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"Biden had a plan to keep America’s EV chargers in good working order. Trump pulled the plug."
by Maddie Stone for Grist [Mar 07, 2025} [Audio available]

Quotes:
"Public electric vehicle chargers break down for a variety of reasons.../\..a few of the reasons that about 12,000 of the 212,000-odd public electric vehicle chargers scattered around the United States are inoperable right now. Some are down for scheduled maintenance, but many more are simply broken, with nobody coming to fix them."

"The Biden administration wanted../\..standards for EV chargers. These standards meant that owners who received government subsidies were obligated to repair broken chargers — or risk losing their funding."

"On February 6, the Trump administration suspended the Department of Transportation program behind those standards, freezing billions of dollars of unawarded funds intended to strengthen the country’s EV charging network../\..it will not only mean fewer chargers getting built along highways, but more chargers failing to get fixed."

"..many experts believe that charging a battery needs to be as convenient as filling a gas tank. The first step is building lots more public chargers, which is what then-president Joe Biden and Congress tried to do../\..The legislation included $5 billion for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure, or NEVI, program."

"NEVI is focused on building DC fast chargers — which can fill a battery in as little as 30 minutes — along key highway corridors to enable long-distance EV travel. The program requires states to develop and submit EV infrastructure deployment plans to the federal government."

"The program was considered integral to the Biden administration’s goal of developing a national network of half a million public EV chargers by 2030, as well as to the larger objective of getting Americans off gas-powered cars../\..But installing enough chargers to support tens of millions of EV drivers doesn’t mean much if they aren’t kept in good working order."

"Early data shows that NEVI-funded charging stations — of which there are only 60 open so far — score about 10 points higher than non-NEVI-funded ones../\..The program’s 97 percent uptime requirement is “very important” for ensuring EV chargers are fit for purpose."

"Outside of NEVI’s relatively tiny existing network, the reliability of EV chargers varies from location to location and company to company. Tesla, which owns and operates about half of all DC fast chargers in the country and is the second-largest recipient of NEVI funds to date, is widely considered to have the most reliable charging network out there."

“Love or hate Tesla, the charging experience is very successful,”

"Bowermaster and Ferro cited several reasons for Tesla’s success, as both a carmaker and power supplier, Tesla collects reams of data on the status of its chargers and Tesla drivers’ habits, which can help inform charger maintenance and repair plans."

"When a hotel, restaurant, or mall owner decides to put a handful of EV chargers in the parking lot, it’s typically “up to that site owner to have a maintenance contract,” Ferro said.
They can choose to have a maintenance contract with the [manufacturer] that put them in, or they can choose another company,” he added. “Or they can do nothing.”

"The NEVI program, which kicked off in 2022 and runs through 2026, has already allocated about $3.3 billion to states. But because of delays getting the program up and running, so far only $616 million has been awarded to companies to build just over 1,000 charging sites that will contain over 4,500 individual charge ports."

"On Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order that sought to “terminate” Biden-era climate programs, which he referred to as the “Green New Deal.” Since then, his administration has frozen “obligated” spending related to all manner of projects funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act."

"The portion of the $616 million that NEVI has promised to companies but not yet paid out appears to be unaffected by Trump’s abrupt suspension of contractually obligated funding.
But the more than $2.6 billion that states have not awarded in contracts now appears frozen."

"And it could permanently tamp down on EV charger deployment in states that were less enthusiastic about the program to begin with../\..some states are spending all the federal funds they have obligated and remain committed to building more chargers with or without federal support. But others pressed pause on their charger deployment plans even before the Federal Highway Administration issued its letter."

"“To me, it feels a little bit like this is an indefinite pause,” she said.
“I can’t say that with certainty, but that’s the fear that I have.”

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