Trump blocking fund for EV charger project
By: Trevor Huges
USA Today
DENVER - A $7.5 billion Biden-era plan to build a massive network of electric vehicle chargers has crashed to a halt after installing fewer than 400 chargers.
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President Donald Trump;s administration early this year [2025] blocked spending on the project, which aimed to put potentially thousands of chargers near major highways - at gas stations, rest stops and other sites no more than 50 miles apart. A coalition of Democratic-led states and nonprofits sued to get the funding restarted.
..... Halting the funding sets us all back," Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat,s aid in a August 6 [2025] statement announcing the state was joining the lawsuit. "Electric and hybrid vehicles are no longer the technology of the future. They're here now, and this technology is only becoming more important to our families and businesses."
..... Trump, who has long been hostile toward government-mandated EV purchases, has kept the charger funding on hold for months, industry experts said.
.... The pause has no effect on privately funded charging sites, like those built by Tesla. Trump also had a public falling out with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and in a July [2025] social media post said he opposes "ridiculous" efforts to make people drive EVs.
..... The pubic funded plan aimed to make it easier for people to drive EVs on long road trips. It was funded by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and reflected the Biden administration's efforts to push people away form gasoline-powered vehicles.
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Federal statistics show there are about 3.5 million EVs registered in the United States, out of 287 million vehicles. That number has been growing rapidly in part due to a generous federal tax incentive that ends in September. [2025]
..... Industry experts say a major obstacle to widespread EV adoption is the lack of charging options away from home and many would be purchasers have sited what's known a s"range anxiety" in tier reluctance to switch.
..... However, federal statistics also show that 92.5% of all trips Americans take - aside from commercial delivery trucks - are less than 25 miles, well within the range of every EV on the market today.
..... A federal Government Accountability Office report issued earlier this year [2025] that as of May, [2025] there were about 77,000 publicly available charging stations. Most are a slower older style. in comparison, there are about 150,000 gas stations nationwide, according to the National Association of Convergence Stores. The GAO raised significant questions about the success of the project, noting that only 384 charging stations funded by the infrastructure act had been built by April. [2025]