Biden's administration has only managed to build seven or eight EV charging stations with a $7.5 billion program, which is barely off the ground three years later.
The Federal Highway Administration plans to build half a million EV charging stations by 2030. Buttigieg said he is confident they can go from seven stations to 500,000 within six years, despite the slow start to the effort many describe as glacial speed.
President Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in November 2021, allocating $7.5 billion for EV charging. $5 billion was designated for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program to build physical charging stations across the country.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appeared recently on Face the Nation where host Margaret Brennan asked how it is possible that “the Federal Highway Administration says only seven or eight charging stations have been produced with a $7.5 billion investment that taxpayers made back in 2021. Why isn't that happening more quickly?"
Buttigieg responded, "So the president's goal is to have half a million chargers up by the end of this decade. Now, in order to do a charger, it's more than just plunking a small device into the ground. There's utility work and this is also a new category of federal investment. But we've been working with each of the 50 states, every one of them is getting formula dollars to do this work."
Brennan followed with, “Seven or eight, though” in three years?
Buttigieg reiterated Biden's EV goal, "Again, by 2030, 500,000 chargers. And the very first handful of chargers are now already being physically built. But again, that's the absolute very, very beginning stages of the construction to come."
Brenan persisted by saying, “Right. But- but that gets to the point about not being able to make long-distance travel possible quickly, if you don’t have the infrastructure there to support it.”
Gabriella Hoffman, director of the Center for Energy and Conservation at Independent Women’s Forum, said on her Substack blog, “The Biden administration has repeatedly said that “public investment” in EV charging stations will inspire more Americans to buy electric vehicles. But that’s not true.”
There are already 183,000 privately run EV stations in the U.S. The majority, over 140,000, are Level 2 stations that take 4-10 hours to get an 80% charge in battery electric vehicles and 1-2 hours to achieve an 80% charge in plug-in electric vehicles.
Hoffmann says, the availability of chargers “hasn’t compelled the majority of Americans to make the switch to electric cars. The Energy Information Administration recently reported EV and hybrid vehicle sales decreased during Quarter 1 2024—the first decline observed since 2020.”
Buttigieg has claimed that the cost of EVs has fallen to within a few percent of an equivalent gas car. He said, “Depending on the model, you may come out ahead now.”
Despite lower prices, the enthusiasm for EVs has significantly waned due to the growing awareness of the environmental costs and concerns about charging and range reliability.