First Federally Funded EV Charging Station Opens in Ohio

The first electric vehicle charging station funded through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, part of the 2021 infrastructure spending package, opened in London, Ohio, last December. The Pilot Travel Center has four charging ports paid for by a partnership with General Motors and EVgo that plans to ultimately install 500 chargers at Pilot and Flying J locations.

The federal government aims to build 500,000 publicly available chargers by 2030. As of March 2024, four states — Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania and Hawaii — had opened charging stations with funding from NEVI. According to the Associated Press, the Biden administration says the national charging plan is on track, with stations set to open in Maine, Vermont and Colorado later this year; more states have awarded their funding or broken ground on projects.

Speaking at the CoMotion Miami conference in May, Gabe Klein, the executive director of the federal Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, said there are currently about 28.5 vehicles per public charger in the United States, which is close to the federal government’s 2030 goal.

“And so we’re actually where we need to be. It’s just that we want more, so we get more people buying [EVs] because they feel so comfortable with it,” Klein said.

In January, the administration announced an additional $623 million in grants for state, local and tribal governments to continue building out their EV charging networks. Also on the table is $149 million from the Department of Transportation to repair or replace existing EV chargers.

This story originally appeared in the July/August 2024 issue of Government Technology magazine. Click here to view the full digital edition online.