Through April 2025, the funding has yielded 384 charging ports at 68 stations nationwide, according to a new GAO report.
Less than 400 electric vehicle chargers were built with $7.5 billion in federal infrastructure funding, which comes out to more than $19 million per charger, a non-partisan watchdog agency found.
Through April 2025, the states, working with outside contractors, have built 384 charging ports at 68 stations nationwide, according to a new Government Accountability Office report released earlier this week.
Funding for the construction of the chargers was drawn from the $7.5 billion allocated to the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program (NEVI) and Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program (CFI), which were approved as part of President Biden’s $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Funding for the programs expires in 2026.
The joint office established by the Department of Energy and Department of Transportation to support EV charger infrastructure programs “generally has not defined performance goals with measurable targets and time frames for its activities,” the GAO assessed.
Similarly, the GAO said the Federal Highway Administration within DOT failed to fully define performance goals for two separate programs that support developing EV infrastructure. The GAO conducts its audit from August 2023 to July 2025 and most of its work was completed by the time Biden’s presidency ended in January 2025.
“The Biden administration promised to make EV charging ‘accessible and equitable,’ but after nearly four years and $7.5 billion, the states that took the handouts have delivered fewer than 400 plugs — that’s about $20 million per charger. This isn’t infrastructure; it’s a taxpayer-funded virtue signal. If this is what equity looks like, we can’t afford any more of it,” said Jason Isaac, CEO of the pro-fossil fuel American Energy Institute.
The Biden administration’s program cost approximately $19.5 million per charger and reflects the previous White House’s attempt to use the federal government to increase the use of electric vehicles.
In selling the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Biden officials claimed the legislation would fund the construction of more than 500,000 EV chargers by 2030. But construction quickly became bogged down by a Biden executive order requiring that grant applicants requiring that the beneficiaries of 40 percent of all federal climate and environmental programs should come from “underserved communities.”
In order to qualify for a grant, applicants must “demonstrate how meaningful public involvement, inclusive of disadvantaged communities, will occur throughout a project’s life cycle.”
Former President Biden’s controversial electric vehicle mandate, a catch-all term to describe Biden’s subsidies, industrial policy, and EV-oriented regulations, became an unpopular part of his agenda and a political liability for Democrats.
Upon taking office, President Trump moved quickly to repeal Biden’s EV mandate and suspend the EV charger funding programs highlighted in the GAO report. The Trump administration has prioritized increased energy production rather than green energy in a significant break from Trump’s predecessor.
Trump has also directed agencies to evaluate their distribution of funds from the the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. As of May 2025, most of the Federal Highway Administration’s activities related to the EV charger funding programs are under review, the GAO said. California is leading a group of states in suing Trump’s Department of Transportation for withholding billions of funding for EV chargers allocated by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Earlier this month, Trump signed the GOP’s “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill, which will end a $7,500 tax credit for new EVs and a tax credit worth up to $4,000 for used EVs. Demand for electric vehicles was already faltering before the GOP moved to end the Biden administration’s EV tax credits.