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Am i on crazy pills? Biden got the federal funds approved and left it up to the states to figure out how to appropriate. Why blame Biden and not the states?
Even in the article it states not even half of the states have made their request for funds. Its unnacceptable that the states get funding and sit on it to posture. Not even California has pulled the trigger and California has the highest use of EVs in the world. This is terrible.
I think it's the speed of bureaucracy. I know Michigan has big plans for an EV station network across the state, but that takes time to plan and find contractors and get approvals. Or for an operator to build a business large enough to handle it. I expect it'll be at least three years and perhaps up to ten before these projects are able to break ground.
and California has the highest use of EVs in the world.
Probably not. That would be China, or if pr. capita then Norway.
Republican opponents are now trying to shut down the administration’s efforts to build a charging network by choking off its funding.
gasp
Gee you mean like those grant programs a decade ago that were meant to increase implementation of broadband, but all they did was have a bunch of poorly attended regional meetings where ISP representatives were the primary stakeholders who even bothered to show up?
This is completely incorrect and doesn’t account for how this process is actually run.
The funds are distributed from the federal level to states. Generally, each state’s highway planning department has to formulate a plan for how to spend this money in a way that covers federally funded travel corridors and in a way that is equitable so chargers aren’t being dropped only outside of wealthy neighborhoods and meeting other criteria. Then this has to get approved.
While figuring out placement, states have to run a bidding process to select vendors to actually deploy the chargers. This takes time to ensure the bids are viable.
Then it takes time to actually deploy a charging site. From the locations chosen, you have to verify the power company is willing to service the site, or if it makes sense to relocate due to cost. Then the utility company has to drop a big transformer (don’t forget, supply chain issues!). While this happens, your DCFC maker has to still churn out the charging equipment (which, for anyone other than Tesla this past year has been pretty slow).
This is standard bureaucracy+process. This is not some private entity grabbing funds and running off.
Financing should always be provided as a loan or as a share purchase (company does a secondary offering) this way the government gets the money back OR if the goal wasn't too get it back, they have stakes in the company and can have some level of control over them to force them to do what the money was provided to do... And they can sell the shares when the project is completed!
This is how funding for a lot of infrastructure projects around the country (US) works. Federal agencies dole out cash to their state counterparts, who then loan it out (usually with insanely good terms and often 0% interest and principal forgiveness. But fuck college students I guess) to municipalities to bid their infrastructure projects out to local contractors.
There's also usually strings attached like prevailing wage requirements, and requiring the use of American-made products where possible, so these contracts usually help boost the local economy in general. It varies by area, but prevailing wage can be very fucking high.
It's good stuff imo. It gets murkier when you start adding "public/private partnerships" and neolib shit like that.
that wouldnt work out as well for the lobbyists or the politicians.
Actually realising projects is very good for politicians because in the end what they want is to be elected and pleasing your electors is a very good way to get votes in your favor. As for lobbyists, the companies still get money to realize projects that will be profitable to them in the long run, sure it's not the same as getting the money while not realizing the project but that's an issue with the system itself (money should be refunding the project cost, not financing it).