Los Angeles County will use its $15 million Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) grant to install 1,263 Level 2 electric vehicle chargers at 15 community facilities, four park-and-ride transportation hubs, and 1,000 curbside light poles, according to the Federal Highway Administration’s Aug. 27 announcement of CFI grants totaling $521 million. 

The Los Angeles chargers are one of the 51 projects receiving federal funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), with the goal of installing chargers and alternative fueling stations “in the places people live and work ― urban and rural areas alike,” the FHWA said.   

The projects are spread across 29 states, the District of Columbia and eight tribal communities and split between 41 community-focused projects, receiving $321 million, and 10 “corridor” projects, receiving $200 million to install DC fast chargers along major highways and other roads designated as “alternative fuel corridors.”  

California received the largest award, $102 million, to install DC fast chargers and hydrogen fueling stations for medium- and heavy-duty trucks along 2,500 miles of key freight corridors running through California, Oregon and Washington state. (See West Coast Truck Charging Corridor Wins $102M in Federal Funds.) 

The FHWA description notes that “the project will enable the emissions-free movement of goods connecting major ports, freight centers and agricultural regions between the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada.”  

University City, Mo., a St. Louis suburb, got one of the smallest awards ― $500,000 ― to install its first EV chargers along the main street in a historically disadvantaged neighborhood.  

“As we build out the EV charging network on our highways, we are also investing in local communities, rural, urban and tribal alike,” Polly Trottenberg, deputy secretary of transportation, said in an FHWA announcement. “Today’s 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.”  

Borrowing a favorite line from President Joe Biden, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the CFI grants are “building infrastructure from the bottom up and the middle out. This investment puts public dollars in the hands of states, tribes and communities to build a more accessible national charging network.” 

The IIJA provided $2.5 billion for the competitive CFI program and an additional $5 billion for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, which allocates funds to each state based on a formula that accounts for factors like population, vehicle miles traveled and the number of registered EVs in the state. 

NEVI funds are aimed primarily at building out a network of DC fast chargers along U.S. highways, with the FHWA setting standards that require the federally funded charging stations to be located about every 50 miles along major routes and provide at least four 150-kW fast charging ports with 97% reliability. 

The competitive CFI grants are supposed to fill in gaps at the community level, where low-income and disadvantaged areas, and neighborhoods with multi-unit housing, may have few if any publicly available chargers.  

Other CFI grants include: 

• • $11.8 million to Atlanta, Ga., to build a hub of 50 DC fast chargers at the city’s Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The hub will “provide critical charging for rental car companies, ride-share drivers, airport shuttles for hotels, employees … as well as regional and local EV drivers coming to the airport.”  

• • $2.8 million to Ann Arbor, Mich., to install 48 publicly available EV chargers to “close gaps” in the city’s charging networks. Key locations for the new chargers will include park-and-ride lots, multi-unit housing and large retail areas. 

• • $15 million to the Fort Independence Indian Community, also in California, to build a charging hub along U.S. Route 395, the only north-south corridor along the Eastern Sierra Nevada range. The hub will be powered by a solar microgrid with combined heat and power generation and battery backup.   

The first round of CFI funding, for $1.14 billion, was announced in March 2023; it drew 277 applications, seeking $2.1 billion in grants. A first round of awards, for $623 million, was announced in January. The current announcement covers grants for some of the applications that previously did not receive awards. 

A notice of funding opportunity for the second round of CFI grants totaling $1.3 billion was announced in May; the deadline for applications is Sept. 11.  

NEVI Rollout Blues

With the passage of the IIJA, and its NEVI and CFI programs, Biden set an ambitious goal to have 500,000 convenient, reliable and user-friendly chargers installed and online by 2030. 

According to the FHWA, the number of publicly available chargers has doubled since Biden took office. The national total now stands at 192,000, with an estimated 1,000 new chargers coming online each week. The newly announced CFI projects could add an additional 9,200 chargers to the total.  

But public perceptions of the U.S. charging network continue to be a significant roadblock to EV adoption. A January 2024 survey by McKinsey & Co. found that 80% of survey participants considering an EV purchase thought the existing charging system is inadequate. A majority said they would not buy an EV until public charging is as available as gas stations are at present.  

McKinsey estimated that as EV demand grows, the U.S. could need 9.5 million charging ports by 2025 and 28 million by 2030. 

In the face of such numbers, the NEVI program appears to have had little impact thus far. The Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, which has been tracking the NEVI rollout, reported that as of the end of May, eight NEVI-funded charging stations, with a total of 33 ports, had opened in six states: Hawaii, Maine, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Vermont.  

Since that time, Rhode Island and Utah have also opened their first NEVI stations, and a growing number of states ― including Georgia, New Hampshire, Virginia, Indiana, Arkansas, Kansas and Wisconsin ― have awarded contracts for their first NEVI stations. 

Charger reliability also remains a major concern among prospective EV buyers. According to figures from the Joint Office, in July, about 7.4% of all publicly available Level 2 chargers were temporarily unavailable, compared with just 2% for DC fast chargers. 

The FWHA is addressing the reliability issue with another IIJA-funded initiative ― the Electric Vehicle Charger Reliability and Accessibility (EVC-RAA) program ― which is providing close to $150 million in grants for the repair, upgrading or replacement of older EV chargers. On Aug. 22, the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation joined with Washington, D.C., officials for a “ground re-breaking” at an inoperable charger in the city. Originally a 50-kW charger, the upgraded station will have four ports, all capable of charging at 150 kW. 

The EVC-RAA program is targeting repair and upgrading of 4,500 charging stations, according to the Joint Office. 

While seeking to respond to consumer concerns, Gabe Klein, executive director of the Joint Office, argued that the EV charging experience is significantly different from fueling up at a gas station, with consumers benefiting from the reduced costs of operation, reduced carbon emissions and improved public health.  

“Most EV charging will happen at homes, workplaces or other destinations while vehicles are already parked, providing a safe, reliable and vastly more convenient way for anyone to fuel,” Klein said. “[The CFI] investments in public community charging fill crucial gaps and provide the foundation for a zero-emission future where everyone can choose to ride or drive electric for greater individual convenience and reduced fueling costs, as well as cleaner air and lower healthcare costs for all Americans.”