The US Department of Energy announced a $1.25 billion loan to electric vehicle charging company EVgo as the Biden administration races to finalize its spending on EVs before Donald Trump takes office. The money will fund EVgo’s plans to install approximately 7,500 chargers at roughly 1,100 charging stations across the US over the next five years, with a particular focus on fast-charging 350kW stalls that can charge two vehicles simultaneously.
But more importantly, it shows how President Joe Biden is intent on doling out as much money for EV projects as he can before leaving office. Trump has promised to reverse or cancel much of the spending by Biden on EVs once he assumes office. He has said he will kill the $7,500 tax credit for new EV purchases and wipe out the rest of the spending from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) on EV charging infrastructure.
With a little more than a month left in office, Biden’s Energy Department has been furiously approving EV-related loans. Stellantis and Samsung were given preliminary approval for $7.54 billion for a battery factory in Indiana, while Rivian will receive $6.6 billion for an EV plant in Georgia.
The loans are also intended to be job creators, the administration says. For example, EVgo said its expansion project will support the creation of 180 external construction jobs and over 550 maintenance and support jobs.
EVgo, which is based in Los Angeles, is working with General Motors on the installation of thousands of EV chargers across the country. The companies recently celebrated the activation of their 2,000th charging stall.
The fragmented and frustrating nature of our current EV charging landscape has been widely — and correctly — cited as one of the most significant barriers to EV adoption. Owners frequently complain about unreliable charging or broken equipment as one of the most frustrating things about driving an EV.
After his election, Biden vowed to build 500,000 chargers by 2030 as a way to spur more EV sales, including $7.5 billion for charging expansion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. While the first few years of funding were rather sluggish, recent updates have shown that things are finally picking up.
In its release, the DOE said, “there are currently more than 204,000 publicly available charging ports, with nearly 38,000 new public chargers already having been added this year and nearly 1,000 new public chargers being added every week thanks to a combination of direct federal funding, federal tax incentives, state and local funding, and private investment.”
That includes both Level 2 chargers and DC fast chargers. That’s roughly double the number of ports in operation at the outset of 2021 when Biden first took office.