The Biden administration announced the grants on Tuesday. They'll split the money into two main parts. $321 million will go to 41 different projects to expand charging options in various communities. Another $200 million will fund 10 projects to set up fast-charging stations along major highways.
Some cities will get significant help. Milwaukee will receive $15 million to install chargers at 53 locations. Atlanta's airport will get $11.8 million to build a big charging hub. This hub will have 50 fast chargers for rental cars, ride-share drivers, and airport shuttles.
The government wants to grow the network of chargers to 500,000 ports across the country. They plan to have high-speed chargers no more than 50 miles apart on busy highways. Right now, there are about 192,000 public charging ports in the U.S. That's 90% more than when Biden took office. About 1,000 new public chargers pop up each week.
But things haven't been moving as fast as some people hoped. A $5 billion program started in 2021 to build charging stations has been slow to get going. As of June, only seven stations with a few dozen charging ports had been set up under this program.
Senator Jeff Merkley wasn't happy about this slow progress. He said:
"That is pathetic. We're now three years into this ... That is a vast administrative failure. Something is terribly wrong and it needs to be fixed."
Shailen Bhatt, who heads the Federal Highway Administration, agrees that the slow rollout is frustrating. He said they're working with states to speed things up.
The push for more charging stations is crucial for getting more people to use electric vehicles. This shift could help cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. But the slow progress has given fuel to critics, including Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who often talks about how slowly the chargers are being installed.
Source: Autoblog
