It looks like the Joe Biden administration's Department of Energy (DOE) is in a hurry: it just approved a $1.25 billion loan to EVgo, the US operator of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. , for the construction of 7,500 new fast charging stations completed nationwide.
The announcement comes just as the new administration of President-elect Donald Trump has signaled that it wants to eliminate much of the existing spending on EV initiatives.
EVgo says the expansion will expand its total owned-and-operated network to at least 10,000 fast charging stations by 2029. The new chargers will be deployed across the United States, including Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.
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“This public-private partnership will help us further expand our operations to serve the influx of vehicle options that will be available to American consumers in the coming years,” EVgo CEO Badar Khan said in a statement.
The EVgo rollout includes an innovative technology called Dynamic Power Sharing that allows electric vehicles to charge as quickly as possible, the DOE said. The chargers allow users to start charging without a credit card or phone.
Last week, the Department of Energy and a private consortium announced they would launch a universal protocol that will allow all electric vehicles to easily plug in and charge at any public station in the U.S. in 2025.
A still sparse charging infrastructure is often cited as one of the main obstacles for motorists in transitioning to full electric vehicle adoption.
When the Biden administration took office in 2021, it set a goal of building 500,000 chargers by 2030 and committed $7.5 billion to that goal. According to the Department of Energy, there are currently more than 204,000 publicly accessible charging ports in the U.S., more than twice as many chargers as when Biden took office.
Last year alone, 38,000 new public chargers were added. The current rate adds nearly 1,000 chargers each week, thanks to a combination of direct federal funding, state tax incentives, state and local funding, and private investment.
EVgo is also partnering with General Motors to build charging stations in 32 states. The two recently announced their 2,000th co-branded public fast charging station.
While the new Trump administration has signaled that it will eliminate existing spending, such as the $7,500 tax credit for the purchase of new electric vehicles, it is still unclear how much of the infrastructure projects already approved could be reversed.
According to E2, a nonpartisan group, nearly 85% of the investments and 68% of the jobs created by the Biden administration's clean energy initiatives benefited Republican states that supported Trump.
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