LONDON, Ohio — Inside 24 hours of shopping for his red Ford Mustang Mach-E, Liam Sawyer set off on a camping trip.
Sawyer, who bought the electrical SUV “because I feel the technology is cool and the range is just long enough,” searched ahead of time for convenient charging stations between his home in Indianapolis and Allegheny National Forest in western Pennsylvania.
About 175 miles (282 kilometers) into his journey, he stopped at a brand new public charging station on the Pilot Travel Center along Interstate 70 outside Columbus, Ohio. The station, which opened in London, Ohio, in December with 4 chargers, can power an EV in about half an hour while drivers buy food and drinks and use amenities.
That first charge cost Sawyer, a 32-year-old civil engineer, about $20.
The Ohio charging station was created from the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, a part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill President Joe Biden signed into law in November 2021. Greater than two years later, only 4 states — Ohio, Latest York, Pennsylvania and Hawaii — have opened stations funded by this system.
Biden, a Democrat, has set a goal of making a national network of 500,000 publicly available chargers by 2030. Easily accessible charging ports are a key a part of his effort to encourage drivers to maneuver away from gasoline-powered cars and trucks that contribute to global warming.
That effort took on greater urgency this month because the Biden administration announced latest automobile emissions standards that officials called probably the most ambitious plan ever to chop planet-warming pollution from passenger vehicles. Meeting those standards would require an enormous increase in sales of EVs and plug-in hybrids.
EVs hit a record 1.19 million in sales within the U.S. last yr and accounted for 7.6% of the entire U.S. vehicle market, up from 5.8% in 2022.
Transportation emissions are the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gases.
The Biden administration says the federal charging program is on the right track. Several states, including Maine, Vermont and Colorado, are expected to open public charging stations later this yr, while greater than a dozen others have awarded contracts for projects or broken ground.
“We’re constructing this national framework from scratch, partnering with states to set plans, and we wish to ensure that we’re taking appropriate care to set this program up appropriately,″ Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt said in an interview.
“The primary two years were about getting the foundations right, getting the plans in place,” Bhatt said. “And now what you’re going to see is that this yr being in regards to the chargers coming online.”
As a part of the national charging station rollout, the Biden administration awarded $623 million in grants to states, local governments and tribes in January. The grants will fund 47 EV charging stations and related projects in 22 states and Puerto Rico, including 7,500 charging ports.
Individually, Walmart and other private corporations have pledged to construct a network of reasonably priced fast-charging stations for EVs. The federal program can be expected to function a catalyst for other projects.
“We’re committed to creating sure that every one Americans can charge (their EVs) where they live, work, shop, play, pray,″ said Gabe Klein, director of the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, which runs the federal charging program.
But even among the government’s own experts say 500,000 public chargers won’t be enough to fulfill Biden’s ambitious climate goals. The Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated last yr that the U.S. will need 1.2 million public chargers by 2030, an enormous jump from the 175,00 public charging ports now available, as measured by the Alternative Fuels Data Center, a division of the Energy Department.
The supply of charging stations is vital to persuading Americans to purchase EVs.
Driving range anxiety remains to be an impediment, together with cost. About 80% of respondents cited concerns about a scarcity of charging stations as a reason not to purchase an electrical vehicle, in response to a 2023 survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute on the University of Chicago.
Seven in 10 said they might not buy an EV since it takes too long to charge and the battery technology isn’t ready.
In some parts of the country — especially rural areas removed from major cities — “there are definitely corridors where you might have worries about range anxiety,” Bhatt said. “It’ll take longer to get to them, identical to it took longer to get cellphone coverage in those places.”
But he said the administration’s goal is to have chargers every 50 miles (80 kilometers) along U.S. interstates. Other major charging networks offered by Tesla, EVgo and Electrify America prioritize shopping centers, gas stations and grocery stores, but long-distance travel is where many Americans perceive the largest gap.
As Biden doubles down on clean energy as a part of his reelection campaign, it’s notable that Ohio, a swing state led by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, was considered one of the primary movers within the federal charging endeavor.
“Electric vehicles are the longer term of transportation, and we wish drivers in Ohio to have access to this technology today,” said DeWine, who appeared on the Ohio station’s grand opening in December.
A state Department of Transportation program, DriveOhio, served because the charging station’s organizational structure. A public-private partnership authority helped supply money needed for the project after the federal program contributed 80% of the estimated $500,000 to $750,000 cost, including buildout, operation and maintenance for five years.
“I actually don’t think these are moving very slow. I feel they’re going really quickly on condition that they’re tiny construction projects that we’re deploying at a fairly significant scale,” said Preeti Choudhary, DriveOhio’s executive director. “Getting them in the bottom quickly is significant because we do have this growing contingency of EV drivers on the market they usually must be supported after they’re driving across our state or across the country.”
Meeting federal requirements and operating standards is a challenge for states with little experience rolling out the sort of infrastructure, in response to Loren McDonald, an independent analyst tracking the buildout.
“The states are moving at very different speeds,” he said. “It’d take an excellent 18 months on average for a variety of these stations to come back online.”
Projects could be held up for months to years by delays with permitting, approvals, electrical upgrades and equipment. The latter could be costly. In California, the state with probably the most electric cars, its Public Utilities Commission could spend $50 billion through 2035 just to fulfill demand there.
Sawyer, who was charging his Mustang as semi-trucks lined up at rows of gas pumps nearby, said he intends to mostly charge his automobile at home overnight, but he appreciates the general public stations for his occasional road trips. He doesn’t mind the half-hour charging time.
“Having the 20 minutes to half-hour to form of rest your feet, get lunch isn’t that bad should you’re not in a rush,” he said. “If you might have the luxurious of time, it’s value it.”
“I definitely think the infrastructure must rise up there more, right?” he said. “And faster charging will come.”
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Daly reported from Washington. St. John reported from Detroit.
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