California Investing in EV Charging Reliability Statewide with $63 Million in Federal Funding
In a boost for electric vehicle reliability, the U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded Caltrans more than $63 million in federal funds to fix and install more than 1,000 chargers at 300 sites statewide.
The $63.7 million from the federal Electric Vehicle Charger Reliability and Accessibility Accelerator (EVC RAA) grant program – part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – will replace broken charging stations and install additional chargers to meet new federal standards for public charging infrastructure.
“Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, California will receive nearly $64 million to improve EV charging stations across the state,” said Senator Alex Padilla. “Accelerating the adoption of an electric vehicle powered future requires a strong, reliable, accessible charging network across the state.”
“This funding will allow California to continue to lead the nation in zero-emission-vehicle adoption, increasing reliability and cutting planet-warming pollution,” said California State Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin. “We want to thank the Biden-Harris Administration, Sen. Alex Padilla, and the state’s congressional delegation for supporting the expansion of a charging network throughout the state while combatting climate change.”
“Increasing the accessibility and standardization of EV charging stations will help us to build a more modern transportation system,” said Tony Tavares, Caltrans director. “This latest federal funding will support Caltrans in achieving its climate action goals.”
“As EVs go mainstream, ensuring a reliable charging network is a top priority,” said Patty Monahan, commissioner of the California Energy Commission (CEC). “As California’s lead agency for building out charging infrastructure, the Energy Commission includes reliability requirements for our grants, but many chargers aren’t covered by these requirements. This federal funding will help fix and upgrade broken EV chargers, giving EV drivers more options for convenient refueling.”
The EVC RAA program is part of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program and made funding available for states to repair or replace EV charging stations identified as “temporarily unavailable.”
For the application, Caltrans worked with EV charging providers to develop a list of chargers to fix and upgrade to national charging standards within the program timeline. The funding will support the replacement of both Level 2 and DC fast chargers. Caltrans will partner with the CEC to implement this funding, building on the agencies’ partnership to deliver the NEVI Formula Program.
HOW WE GOT HERE
- EV chargers: California currently has by far the most electric chargers in the nation with over 42,000 public charging ports;
- California leads the country in all zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) market metrics, including the largest EV market share percentage, and the most extensive public charging infrastructure;
- The success of the state’s programs has led to ZEVs becoming a top export and has spurred major advances in manufacturing and job creation;
- Over 25% of new passenger vehicles sold in California through Q3 of 2023 were zero-emission vehicles;
- California has reached its ZEV truck sales goal two years ahead of schedule;
- This latest award comes on the heels of California’s call for projects to support $40 million in charging projects for passenger vehicles in the state’s NEVI program.
- Ten EV charging and hydrogen fueling projects in California, totaling $168 million, were recently awarded funding under the Federal Highway Administration’s Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program.
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Hrmm tittle is misleading , California is not investing money but the federal government has give California 63 million to fix their charging stations and to install new ones . Just think if all this ev crap had to be paid for by the people who use them , much like bike paths. Maybe then there would be enough money around to fix these crappy roads around here
That works out to $63,000 per charger. Who is sourcing these-the pentagon?
What if instead of improvements for 300 ev stations throughout the state, we only had 300 gas stations? I’m guessing people wouldn’t be interested in buying gas cars either.
People are simply not buying EVs. We’ve all heard about charging problems, range, reliability, and average repair shop charge of $7000 after a long wait for parts. As long as they’re building hundreds of coal generation plants each year everything the Greenies are pushing on western world won’t slow global warming
“People are simply not buying EVs.” — GS
We interrupt far-right programming with this message::
Nearly 1.2 million EV’s , a record, were bought in the US in 2023.
— Kelly Blue Book
We now return you to previous far-right programming.
1.2 million out of 14+- million is not exactly a majority.
You might want to adjust your set, you seem to be getting a fuzzy picture…
Keyboard-puppet slow morning?
I smile every time i see an ice filling up for over $100. I plug in my ford mustang ev every night and it cost’s me all of $4 while i am sleeping. Ev is the future weather you like it or not. Save are planet for you’re children. What our they going to be left with if you do not start now. Do not repeat the left wing false conspiracy claim that evs create more carbon offset’s during construction then ice. It is just not true. All public charger’s use renewable energy so that argument hold’s no water either. Accept the fact that a better mouse trap has been made. I paid $47000 and that was be fore the $7000 tax credit getting me out the door for $40k. You’re SUV was over $55000 so do not try that argument either.
