The federal bipartisan infrastructure bill’s recent Senate passage is a promising step toward building an accessible, abundant and reliable nation-wide EV charging network. Combining its $7.5 billion investment with the Department of Transportation’s $5 billion earmark for state and local grants marks an important leap forward in solving the chicken and egg challenge of electric vehicle adoption. Even when these federal investments are coupled with individual state’s infrastructure funding, more is needed. $87 billion more to be exact, according to Atlas Public Policy. GridLab, Energy Innovation, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and UC Berkeley project even higher. Utilities, automakers and EV charging providers are investing big and need to go bigger. This is a complex challenge though, so how we spend those dollars is as important as how much we spend. There is, of course, both risk and opportunity, so we must proceed wisely and swiftly.
We need to accelerate the shift in the EV market from the early adopters phase to the early majority […]