Biden proposes spending $174 billion to promote electric vehicles and install 500,000 charging stations across the U.S.
Plans for a national electric-vehicle charging network were mostly repeated details from the Biden administration Wednesday, but the announcement still sent already elevated charging-company stocks higher.
The headlines also left Americans wondering how soon a complex network to rival traditional gas stations — one that analysts say will need state and city buy-in and private-sector help — will fully come online.
Biden proposed spending $174 billion to promote EVs and install 500,000 charging stations across the U.S. as part of a sweeping infrastructure announcement. Broadly, Biden wants Congress to approve $2 trillion to re-engineer America’s infrastructure and expects the nation’s corporations to pay for it.
Most charging companies have yet to report an annual profit and are counting on widespread EV adoption to meet future financial forecasts. Analysts stressed the challenges in linking a national charging network across states and municipalities and incentivizing more homeowners to outfit their garages for a home charge. Costs for EV chargers vary based on the “level” of charger. The higher the level, the quicker the charge and the more expensive it is to install.
“Charging is the big challenge,” said Joe Wiesenfelder, executive editor at Cars.com, in an interview with MarketWatch earlier this year.
“People will want to charge at home, overnight, then unplug and drive. At-home charging doesn’t work in every home without modification. And once on the road and needing a charge, even fast-charging batteries aren’t as fast as the five minutes consumers are used to spending at a gas station,” he said.
