The first of the Biden Administration’s government-funded electric vehicle charging stations has officially opened in Ohio following a two-year wait.
The EV charging station opened last Friday, December 8, off I-70 at the Pilot Travel Center near Columbus, Ohio. The location features four chargers and typical travel amenities. The state plans to build more than 50 similar sites in the coming years, using roughly $140 million in funds supplied by the federal government.
In 2021, the White House proposed a $5 billion spending package to spur the construction of EV infrastructure. Under President Biden’s plan, states would each be awarded a share of the funds to build electric vehicle charging stations along pre-determined highways, after which local governments would have the freedom to use the money to build EV chargers wherever they saw fit. While 26 states have participated in the program in the two years since, the Ohio location is the first and, at present, only operable charging site to come from the Biden Administration’s plan.
While critics of the White House have sounded the alarm in recent weeks over the absence of the thousands of EV chargers promised by the President, the delay appears to have occurred at the state level. According to the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, 17 of the aforementioned participating states are still searching for contractors to build the electric vehicle charging stations, while only seven have signed agreements with private sector companies.
