Shailen Bhatt, administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, testifies before the Senate on Wednesday. (AP)
WASHINGTON — Just seven electric-vehicle (EV) charging stations have begun operating with funding from a $5-billion U.S. government program created in 2021, marking “pathetic” progress, a Democratic senator said on Wednesday.
Automakers and others say drastically expanding EV-charging stations is crucial to the wide deployment of electrical vehicles, that are a part of the Biden Administration’s efforts to scale back greenhouse gas emissions.
The seven EV-charging stations deployed up to now under a 2021 U.S. program consist of a number of dozen total charging ports, said Shailen Bhatt, who heads the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), at a Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee hearing.
“That’s pathetic. We’re now three years into this. … That may be a vast administrative failure,” said Senator Jeff Merkley. “Something is very mistaken and it must be fixed.”
He also criticized the undeniable fact that EV-charging stations can’t be deployed at rest stops under existing federal highway rules.
Bhatt said he too is frustrated with slow deployment and said the agency is working with states on their plans to deploy EV chargers. “There are a lot of problems,” Bhatt said, noting states are coping with multiple programs.
Senate EPW committee chair Tom Automobileper said he was considering holding a hearing on slow EV-charging deployments. “We wish to ensure that that the federal money that now we have allocated is getting used for the proper purposes,” Automobileper said.
Republican lawmakers in February raised concerns with implementation of the EV program and said “little progress has been made.”
The White House goal is to grow the nationwide network of chargers to 500,000 ports, including high-speed chargers — not more than 50 miles (80 km) apart — on the nation’s busiest highways.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told Reuters on Tuesday that 27 states have issued business requests to construct charging stations and she or he expected about 1,000 EV-charging stations in public places to be operational by year-end from the federal government program.
“These are the toughest ones to do,” Granholm said, adding that some areas where charging stations shall be deployed don’t yet have electricity.
As of December, the US had 183,000 public charging ports, and for the reason that start of the Biden administration, the variety of publicly available fast-charging ports has increased by 90%, Bhatt said, adding he’s confident the US will hit the five hundred,000 charging port goal.
This Article First Appeared At www.autoblog.com
