The Feds Announce Massive 500,000 EV Charger Push

The Biden Administration has just announced new steps to meet the President’s previously-announced goal to build out the President’s national network of 500,000 EV chargers along American highways and throughout cities across the country. The White House called this a “key piece of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.” The plan is being handled by the Department of Transportation alongside the Department of Energy.

In essence, the plan moves to make charging EVs “convenient, reliable, and affordable for all Americans.” Ideally, this will mean fast-paced charging that’s easily accessible for millions, no matter if you drive an extra bougie GMC Hummer EV or a cheap n’ cheerful Nissan Leaf.

Two programs will be used to accomplish this: The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, and another to provide competitive grants to “support community and corridor charging, improve local air quality, and increase EV charging access in underserved and overburdened communities.”

The DOT will be opening applications for that program later on in 2022. NEVI will be getting $5 billion of the $7.5 billion plan (the other $2.5B will go to the grant program) to establish a broader charging infrastructure in the US.

It’ll do so by funding states to build out their own charging infrastructure along highways. Again, a focus has also been placed on filling out “disadvantaged, and hard-to-reach locations while instilling public confidence in charging.”

A total of nine government agencies, including the DOE and the National Parks Service, will work to ensure these chargers are installed safely and in places that matter. That does notably include inside the many US National Parks. We sense an EV road trip to Yellowstone in our future. This infrastructure will also include the transition to electrified vehicles for the agencies themselves.

Unfortunately, the White House didn’t mention specific specs for these chargers. We do know that the DOD’s chargers will be Level 2, and will support the department’s electrified fleet. For now, we assume specific charger outputs to be under discussion. In all likelihood, the project will still be ongoing by the time the 2024 election rolls around. If the US Government wants this to work, however, reliability and charging speeds are critical, almost more so than location. For now, we’ll have to sit tight and see how the plan progresses over the coming months and years.