everyone and help those traveling outside their normal territory to pick out the fastest charger from among those available.

The idea has been brewing for several years?since Chargeway founder Matt Teske and his wife Anna took their Chevrolet Volt to a resort about an ...