The Biden administration is setting out to build hundreds of thousands of electric vehicle chargers over the next seven years, but the ambitious project faces some significant logistical hurdles.
Meeting President Joe Biden's sales targets for EVs will require exponential growth of new charging infrastructure needed to fuel them, and billions in new federal charger funding makes the initiative more feasible. But that money comes with strings attached in the form of domestic content requirements that manufacturers and some project developers warn threatens to slow down building.
Under the standards, fund recipients will also have to comply with"Build America, Buy America" conditions designed to strengthen domestic manufacturing. The FHWA has long-standing requirements applying to any infrastructure project it funds, such that all steel and iron that are"permanently incorporated" into a project must be produced in the U.S., unless those requirements are waived.
Some manufacturers, including Tesla, assemble chargers in the U.S., making compliance with Buy America's requirements easier to achieve, but other manufacturers and project developers sought more flexibility. They say the waiver is not sufficient. "In order to transition to U.S. manufactured chargers for federally funded programs, purchasers like EVgo can either work with their existing foreign suppliers to shift production to the U.S., or can qualify new domestically produced chargers for installation. Unfortunately, the proposed phased-in timeline is insufficient for either option," EVgo said in comments to the waiver proposal last year.
Biden committed the U.S. to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 under the Paris climate agreement, and transportation remains the largest source of emissions. Vic Shao, president of BP Pulse Fleet, the electrification business for the multinational energy giant, explained the difficulty he had during a trip he took to White Sands National Park in New Mexico in his EV.
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