The Biden administration announced on Friday new actions to lower the cost and increase ownership of electric vehicles (EVs) for all Americans, make it cheaper for people to install EV chargers at home, and increase the expansion of a convenient, reliable, Made-in-America EV charging network.
According to the White House, the initiative is part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda that builds on the administration’s “unprecedented progress” in electrifying the “great American road trip.”
As part of the new actions, the government will confirm that the Inflation Reduction Act’s 30C EV charging tax credit is available to approximately two-thirds of Americans. The credit will provide up to 30 percent of the cost of the charger to individuals and businesses in low-income communities and non-urban areas.
In addition, the administration announced that the departments of Transportation and Energy will invest $325 million in “three programs to increase the reliability and resilience of publicly accessible chargers, advance EV technologies, and support workforce development for EV charging deployment and maintenance.”
“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.”
“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.”
The White House claimed in their announcement that since the President took office, “EV sales have more than quadrupled, with more than four and a half million EVs on the road. EV ownership is more affordable than ever before, with prices down over 20% from one year ago.” The administration also touted that the number of publicly available charging ports grew by over 70 percent, with 170,000 available across the country, placing the government “on track to deploy 500,000 chargers by 2026.”
The new initiative comes one week after an Arctic weather system wreaked havoc across the country, frustrating EV owners dealing with greatly reduced driving ranges and charging-station nightmares.
According to AAA researchers, EVs typically lose an average of 41 percent of their range when outdoor temperatures drop to 20 degrees Fahrenheit and the heat’s cranked on. “This means for every 100 miles of combined urban/highway driving, the range at 20°F would be reduced to 59 miles. When colder temperatures hit, AAA urges electric vehicle owners to be aware of a reduction in range and the need to charge more often to minimize the chance of being stranded by a dead battery.”
Forbes reported, “U.S. television news was peppered heavily with images of electric-vehicle owners — most notably those clogging the lanes of the Tesla Supercharger station in the Chicago suburb of Oakbrook — waiting hours or more for them to charge, following a faster-than-expected depletion of battery power.”
The limits of EVs — especially in extreme weather — are apparent. However, the White House didn’t mention the recent weather woes inflicted on EV owners. Instead, the administration stuck to their “green energy” agenda, stating that the new initiative is a “crucial part of the Administration’s goal of building a national network of 500,000 public EV charging ports by 2030 and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.”
In opposition to Biden’s EV goals, Fox News reported, “military experts are raising national security concerns over the administration’s electric vehicle agenda, warning the president’s ambitious policy push will make the U.S. too dependent on China.”
Fox continued:
A coalition of 17 retired military officials, including retired Navy Captain Bob “Shoebob” Carey, sent a letter this week to President Biden and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), warning regulatory initiatives aimed at incentivizing EV adoption “intensify America’s vulnerability to political interference by the Chinese Communist Party.”
Carey told “America’s Newsroom” Friday that the aggressive push is “fundamentally wrong” and makes the U.S. reliant on our “biggest potential enemy.”
Those military experts are right about our reliance on Communist China. NPR reported that “China is the 800-pound gorilla of global EV supply chains at present. China mines more than two-thirds of the world’s graphite, extracts 60% of the rare earth. It owns almost half of the cobalt mines and controls a quarter of the lithium.”
With the White House statement mainly focusing on doing a victory lap over increased government interference in the free market — with taxpayers paying for the lowering of EV prices and the nationwide expansion of charging stations — the administration chose to ignore key concerns about their green-energy agenda.
Outside of the worldwide supply chain issues and the need to greatly increase the domestic manufacturing of EV batteries, neither the White House statement nor the agency press releases even made mention of the need to prepare for a “net-zero” future by modernizing the nation’s electricity grid for all of these new EV chargers. Nothing to see here, move along.
