The Biden administration has come under fire for its $7.5billion rollout of electric vehicle charging stations – which is moving at a snail’s pace.
The administration pledged in 2021 to roll out 500,000 stations by 2030 in a bid to calm ‘range anxiety’ which has made Americans hesitant about purchasing EVs.
But the initiative has just 102 fully operational units in nine states including New York, Hawaii, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
When asked about the slow roll-out, a Federal Highway Administration spokesperson directed DailyMail.com to a statement issued by the transport secretary.
Pete Buttigieg said the $7.5 billion has not been spent yet, clarifying that the money is ‘the entire program budget for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program.’
He added that the operational chargers ‘are only the first handful though. Most are to be built in the 2nd half of the decade.’
But the sluggish rollout comes as Biden’s mandate that the majority of new cars need to be electric by 2032 quickly approaches, though president-elect Donald Trump has signaled he plans to scrap that rule.
The transportation secretary’s comments come just months after Buttigieg came under fire when it was revealed just eight chargers had been built as of May.
Americans have paid an ‘absurd’ number of taxes toward the Biden administration’s push to build EV charging stations – but just eight were built in four years.
‘In order to do a charger, it’s more than just plunking a small device into the ground – there’s utility work, and also this is really a new category of federal investment,’ said Buttigieg.
‘But we’ve been working with each of the 50 states, every one of them is getting formula dollars to do this work, engaging them in the first handful.’
Gabe Klein, the executive director of the Joint Office, said: ‘We expect to see hundreds of federally funded chargers operational this year.’
However, sales of EVs dropped in the first quarter of 2024 from 8.1 percent to 7.0 percent, suggesting demand for eco-friendly vehicles is losing demand among Americans.
President Biden launched the NEVI to transition to electric vehicles in an attempt to reduce carbon emissions and curb climate change.
The plan, written in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, gave $5 billion toward building a charging network along US highways and $2.5 billion in Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI).
While nine states have already used federal money to build new stations, there is construction happening in another four states. Another dozen states have been awarded construction contracts, but 17 haven’t issued proposals yet.
In August, the Biden-Harris Administration announced another $521 million in grants to continue building out EV charging and alternative-fueling infrastructure across 29 states.
In the resurfaced video, Buttigieg said on CBS’ Face the Nation that even though only eight chargers were built, President Biden still plans to reach his EV goals by 2030, adding: ‘the very first handful of chargers are now already being physically built.’
The announcement was in response to a letter penned by Republicans in February, questioning why EV chargers are being built at such a slow rate, despite taxpayers paying billions of dollars toward the initiative.
‘We have significant concerns that under your efforts American taxpayer dollars are being woefully mismanaged,’ wrote Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Washington), Jeff Duncan (R-South Carolina) and Morgan Griffith (R-Virginia).
‘The problems with these programs continue to grow — delays in the delivery of chargers, concerns from States about labor contracting requirements and minimum operating standards for chargers,’ the letter continued.
On top of delays, Biden’s new chargers must meet higher expectations than the fast-charging alternatives.
There are roughly 10,000 ‘fast’ charging stations across the country – 2,000 of which are Tesla superchargers – but the non-Tesla equivalents have been criticized for their poor performance.
Fast-chargers can provide an electric vehicle with a full battery in 30 minutes.
Biden’s stations are required to be fully operational 97 percent of the time, be no more than one mile from US highways and provide 150kW of power.
Building one Level 2 electric charging station can cost upwards of $10,000 to $20,000 just for the equipment, not including the price tag associated with regular maintenance.
‘I think that there was an expectation the program would move quickly, very quickly, without considering all of those different components,’ Erin Belt, decarbonization program manager at the Virginia Department of Transportation told E&E News.
The initiative is expected to pick up between 2026 and 2028, according to Klein, who said that’s when taxpayers will see their money having the most impact.
Biden also proposed another rule in September that would provide $1,000 in individual tax credits for installation of the equipment.
This would only be available to residents living in low-income and non-urban areas who are exposed to higher levels of vehicle pollution from the EV charger delivery trucks.
‘This new tax credit will further help consumers and businesses across the country make the affordable choice of clean vehicles,’ US Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk said.
Each EV charging station requires as much electricity as that used to power 20 homes. Pictured: a charging station located in London, Ohio
Charging stations come in three levels, the first which is the slowest takes 40 to 50 hours to charge while Level 2 – the most commonly used in homes, workplaces and public spaces – takes between four and 10 hours to charge.
The third level is the fast-charging option that’s most commonly used by Tesla.
A significant amount of energy is needed to operate the Level 2 station, with each charger needing the equivalent electricity used to power 20 homes.
‘We are building a national EV charging network from scratch, and we want to get it right,’ a spokesperson for the Federal Highway Administration told The Washington Post in March.
‘After developing program guidance and partnering with states to guide implementation plans, we are hitting our stride as states move quickly to bring NEVI stations online.’
Whether Biden’s EV initiative will be safe from President-elect Donald Trump who has vowed to redistribute the funds to build ‘important projects like roads, bridges [and] dams’ has become a point of contention in recent weeks.
But experts say that despite the slow roll-out of EV chargers, Trump won’t be able to reallocate the funds, according to Andrew Rogers, who helped write the programs when he was chief counsel for Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee told Politico.
‘Regardless of whether their funding is fully obligated by January 20 next year, these programs aren’t going anywhere,’ Rogers said.
DailyMail.com has reached out to the Federal Transportation Administration for comment.