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Ford is the latest car manufacturer to announce a scaling back in production of electric vehicles due to a lack of demand, as customers voice frustrations over high costs and a lack of charging infrastructure. The federal government, however, is trying to beef up the country’s charging capabilities.
Those efforts include a rehabbed charging station that broke ground in D.C. on Thursday.
“Over 300 people use this charger to charge their vehicles. So it’s very important, as you can see. This is the main corridor for the city,” said D.C. director of the Department of Energy and Environment Richard Jackson during the groundbreaking.
The broken and outdated EV charger on Benning Road, not far from Anacostia Avenue, has not been functional for two years, according to Jackson.
It will be the first charging station in the country to be rehabbed using funding from a federal grant from the Federal Highway Administration’s Electric Vehicle Charging Reliability and Accessibility Accelerator, which was passed as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021.
“This is a really accelerated program, because we know that people can’t be going to a charger and not getting a charge, just like when you go to a gas station you expect to get what you need,” deputy Federal Highway administrator Kristin White told WTOP.
The FHA’s program awarded approximately $148.8 million in total in grant funding across D.C. and 19 other states. The 24 applicants received funding to repair or replace broken EV charging ports.
The new station on Benning Road will triple the speed of charging capabilities and will be able to charge four electric vehicles at once.
But with car companies scaling production, are these chargers still needed? White thinks so.
“JD Power and Associates has reminded us that quarter over quarter, compared to previous years, Americans are adopting and purchasing electric vehicles at increasingly faster rates,” White told WTOP.
White said the Biden Administration’s timeline to see 500,000 publicly available chargers by 2030 is on track with a peak of investment in occurring in 2027 and 2028.
“Which does very much align with some of the timelines that you’re reading from some of these auto companies,” said White.
Ford, meanwhile, abandoned manufacturing a fully electric, three-row SUV and is focusing on other electric vehicles, including trucks and a new commercial van. The automaker lost $2.46 billion on EVs in the first half of the year.
Officials plan to open the Benning Road EV charging station in two years.
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