Administration Announces Grants to Upgrade 4,500 Public EV Chargers

The Biden-Harris Administration is awarding nearly $150 million to 24 grant recipients in 20 states to make electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure more reliable. The grants will be used to repair or replace nearly 4,500 EV charging ports and, in some cases, bring them up to code. This is the latest milestone toward the President’s goal of bringing at least 500,000 public EV chargers online by the end of the decade.

“The EV revolution is here. To make the most of it we must ensure that everyone, from the largest cities to the most rural communities, has access to reliable EV charging infrastructure,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “These grants bring us another step closer to a national EV charging network that keeps up with the EV transition that’s well underway.”

Funding for these awards is part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda and comes from a new program from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program created under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). NEVI is a $5 billion program administered by the Federal Highway Administration and supported by the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation to help states build out EV charging.

“Charging your electric vehicle should be as easy and convenient as filling up a gas tank, and these grants will help do that by making our EV charging network more reliable,” said Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt. “We’re building a bigger and better EV charging network to keep up with driver demand, and we’re also ensuring the existing network works when you need a charge.”

Program rules stipulate a 10 percent set-aside for states or localities that require additional assistance to strategically deploy EV charging infrastructure. Eligible applicants and projects for the EV Charger Reliability and Accessibility Accelerator Program were outlined in a Notice of Funding Opportunity published in September. For a full list of grant recipients, visit the FHWA website.

Read more about the Biden-Harris Administration’s $7.5 billion investment to make the EV charging network bigger and more reliable and how it has helped spur more than $130 billion in new private-sector investment in electric vehicle, battery, and EV charging manufacturing—including more than $155 billion in U.S. EV battery manufacturing alone.

For more information on the BIL and investments in electric vehicles, visit FHWA’s BIL website.