Trump Administration pauses EV infrastructure expansion program – Here’s why

The Trump Administration announced today that it would be pausing the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program (NEVI) in an effort to realign federal spending with the priorities of the new White House.

It is the latest move that President Donald Trump has made to essentially put tax dollars that are used toward the EV transition on hold. The NEVI program was put into effect by the Biden Administration and received many points of criticism as the $5 billion project yielded very few new charging stations and ports despite the massive price tag.

Biden administration announces $5B budget to develop EV charging network in the U.S.

A letter released by Emily Biondi, the Associate Administrator of the Office of Planning for Environment and Realty for the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) said the new leadership of the Department of Transportation has decided to review the policies “underlying the implementation of the NEVI Formula Program.”

All approved State Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment plans for all fiscal years have been suspended.

“Therefore, effective immediately, no new obligations may occur under the NEVI Formula Program until the updated final NEVI Formula Program Guidance is issued and new State plans are submitted and approved,” the letter said.

The Trump Administration has made it clear that it is willing to cut spending in any and all ways possible in order to reduce the federal debt count and make the government run more efficiently. This is interesting because this is the role of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is run by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla.

The NEVI program was a slow starter. According to the Washington Post, only seven new charging stations with 38 ports in total had been opened under the program as of March 2024. In Q4, there were 126 public EV charging points in 31 NEVI-backed stations in nine states.

This is a very slow start considering the amount of funding that was put toward the project, which aimed to expand the accessibility of EV charging stations for drivers.

EV charging is among the main concerns of prospective owners. While there are plenty of at-home solutions to charging, it is nearly unavoidable to have a need for public charging in a widespread manner, especially if drivers tend to commute long distances or perform extensive travel with their vehicles.

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