Congress provided $7.5B for electric vehicle chargers. Built so far: Zero.
Congress provided $7.5B for electric vehicle chargers. Built so far: Zero.
The sluggish rollout could undermine President Joe Biden’s reelection messaging promoting electric vehicles.
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I'm not clear how the money was allocated. Is it for local governments or federal agencies to build them? It says along highways, and so I suppose it's for agencies, but I just wonder if the funds aren't going to end up as part of some bigger projects. And I also wonder if they're not using it as grants to developers. I dunno. But these things take time.
That all being said, it's definitely easy to see how certain interested parties might try to stifle this development.
NEVI funds are provided to each state (+DC+Puerto Rico), and (my understanding is that) each state is free to decide the process on how to allocate the funds as long as the funds meet the NEVI guidelines.
This is correct. The approach some states took (like Ohio) was getting stations placed on pre-existing AFCs (alternative fuel corridors) in order to accelerate the NEVI approval process since placing chargers on a highway not already designated as an AFC would require that road to be recognized as an AFC before any funds would be approved for that particular round of funding. This allowed states like Ohio to side-step some delays and red tape in the beginning so they could get to building stations more quickly and focus on filling out the gaps later.
Source: Participated in some of the NEVI meetings for my state.