Our children and grandchildren have been sold to the chicoms, by good old Joe and Obama so you could have a subsidize ev.
Dems and R’pubes alike are both responsible. Don’t be so biased you are blind to that fact.
Trade with “chicoms” (mostly old Cold War era term) started in earnest under, ta-da, a precursor to Repub Party — the Whigs, Prez John Tyler leading the charge. It gathered steam under good ‘ol’ Tricky Dick (R). Trade started to skyrocket under, wait for it … Shrub, Gee Dub (R), going really lopsided. He was Prez, for nearly a year. when China joined WTO, should have scuttled it. Clinton got everything T’d up, but Shrub for the win.
We now return to alt R programing … as if history started with Obama.
Ever thought of being a writer for Jimmy Kimmel?
10 or 15 years from now they will telling everyone we need to convert to hydrogen vehicles, which is what we should be doing now instead of blowing a lot of energy hauling giant batteries along the road and buying our fuel from PG&E.
Depends on how much you drive. Modern Hybrid car gets 55 to 65 mpg. Drive 50 miles daily… in California it’s a wash on the fill-up.
>”evs create more carbon offset’s during construction”
Dunno about that… but mining of rare minerals has increased… and will go through the roof in short order.
— web stuff
The International Energy Agency estimated that electric cars use 173kg more minerals such as lithium, nickel and copper than petrol cars (when ignoring steel and aluminium)
To manufacture each EV battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, 25,000 pounds of ore for copper Digging up 500,000 pounds of the earth’s crust For just – one – battery.
— .
>”All public charger’s use renewable energy so that argument…”
Don’t think that the electrons know any difference… all power on the electrical grid is the same. People that say it’s all ‘renewable’ power means they just pay more for it. (Which I suppose hopefully encourages more ‘investment’ in renewable generation.)
Big chunk of nighttime ‘renewable’ power comes from hydroelectric dams (which the greenies want to tear out)… and locally from burning sawmill waste (probably want to do away with that too). No wind power in NW California (NIMBY+Greenies+Indians)… and only a trivial amount of daytime solar storage in California.
Likely means you are probably using a big chunk of (Coal/Natural Gas/Nuclear) power.
—
Important thing on ‘saving the planet’… teach your kids to have either zero or 1 child.
Just wait till they start adding road tax to your pge bill
What you prefer not to think about is that the four dollars is only a fraction of the total. Pedo Joe takes the rest out of everybody else’s wallet. This is nothing more than a vote buying schemes during an election year. A favorite demoncrap ploy!
If you’re stupid enough to buy the ev lie you get what you deserve.
I get a charge about all the negative comments.
Switch shorts.
Think positive…+
You’re currently alternating, if I may be direct.
I am sensing resistance to EV’s.
Watts that you say…???
Wire you so shocked…???
“Ohmmmmm”??
Ohm my goodness, these puns are electrifying!
I’m shocked.
Government investing in infrastructure is nothing new. Railroads, highways, dams, subsidies to car and oil companies. Other than being a new technology, it’s or for the course. Regarding climate change, no one technology is going to solve it, it’s going to take a variety of solutions working in tandem. And it’s going to take big policy changes that hold big polluters accountable.
Evs are a solution to a non problem.
Close.
EVs are a non-solution to an existential problem.
PG&E won’t even connect new real estate. Where are they going to get the power? OR, is it all politics and PG&E is holding off, waiting to cash in?
They have been dragging their feet on getting that off-shore wind farm up and running.
Locally, that will eventually provide far more than this region can use, and it can be expanded far beyond what is currently proposed.
There are also promising new developments with solar energy.
CNN
Mon June 7, 2021
Batteries are heavy. That’s why, generally, electric cars weigh considerably more than otherwise similar gasoline-powered vehicles. Take the GMC Hummer EV, for instance. The Edition 1 version, which has lots of batteries for additional driving range and power, weighs over 9,000 pounds. That’s roughly three times the weight of a Honda Civic.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/07/business/electric-vehicles-weight/index.html
How much will it cost to repair the already abysmal roads and bridges that will have to carry the extra weight? Then there are the tow trucks not designed to tow them.
How are they going to be charged? 80% of our electricity comes from “non-renewables”.
