Biden gives Detroit and Ann Arbor millions to build EV chargers

Nov 10, 2024

Michigan is getting more federal money to build electric vehicle charging stations in Detroit and Ann Arbor.

On Tuesday, the Biden administration said it was giving $26.2 million in grants to three projects in Michigan to deploy EV charging infrastructure in the two cities. The money is part of $521 million in grants to continue building out EV charging and alternative-fueling infrastructure in 29 states, on land of eight federally recognized tribes and the District of Columbia.

Tuesday’s announcement is projected to pay for the construction of more than 9,200 EV charging ports.

"This investment puts public dollars in the hands of states, tribes and communities to build a more accessible national charging network,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, a former Michigan governor. "It will deliver good-paying local jobs while giving Americans more transportation options no matter their geography or income and allow those looking for a new vehicle to more confidently take advantage of tax credits to purchase new and used EVs.”

President Joe Biden has long advocated for EVs and earmarked $7.5 billion to fund building 500,000 new charging ports across the country as part of a bipartisan infrastructure law. Michigan would get $110 million through fiscal 2026. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, who is from California, the nation’s leading EV state, likely would carry on Biden's policies, if elected.

The Department of Transportation said Tuesday that since the start of the Biden administration, the number of publicly available EV chargers has doubled, with about 1,000 new public chargers being added each week. This latest effort to build out EV infrastructure is part of Biden's effort to provide a reliable network of national chargers along designated highways, interstates, and major roadways. According to the U.S. Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center, the nation as of March had 168,388 public EV charging ports.

As the Detroit Free Press has reported, Michigan has a goal of 100,000 EV chargers being publicly accessible by 2030, but as of April, the state had fewer than 2,000. Data compiled by the Anderson Economic Group shows 311 public direct current “fast-charging” stations (DC stations with 75 kilowatts per hour capacity) and 1,141 “Level 2” chargers, which juice up EVs more slowly than DC chargers.

Jackson-based Consumers Energy said this month that it expects to power 1,500 new fast-charging stations in Michigan by the end of 2030. The projection is based on market trends for EV purchases in the state.

While EV growth has been slower than experts had predicted, it is still outpacing the number of charging points, Elizabeth Krear, vice president of the electric vehicle practice at J.D. Power, said told the Free Press earlier this summer. "A critical factor that compounds the issue is that EVs are growing at two times the growth of infrastructure. That compounds the reliability issue that we have with the existing infrastructure.”

Krear told the Free Press the charging infrastructure in the United States today is 81% reliable, meaning that 19% of the time consumers have "a failure to charge."

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Contact Jamie L. LaReau: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.