The Biden administration on Wednesday announced a new $100 million federal funding effort to bolster the availability and reliability of public electric vehicle charging stations across the United States in an attempt to help solve what drivers cite as a major hurdle preventing them from switching out their gas-powered vehicles.
The funds are made available under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and will be funneled to the thousands of chargers nationwide that are currently listed as “temporarily unavailable,” according to government data.
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“This funding represents the latest step toward building a convenient, affordable, reliable charging network that reaches every corner of our nation,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement.
The funds will be available for public and private charging stations as long as they are open to the public. The Department of Transportation said the funds will likely cover the repair or replacement costs of all eligible projects. Out of 151,506 public charging ports, 6,261, or 4.1%, were unavailable as of Tuesday, the Department of Energy said.
Buttigieg himself has had trouble finding working charging stations for his hybrid minivan, he said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm also recently ran into a dust-up in which a Georgia family called the police on her staff for blocking off a charger for her use.
President Joe Biden and Democrats have enacted massive amounts of funding to improve the charging system. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included $5 billion to help states build out charging sites. The 2022 Democratic Inflation Reduction Act also provided tax credits for the installation of fast chargers.
Access to charging infrastructure remains limited for many Americans, especially those who rely on street parking and public charges to power up their cars.
The U.S. has more than 3 million EVs on the road, and roughly 103,000 publicly available EV chargers, according to the Biden administration’s most recent estimate — amounting to around one public charger for every 29 EVs.
A study conducted by J.D. Power found that satisfaction with public chargers has plummeted.
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“With all of these influences shaping today’s EV market, the biggest friction point for consideration is the availability of public chargers,” said Stewart Stropp, executive director of EV intelligence at J.D. Power.
“The growth in public charging isn’t keeping pace with the rising number of EVs on the road,” he said.
