Nicole Willing

The Biden-Harris Administration has awarded $521 million in grants to build out EV charging infrastructure across 29 states, two Federally Recognized Tribes and the District of Columbia (DC), including the deployment of more than 9,200 charging ports, the US Department of Energy has announced.

The grants are made possible through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s $2.5-billion Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Discretionary Grant Program and a 10% set-aside from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program. These programs have spurred private investments in charging infrastructure.

The financing will be split into two categories: $321 million will be allocated to 41 projects that expand charging infrastructure within communities and $200 million will go towards 10 fast-charging projects that will build out the national charging network along designated Alternative Fuel Corridors. This new infrastructure provides EV charging to light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles along designated highways, interstates, and major roadways.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) received requests from 277 applicants for a combined $2.1 billion in project financing. This funding round expands the total number of states with an awarded CFI project to 38, in addition to DC and Puerto Rico.

Since the start of the Administration, the number of publicly available EV chargers has doubled to over 192,000 ports and around 1,000 new public chargers are installed each week.

“As we build out the EV charging network on our highways, we are also investing in local communities, rural, urban and tribal alike. The grants are a critical part of ensuring every American can find a charger as easily as a gas station, which will decrease pollution from our roadways, lower costs for families, and help people get to where they need to go efficiently,” said Polly Trottenberg, US Deputy Secretary of Transportation.