WASHINGTON (AP) – The bipartisan compromise on infrastructure halves President Joe Biden’s request to build $ 15 billion to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations.
Senate legislation provides for $ 7.5 billion federal grants to build a national network of charging stations, an amount that analysts believe is a good start but not enough to fuel the proliferation of electric vehicles.
Still, even the smaller amount can be effective when placed in the right places, said Jessika Trancik, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies electric vehicle charging.
“When half the funding comes in, you have to be twice as strategic and twice as thoughtful,” she said.
Biden has made the fight against climate change a political priority, and the broad draft compromise reached after intense negotiations brings some steps towards his goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. His efforts to move America’s car and truck fleet from polluting internal combustion engines to zero-emission electric drives to move. Many drivers hesitate to switch because they fear that the power will run out and there is no charging station in sight.
The back and forth in a tightly divided Congress on EV funding reflects a difficult balance for the auto industry and the Biden government. The transportation sector is the single largest contributor to climate change in the United States.
According to the Department of Energy, there are currently just over 43,000 charging stations with more than 106,000 sockets in the USA. All-electric vehicles accounted for only 2.2% of US new vehicle sales in the first half of this year, or around 1.1 million vehicles on the roads.
The Biden government had planned to build half a million loading units across the country to fulfill an election pledge and get a sizable number of Americans to zero-emission vehicles by 2030, a public-private investment infrastructure bank to be created in the Senate draft.
But the president’s plans fizzled out on Wednesday after lawmakers haggled, abandoned, and got rid of wage laws for transportation projects covered by the $ 20 billion bank. The White House now says it won’t set a specific target for the loading units but is hoping to find other funding to fill the void.
“The future of cars is electric and we are ready,” tweeted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday after the bipartisan deal was announced.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the Biden administration plans to release proposed rules for exhaust emission standards as early as next week, including a non-binding statement that at least 40% of US sales are electric vehicles, according to government and industry sources below the condition spoke anonymity to reveal details that are still in progress.
While Ford CEO Jim Farley announced on Wednesday that he expects 40% of the company’s sales to be all-electric vehicles by 2030, other companies are still debating whether to support that figure. Stellantis, for example, has committed itself to 40% in the USA, but also includes “low-emission vehicles” such as gas-electric hybrids in its mix.
Last year, U.S. automakers sped up the announcement of new electric vehicles, spending billions to develop them. Some, including General Motors and Volvo, have set a goal of selling only electric cars by 2035.
But almost everyone has said that government incentives are needed to convince people to switch to the new technology, at least until electric car prices fall as more is produced and sold. And they have said government spending on charging infrastructure is essential to overcoming consumer fear of running out of power.
Biden originally proposed $ 174 billion in his Build Back Better plan to boost the electric vehicle market, including tax credits and other incentives to encourage consumers to adopt the newer technology. While only $ 7.5 billion goes to charging stations in the bipartisan bill, Democrats are expected to add around $ 100 billion in electric car tax credits in a separate $ 3.5 trillion “reconciliation bill” . The support of all 50 Democratic senators is required for this law to pass.
“When a reconciliation bill comes up with 10-digit guaranteed EV rebate money, it will go a long way in reassuring automakers they can ramp up production,” said Jeff Davis, senior fellow at the Eno Center for Transportation.
The automakers have made it clear that the government needs to help convert internal combustion engines.
“Much of this transition will depend on government support and infrastructure development,” Ford’s Farley said during his second quarter conference call Wednesday.
According to a survey by Consumer Reports last December, fear of limited range and availability of charging points was one of the top concerns consumers have when owning an electric vehicle.
Currently, electric vehicle owners charge 80% of their vehicles at home. But that’s likely to change as more people buy electric cars that don’t have a garage for a charging station.
New chargers should be located based on models that predict where they will be needed, said Trancik of MIT. They should be placed along travel corridors for people who travel long distances, as well as in areas where people spend a lot of time, such as hotels, residential parking lots, and even along public roads, she said. The government will also need to incentivize charging stations to be built in less populated rural areas, she said.
DC quick chargers, which can charge a car to 80% of its battery capacity in 20 to 45 minutes, are quite expensive at $ 40,000 to $ 100,000. So these should be placed where people need to recharge quickly and get back on the road.
Chargers that run on 240-volt electricity, similar to a clothes dryer, are far cheaper at around $ 2,000. It takes about eight hours to fully charge a car. Trancik says they can be used effectively and at a much lower cost in areas where people will be staying for long periods of time.
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Krisher reported from Detroit.
