Biden’s $7.5 Billion EV Charger Plan Backfires Spectacularly
I & I Editorial Board
May 17, 2024
At a Rose Garden event this week, President Joe Biden bragged that “Thanks to my Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we’re building a network of 500,000 charging stations all across America.”
This is about as believable as the story of his uncle’s cannibalistic demise.
The truth is that Biden’s five-year, $7.5 billion effort to jump-start the development of electric vehicle charging stations is doing the opposite. The money has so far produced only eight new charging stations in two years. The overall growth rate in EV charging stations has slowed since he signed that bill. And earlier this month, Tesla gutted its EV charger efforts, dealing the entire scheme a huge blow.
In other words, this is shaping up to be a massive waste of taxpayer money.
The slow rollout of the Biden-approved EV stations is in part due to cumbersome rules and regulations required to access the money. That’s no surprise.
But it’s actually having a broader negative impact, slowing the growth of EV stations overall.
In the two years before Biden signed that infrastructure bill, the number of EV charging stations grew by roughly 20,000, according to data compiled by the Department of Energy. In the two years since, just 16,000 stations went online, even as EV sales accelerated. The result is that the ratio of charging stations to EVs is about half what it was in 2021. The administration says not to worry, because the buildout will soon take off. We aren’t holding our breath.
But even if the stations do start to roll out, these numbers don’t account for the large number of charging ports that aren’t working at any given time because of communication failures, power outages, software bugs, or other problems with the complicated tech.
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https://issuesinsights.com/2024/05/17/bidens-7-5-billion-ev-charger-plan-backfires-spectacularly/
