President Donald Trump may be unable to stop the rollout of hundreds of thousands of public electric vehicle (EV) chargers across the U.S. During his presidential campaign, Trump made it clear that he opposed the Biden administration’s investments in electric vehicle infrastructure and would rescind all the unspent funds the previous administration had dedicated to EVs.
As one of the largest investments the Biden administration had made into EVs, the plan to build a network of 500,000 EV chargers by the end of the decade seemed an obvious target for the notoriously anti-EV GOP candidate. However, experts say the matter is already out of the federal government’s hands and is now in the purview of the states.
The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act essentially delegated the task to states by launching the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program and endowing it with $5 billion in funding. State departments of transportation would be responsible for building EV charging stations and would receive $1 billion annually from 2022 to 2026 to fund the construction efforts.
Although most of these funds have already been distributed, states were required to spend 12 months crafting a plan for the federal government’s approval. 3V Infrastructure CEO Aubrey Gunnels says the next step would be to award private companies with contracts to build the chargers. A November 2024 report from the Associated Press says just 214 public chargers have been constructed via the NEVI program and 24,800 additional projects are in progress.
Experts say this is normal for a program with such complexity. Elaina Farnsworth, the CEO of a firm called SkillFusion that trains electrical workers, notes that there’s always a learning curve with change. Installing hundreds of thousands of EV chargers is a project of unprecedented scope and complexity, especially for state transport departments that are more accustomed to constructing highways and roads.
According to experts, the NEVI program will continue rolling out as most of the funds dedicated by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act have already been allocated to states. It would be surprising if the federal government attempts to retrieve this money from the states, Gunnels says. The Trump administration could halt future payments under the NEVI program, President Trump has already faced significant backlash after issuing an executive order to block all federal grants.
Even if the federal government declines to make future payments, states already have most of the funds earmarked for the program and can use them to implement EV charging projects, Farnsworth says. Wood Mackenzie principal analyst Max Reid predicts that additional NEVI stations will open this year with the deployment of EV charging infrastructure remaining steady in the first few months of the year.
As these additional public chargers come online, members of the public could become more willing to switch to EVs, and the sales of industry players such as Life Electric Vehicles Holdings Inc. (OTC: LFEV) could see an uptick from their current levels.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Life Electric Vehicles Holdings Inc. (OTC: LFEV) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/LFEV
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