Someone needs to give a big jolt to the speedy construction of electric vehicle charging stations.
Vehicles with internal combustion engines emit greenhouse gases that are contributing to drastic warming of the planet. Last year was the warmest ever recorded. At the Aug. 22-23 "Climate and Defense Summit of the Americas" at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said climate change is a crisis for the entire planet. On Friday, Pope Francis issued a new climate change warning.
Electric vehicles, which don't directly spew greenhouse gases, can be a significant part of the solution — but only if they become much more prevalent on the roads.
Both the state and federal governments are pushing the sale of electric vehicles to help the environment. But those vehicles need a wide network of charging stations to allay so-called "range anxiety" on the part of motorists, who fear they won't find enough charging stations to get where they are going.
Unfortunately, the process of getting those charging stations in place is moving along like a car stuck in a low gear. The Biden administration secured $7.5 billion to build charging stations under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed in 2021; as of May, just eight had been installed under that law. Last week, the Biden administration announced another $521 million in grants for more charging stations.
"Things are not meeting expectations, but I don't think it's hopeless," said Jen Walling, executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council. "We need to rush the infrastructure."
President Joe Biden wants 50% of vehicle sales to be electric models by 2050. Illinois wants 1 million EVs registered in the state by 2030.
There has been progress. Price cuts revved up EV sales in the first half of the year. Government incentives are making the prices of EVs more competitive.
But there are warning signs along the road.
Two weeks ago, Ford Motor Co. canceled plans for a large electric sport utility vehicle, even at the cost of $1.9 billion in charges and write-downs. General Motors announced it would delay the opening of an EV factory.
Last week, the data analytics company J.D. Power said it was trimming its sales forecast of U.S electric vehicles by from 12% to 9% and said it expects sales to reach only 36% by 2030, far short of Biden's goal.
To date, many electric vehicles have been purchased by early adopters. To lure significant numbers of others, including people who are uncomfortable with changes in technology, government and industry must make buyers confident they can find public fast-charging stations when they need them.
Tesla has a network of nearly 30,000 fast-charging plugs in the United States and Canada, but software delays and hardware shortages make them largely inaccessible to owners of other electric cars, The New York Times reported last week.
The network of gasoline stations spanning the country was built over a century, but sufficient electrical charging options have to get to the necessary level far more quickly.
Motorists complain that when they show up at public charging stations — especially those not installed by Tesla — the stations often are broken or there is a line of cars ahead of them, forcing a long wait to charge up. Yet a reliable public charging network is essential, since many people don't have private access to a station where they can charge their cars overnight.
The Federal Highway Administration says 1,000 chargers are being added each week across the country, but there's a long way to go to reach the goal of 500,000 charging ports nationwide.
As a nation, we must move away from vehicles with internal combustion engines. If motorists continue to buy them, many of those cars and trucks will remain on the road for years, emitting greenhouse gases and making it harder for the planet to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
It's time to get those electric charging stations off the drawing boards and into places where they are needed.
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