U.S. awards $623M for EV charging

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is awarding $623 million in grants to states, local governments and tribes to help build an electric vehicle charging network across the nation. Grants announced Thursday will fund 47 charging stations and related projects in 22 states and Puerto Rico, including 7,500 charging ports, officials said.

“America led the arrival of the automotive era, and now we have a chance to lead the world in the EV revolution — securing jobs, savings and benefits for Americans in the process,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The new funding “will help ensure that EV chargers are accessible, reliable and convenient for American drivers, while creating jobs in charger manufacturing, installation and maintenance for American workers.”

Congress approved $7.5 billion in the 2021 infrastructure law to meet President Joe Biden’s goal to build a national network of 500,000 publicly available chargers by 2030. The charging ports are a key part of Biden’s effort to encourage drivers to move away from gasoline-powered cars and trucks.

But progress on the network has been slow. Ohio and New York are the only states that have opened charging stations under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program. Several other states, including Pennsylvania and Maine, have broken ground on federally funded projects and are expected to open stations early this year. A total of 28 states, plus Puerto Rico, have either awarded contracts to build chargers or have accepted bids to do so.

Since Biden took office in 2021, electric vehicle sales have more than quadrupled and reached more than 1 million last year. The number of publicly available charging ports has grown by nearly 70% to 168,426, White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi said.