The Biden administration can’t say how much progress, if any, it is making on a $5 billion federal initiative to build new EV chargers along America’s sprawling interstate highway system, according to several government agencies.
Electric vehicles are a main part of achieving President Biden’s ambitious emission-reduction goals to combat climate change. But the nation’s lack of public charging threatens to hobble the auto industry’s transition away from gas-guzzlers.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021 established the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program known as NEVI. But neither the White House, Department of Energy nor Department of Transportation were able to produce statistics to The Washington Times on how many new charging systems have been built so far with those funds.
The administration’s apparent absence of real-time tracking — coupled with the overall lack of EV chargers nationwide — further complicates Mr. Biden’s ambitious goal for up to two-thirds of all new vehicles sold by 2032 to be electric.
Auto manufacturers and industry analysts question the feasibility of such a fast transition, in part because of the inadequacy of charging infrastructure.
The market share of EVs continues to rise, reaching roughly 7% in 2022. But even at current EV levels — a fraction of the 67% mark that the administration is eye-balling — the U.S. is woefully behind on installing public EV chargers.
The California Energy Commission estimated in a 2021 report that a ratio of seven EVs per public charging port is needed. The U.S. had a ratio of 29 EVs per public charging port at the end of 2022.
There were 935,000 new EVs that hit the roads last year but just 24,600 new chargers, which is 38 new EVs for every new public port, according to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade association that represents major automakers.
Mr. Biden’s goal is to build 500,000 new public EV charging ports by 2030. At last year’s pace, the U.S. would complete only about one-third of that goal of new chargers by the end of the decade.
“I’ve been bullish on the NEVI program and the public charging investments in the bipartisan infrastructure bill. It was a necessary downpayment in our electric future,” Alliance for Automotive Innovation President and CEO John Bozzella told The Times. “But the ratio of EVs to public chargers is already too big and moving in the wrong direction. The U.S. needs more charging to keep up with projected EV sales.”
Administration officials say the status of federal EV charging funds through NEVI has been difficult to track because the money is being doled out to states to carry out individual charging infrastructure plans and has only recently ramped up in recent months. Each state submitted its own implementation plans for the funds and were approved on a rolling basis. All states had their proposals approved by September 2022.
Additional federal money for new chargers provided under Democrats’ tax and climate spending law known as the Inflation Reduction Act is being provided to private companies in the form of tax credits. A White House official suggested that makes it more complicated to track.
While the administration has not made available the number of new chargers built with federal funds, officials are keeping tabs on roughly how many total chargers there are nationwide and how much of the money appropriated by Congress through the NEVI Program has been made available.
The Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration told The Times that the number of publicly available charging ports has increased by over 40% since Mr. Biden took office, for a total of more than 130,000 public chargers. The agency further said that upwards of $2 billion in total EV charging funds have so far gone out to states through NEVI and a separate tranche known as the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $2.5 billion for chargers in rural and disadvantaged areas under the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grant Program, in addition to NEVI’s $5 billion, bringing the total funding for chargers to $7.5 billion.
States must provide annual updates on the progress they make, but no available system currently exists for the public to view how many new chargers have been brought online from the federal NEVI Program funds.
The Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, a venture between the Departments of Energy and Transportation, is working with the states to carry out their NEVI plans. The joint department did not respond to The Times’ inquiries seeking more information.
“The [charging] infrastructure issue is a challenge, and it’s a challenge that will slow the progress down, which is exactly the opposite of what [the administration] thinks will happen,” said Frank Maisano, a partner at the Washington-based law firm Bracewell who works with fossil fuel and clean energy industries. “But it’s not an unsolvable problem with money, investment and permitting reform.”
• Jeff Mordock contributed to this report.
• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.