NEVI $5 Billion Program: A Slow Rollout Amidst Tesla's Charge
Taxpayer dollars trickle as private industry zips ahead; bureaucratic delays mar electric vehicle infrastructure plans.
The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program rollout is a typical government saga akin to a tortoise ambling along while the hares (private industry) zip past. Two years after the allocation of $5 billion of our taxpayer money, the nation finally witnessed the inaugural charging station in Ohio, a solitary display of bureaucratic delays. We are now $3 billion into the $5 billion project and we have a total of 8 charging stations to show for it. It's akin to expecting a huge fireworks display and being presented with a single sparkler. Meanwhile, Tesla is becoming the standard with their new superior V4 Superchargers throughout our land -- even Tesla’s competition is underway in adopting their use. Meanwhile, the federal government throws our money around like it doesn’t matter. That’s an expensive PR campaign.
Why does this matter in the grand scheme of things? The federal government is trying to instill confidence in the populace about the viability of electric cars. Yet, Americans do not need to be instilled, 26% of us say we’d like our next car to be electric.
However, as the government plods along its predetermined wasteful path, the private sector surges ahead independently, unfettered by bureaucratic politics. While the NEVI program inches forward at a glacial pace, private investors sprint towards the future, financing charging stations at a rate that puts the government's efforts to shame. Heck, Tesla has 50,000 charging stations to the NEVI programs 8, yes, I said 8.
The threat level looms large as the tardy progress threatens to derail President Biden's ambitious goal of electric vehicles comprising half of all new car sales by 2030. And now they announced last week to expand the program to have zero-emission freight going around the country. You can’t make this stuff up, folks! While I like electric cars, this meddling in the free market and wasteful spending is alarming and put simply, it is wrong.
As states grapple with the disbursement of these billions of taxpayer dollars, only a fraction are making any progress. Even some states with high rates of EV adoption, like California and Washington, have yet to award any of their funds. Ohio is an exception, with the inauguration of the first NEVI-funded station promoting a new era of electric mobility. Yet, Ohio's success is one step to the no-step pace observed elsewhere, where states languish in the preliminary stages of soliciting bids and issuing conditional awards, which has become a bureaucratic, politically infused mess.
The new Joint Office, tasked with overseeing the transition, grapples with the standardization of plug types and charging infrastructure, when, as I stated earlier, private industry is already adopting Tesla’s superior technology. There is zero need for the government to come in telling the electric car industry what to do; they are working out on their own.
The narrative is rife with obstacles, from the procurement of new transformers to the arduous process of local government permitting. It's a testament to the often unseen inner workings of government permitting, where each step forward is met with a bureaucratic impasse.
While there is certainly nothing wrong with the Biden administration wanting Americans to convert to electric vehicles, the way they have been going about it from Day One has been completely wrong.
