The Biden administration is pumping billions of dollars in tax dollars into making electric vehicle (EV) chargers, but slow market demand and government red tape are slowing the pace, according to experts who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation. He says work is getting in the way.

Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced Thursday, just a week after announcing $150 million in grants to upgrade existing public EV chargers announcement Another $623 million in grants would go to states to ramp up EV charger construction. The grants from FHWA are part of two EV charger programs that the Biden administration established in the November 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Act: the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Discretionary Grant Program. Part of it. A total of $7.5 billion has been designated for charger construction and upgrades.

However, as of December, only two stations have been constructed due to NEVI. according to Experts told DCNF that a lack of demand, regulation and union requirements are holding up construction. (Related: Democrats' demands on automakers could backfire on their climate problems and Americans' wallets, experts say)

Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told DCNF that federal regulations related to specific site conditions must be met before the project can be completed, adding to the bureaucratic red tape. he said. Furthermore, the government's insistence on devoting resources to specific constituencies to strengthen the incumbent government's electoral prospects has placed limits on the procurement of those assets.

“This is a disruption of central planning,” Lewis told DCNF. “Subsidies exceed the scale of market demand. Each state has to pay for things like the distance between charging stations, how many charging ports per charging station must be built, and how many must be installed in disadvantaged areas. Additionally, central planning and politics are closely aligned, meaning that the workforce must be union-certified and that materials such as steel and must be sourced from U.S. companies.”

There are a number of restrictions on the rollout of EV chargers that are slowing installation progress.

For example, there is FHWA. regulations All electricians working on the project must be certified through the International Union of Electrical Workers Electric Vehicle Industry Training Program or receive charger-specific training to become certified in a Department of Labor-approved certification program .

Dan Kish, a senior research fellow at the Energy Institute, said certification or union recognition requirements for electricians working on chargers limit the number of workers who can work on installations, leaving fewer workers to work on them. He said more wages would be paid. he told DCNF.

“The union probably won't look favorably on certifying non-union electricians,” Kish told DCNF. “So, you brought the paperwork in there. Having the paperwork on environmental injustice means you’re bringing the environment into areas where the economy is depressed, and states have to We are supposed to come up with areas that meet these criteria.”

According to the FHWA, the Biden administration's goal for introducing EV chargers is to direct 40% of federal investment benefits to “disadvantaged communities that are underinvested, marginalized, and overburdened by pollution.” There is. These are communities that generally do not have the disposable income needed to purchase an EV, and the current price for a new EV as of January 2024 is $50,798. according to To the car edge.

The push for EV chargers is part of President Joe Biden's broader goal to make half of all new cars sold by 2030 electric. To facilitate the transition, Biden has sought to lower prices by creating a $7,500 tax credit for EVs.

John “Private Jet/Climate Emperor” Kelly:

Biden has a “very clear policy” on electric vehicles, but “unfortunately, we're under attack from people who engage in sophisticated disinformation.” pic.twitter.com/FnZvEY1Ttj

— Project TABS (@ProjectTabs) January 18, 2024

“Thanks to record federal investment in President Biden's investment policy in America, we are on track to build a national network of 500,000 publicly accessible chargers by 2026, and the president's election “We will reach our athletic goals four years early,” said Assistant Press Secretary Robin Patterson. he told DCNF at the White House. “Since he took office, the number of publicly available charging ports has increased by nearly 70%, and there are now more than 170,000 publicly available EV chargers. In addition, President Biden Since taking office, EV sales have more than quadrupled, with more than 4.5 million EVs in use.”

Currently, there are only about 60,000 unique EV charging stations in the United States with multiple chargers. according to to the Department of Energy. The number of EV chargers in operation has increased over the past few years, but that increase has been largely independent of government funding, with top EV manufacturer Tesla building 6,000 fast chargers in 2023. and charger operators such as ChargePoint Holdings and EVgo.Co., Ltd. according to Become a market insider.

“President Biden's goal of spending taxpayer dollars on environmental initiatives is to direct cash away rather than deliver results for families,” Larry Behrens, communications director for Power the Future, told DCNF. It seems to be the case,” he said. “The bottom line is clear: If Americans demand electric vehicles and charging stations, the free market will provide them, and Joe Biden will have to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to try to build them. No.”

Despite subsidies pushing down costs for consumers, the market share of EVs sold in the overall auto market in December 2023 was just 3.6%, up from 3.1% in January last year. according to To cloud theory. Although sales grew only modestly, the U.S. auto industry's inventory share increased from 2.8% in January 2023 to 5.7% in December 2023, thanks to incentives from the Biden administration.

“So these things are unlikely to meet a need, and the government can't determine what that need is anyway,” Kish told DCNF. “They don't have the ability to do that. These are intrapreneurs and people who look at the market and say, 'We should put in an EV charger.' “You can make some money on the side'' is how you actually do this, but this program doesn't do that. This program “donates money to organizations that support us in elections.''

There have also been concerns about the reliability of EV charging stations, with drivers in Chicago unable to charge their EVs in January due to frigid temperatures. The Biden administration has previously dismissed concerns that the performance of EV batteries would be severely affected by cold weather.

“They're basically trying to understand how things are done in the real world, as opposed to thinking they can just issue orders to people in a big office somewhere in Washington, D.C.” We're facing the reality of what's going on,'' Kish told DCNF.

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