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On Thursday, the U.S. Division of Transportation (DOT) unveiled plans to award $150 million in grants to restore or change nearly 4,500 EV charging stations. The transfer is a part of the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to strengthen and broaden EV charging networks within the U.S., and comes per week after the division announced $623 million in grants to construct roughly 7,500 EV charging ports, including to the administration’s objective of at the least 500,000 publicly accessible chargers by 2030.
EV drivers, particularly these within the Upper Midwest and Great Plains areas, have reported an absence of handy and dependable charging stations. And in accordance with a report launched final yr, round 80% of Individuals say they’d not buy an EV resulting from an absence of obtainable charging stations.
Biden’s continued funding in EV charging networks hopes to alter that pattern. The funding introduced immediately will go to 24 recipients in 20 states. It comes from the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, which was not too long ago created beneath the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation.
“The EV revolution is right here,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg mentioned within the announcement. “To take advantage of it, we should make sure that everybody, from the biggest cities to probably the most rural communities, has entry to dependable EV charging infrastructure.”
Whereas the EV revolution could also be right here, it has misplaced steam in current months. EV gross sales have greater than quadrupled since Biden turned president, the DOT experiences. However whereas EV gross sales grew in 2023, the speed of gross sales progress slowed in comparison with earlier years, with a 40% year-over-year improve in This autumn in comparison with a 52% improve in the identical quarter of 2022, in accordance with knowledge from Cox Automotive.
Biden’s continued funding in EV additionally comes as rental automotive firm Hertz announced plans last week to promote a 3rd of its international EV fleet, pointing to produce and demand discrepancies.
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