Last fall, the Biden administration approved $7.5 billion of federal funding for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, hoping it would catalyze further investment from the private sector. It seems to be working.
According to a fact sheet released by the White House on Tuesday, private companies have pledged more than $700 million to boost the manufacturing and installation of EV chargers. The investments from charging network operators, auto companies, and technology companies are expected to create at least 2,000 “good-paying” jobs and help the U.S. manufacture some 250,000 chargers per year.
“Today, the auto industry renaissance continues as the private sector steps up to invest in American-made charging across the country,” the White House wrote in its press release.
An effort by the technology company Siemens to build 1 million EV chargers by 2025, for example, has led to more than $250 million in investment over the past six months, and a new manufacturing facility for EV chargers is scheduled to begin operations later this year. Other EV charger companies, like ChargePoint and ABB E-mobility, are adding manufacturing lines to make faster chargers and creating new research facilities to test chargers for the market. Separately, hundreds of thousands of dollars in philanthropic donations are expected to boost EV-related job training for women and workers of color.
The “record-breaking” investments are part of a string of recent actions that the federal government has taken to boost EV infrastructure, including offering billions of federal dollars for states to build charging stations in areas where they’re sparse. Earlier this month, the Biden administration also proposed new rules for federally financed EV chargers that would require standardized payment systems and charging speeds — part of a broader push to create a nationwide network of 500,000 public charging stations by 2030. Read original full article
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Atlantis Viewpoint
This is the kind of investment and additional resources we need to see. Unfortunately we can't just stop using fossil fuels tomorrow, our cars, vans, trucks, ambulances, police cars all need to get where they are going. But if we can create a reliable charging network for our electric vehicles it will be make it easier to make the right choice between an electric car or a petrol vehicle.
As we know our global electricity production is still massively supplied by fossil fuel plants, but we cannot wait for that to change before we update our infrastructure. Switching from petrol cars to electric cars will currently only put a bigger demand on fossil fuel electricity production, so this will only shift the location of the problem not actual solve any of it. However, it is a step in the right direction, than at the same time we need to start taking all investment in new electricity power plants and ensuring they are all True Clean Energy power plants; solar, wind, tidal, geothermal. Or at least renewable sources; wood pellets, bio-fuel.
One of the main points that makes drivers hesitate in buying an electric car is the fear of not being able to charge it when they are traveling longer distances. This huge expansion, the same as we have with hundreds of thousands of petrol stations, will help put drivers minds at ease and start a far bigger transition to electric cars.
However until we are producing our electricity from clean energy sources we are not truly solving the air pollution and Greenhouse Gas emission problems. Let's make sure this happens now.
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