Where is their plan for building solar farms and a time table? We haven’t seen the full laid out plan on how this is going to work? Only thing done are mandates on removing gas cars. I’ll need 100 solar panels plus atleast 4 100 kw batteries at my house inorder to live and almost charge my ev, just in the summer.
Offshore wind is best for this area. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/14/california-emissions-humboldt-county-00110262
Solar is good in the sunnier places.
Newsome (et al) have no idea about offshore wind farms… 30 miles out… in deep and hostile water. Energy independence. Zero Carbon !
Hey… let’s do this ! Oh boy.
No idea on how difficult it is to establish, maintain and distribute the electricity from deep-water wind farms… and what the real ‘costs’ will be, but they don’t care.
There should be ‘pilot’ windmill sites out there right now to see what works… and what doesn’t… but sorry, there ain’t.
Not to mention completely violating the Marine Mammal Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Migratory Bird Act. These fools are gonna get sued snd that means we the taxpayers are gonna pay for the Defendants ( the state) loss.But see, they don’t care, they are not personally gonna have to pay and they get a twofer, they can say they tried and would have succeeded without all those cetaceans, birds, and ocean warriors getting in their way and screwing everything up. Go figure…..
Which violations would those be?
Who knows because they have yet to be built.
PS: Any guess where the blades and other materials are being built? It starts with a C and ends in an A? So, built in China with slave labor and fossil fuels, shipped to America with diesel, reassembled with diesel, serviced by diesel with union workers self transporting from the bay area and beyond. Do the windmill people really think the Union representing crane operators and dock workers is gonna hire locally? That is one of their selling points. That is not possible. The Longshoreman Union is a family affair, locals not welcome, unless your daddy works for the Union. It all adds up to more fossil fuels used than will ever be offset by the windmills short lifespan. It’s a lose, lose for everyone, especially our cetaceans and birds and local residents.
There’s ample evidence from the many thousands of offshore wind turbines that have already been installed- some of which are in deep water in rough seas.
I am curious to see what they decide to do with the surplus energy that will be produced.
There are several options that seem to have merit.
It is never as simple as that. Stop taking potshots at critics because you have faith in magic solutions and others don’t. The only deep water floating windfarm project I could find was canceled as too costly and fraught with failure. But I couldn’t find out what the failures were.
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2021/03/06/failure-of-worlds-1st-offshore-floating-wind-farm-in-fukushima-disappoints-3-11-survivors/
This article covers issues in an industry not yet in existence. Frankly all information seems to be short on details and demonstrations on viability. The liabilities of any massive change only become clear after development and , in the case of deep water wind farms, the investments are huge and the uncertainties great. Which is why it will be either sink or swim with them.
No one is seemingly willing to spend money on demonstrations. The ones willing to pony up are those wanting to sell them. These entities will make their money with massive projects, sell them off then disappear. They have zero interest in long term issues and it is reasonable to worry that there will be long term issues that will never get resolved. Like radioactive disposal in the last wunderkind of solutions science dreamed up. Me? I can see that one tsunami could wreck the whole industry but no one talks about it. No one knows and no one is willing to spend that kind of money on trials.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-how-viable-are-floating-offshore-windfarms/
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself – https://www.metatube.com/en/videos/303056/SNL-Julia-Louis-Dreyfus-Does-Commercial-For-Battery-Operated-Mercedes-AA-Class
Why should taxpayer dollars be involved in this scam. Let the companies that charge way too much for these cars pay for it. When you can not drive from point a to point b unless it is under 200 miles, what is the purpose. Read some of the reviews on personal accounts about cross country driving with these cars. Look at the piles of them at charging stations when it is too cold or too hot. Flawed technology being pushed by dreamers who want to save the world. Good idea, just not practical for everyone.
“Why should taxpayer dollars be involved in this scam.”
Maybe cuz the “scam” of subsidizing energy production has gone on in earnest for over 70 years; from WWll to now there’s been trillion$ in military spending to help keep oil flowing. In reality, the real price of fossil fuels has been much (much) higher than what the consumer pays at pump.
As to flawed tech, many folks thought same of Henry Ford’s early efforts. Some folk thought same … of Musk. Takes a little time. Heck, someday a % of mass-produced car power will come from a solar-panel type of paint. That said, we won’t win the evolve-or-die battle, but buy some time. Might as well.