Public EV Charger Applications Are Now Open In The US

In the next five years, a total of $2.5 billion will be awarded through two grant programs to help build electric vehicle charging stations in public places and along highways.

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A new step in the Biden administration's plan to deploy 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations over the next five years was outlined on Tuesday by Biden administration, as the Department of Transportation began accepting applications for $2.5 billion in grants for the development of public charging stations across the country for urban, rural and tribal communities.

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Funded by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) discretionary grant program is part of $7.5 billion in federal funds for building out a nationwide network of public EV charging stations. To ensure that chargers are reliable, easy to use, and well-maintained, the White House published a set of rules in February.

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"There are so many people who could theoretically gain the most from the gas and diesel savings of an electric car who will be the most impacted by the sticker price and by the lack of charging infrastructure," Pete Buttigieg said in an interview with Bloomberg News' Washington DC bureau on Monday, noting that the sticker price and the lack of charging infrastructure would be most detrimental to them. "It is very important to make sure that there is the availability of charging stations in the future."

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Two grant programs will share this CFI money equally. As part of the Community Program, electric vehicle chargers as well as hydrogen, propane, and natural gas fueling infrastructure will be funded along public roads as well as in other publicly accessible locations, such as car parks at public buildings, parks, and schools. It will be given priority to projects serving rural areas and low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, as well as communities where there is little private parking and a large number of multi-unit dwellings. There will be money available through the Corridor Program for the construction of chargers and other fueling stations on highways. A goal has been set by the DOT to allocate at least 40% of all funds to disadvantaged communities in order to meet their needs. 

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Buttigieg pointed out that rural areas often have an advantage when it comes to EV charging since more people live in single-family houses and are able to plug in their EVs at home, due to the number of people who live in single-family homes. “The situation is very different if you are living in a dense urban area in which neither your workplace nor your apartment building has those types of chargers,” he explained, adding that the administration is "very intentionally" trying to meet the needs of both types of communities.

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The limited and fragmented nature of the American charging infrastructure continues to be an obstacle to the wide adoption of electric vehicles in the country. One of the reasons for the scarcity and high price of electric cars is that the Inflation Reduction Act also includes point-of-sale tax credits for some new and used electric vehicles. As part of its National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program, the White House plans to have fast, public charging stations available everywhere by 2026, and the White House wants EVs to make up at least 50% of new car sales by 2030. 

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It is estimated that about one-third of American households do not have a private garage. There is also a third of the population rents a home and a percentage of Americans live in multi-unit buildings. As most of these overlapping groups do not have a dedicated EV charger at home, they stand to gain greatly from the availability of additional public EV chargers in their communities. 

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GRID Alternatives policy director and legal counsel, Alexandra Wyatt, said "charging should be available where people are," from chargers at work to chargers in multifamily housing. “We need to build that out in an equitable way, and not only build it out but maintain it as well."

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Despite the administration's desire to deploy 150,000 public chargers by 2024, Buttigieg declined to say how many would be made in the US. "We are still aligning the program guidance, Buy America rules, and regulations on how interoperable and user-friendly they need to be before states can move money," he said. “We're going to see a leap now that we have the rules and the money."

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