In his recent speeches, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that the Biden administration spent $9 billion to build just eight electric vehicle charging stations — or even just eight chargers. That’s not true.

Trump is probably referring to $7.5 billion that Congress approved to build a network of electric vehicle charging stations across the U.S. within five years. But not all of the money has been issued or made available to the states at all not yet. According to experts, the funds will help build thousands of charging stations and more than 30,000 individual charging ports.

According to the Federal Highway Administration, the funds provided were used to install 61 charging ports at 15 stations by mid-August, and a further 14,900 ports are planned.

Some news outlets have reported that Trump’s tone on electric vehicles has softened somewhat recently. following a recommendation on July 13 by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, which makes and sells electric cars. Yet he has continued to spread misinformation about electric vehicle infrastructure.

On at the least eight Over the past two months, Trump has repeatedly grossly exaggerated the government’s costs of building electric vehicle charging stations.

“They built eight chargers… for $9 billion! Think of them as a tank to put your gas in. Think about it. They spent $9 billion on eight chargers! Three of them didn’t work,” Trump falsely claimed during his speech at the Republican National Convention on July 19.

At a conference of conservative politicians in Florida on July 26, Trump said that building electric vehicle charging stations at designated locations across the country would cost the U.S. government $5 trillion.

Trump, July 26: I said, “You know, Elon, remember, I love electric cars, I think your car is great, I love it! But it’s not for everybody. … Sometimes you want to drive long distances and not stop. You know, somewhere in the Midwest they put eight charging stations, you know that, right? They spent $9 billion! Well, you know what a charging station is, it’s like a gas pump, the equivalent of a gas pump for electricity, right? It’s a small thing. They spent $9 billion. That would mean that if they did it across the country in all the designated locations, it would cost $5 trillion. So our country would have to declare bankruptcy, they would have to file for bankruptcy protection to build them. The whole thing is crazy!

He recited He made almost the same remarks the next day at a rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, except he raised the total cost to $10 trillion — and promised to “end the Biden-Harris electric vehicle mandate on day one.”

On August 5 in Atlanta, Trump repeated this statement again. “They spent nine billion dollars on eight chargers. Is that a good deal? So at that price, it would be ten trillion dollars to power the country,” he said.

Pete Gould, a transportation and mobility technology policy expert and lobbyist for the electric vehicle and charging industry, told E&E News that Trump’s calculations “sound too ridiculous to be true … because they aren’t true.”

We asked the Trump team about his claims but received no response. Trump appears to be distorting media reports about the $7.5 billion, five-year investment plan to create an electric vehicle charging network, funds appropriated by Congress as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed by President Joe Biden in 2021.

On March 29, the Washington Post published an article with the headline “Biden’s $7.5 billion investment in electric vehicle charging stations has produced only 7 stations in two years.” Later in May, Autoweek published an article with the headline “$7.5 billion federal funds produce only 8 electric vehicle charging stations.” Both articles reported criticism of the slow pace at which the program was rolled out—but they did not claim that the funds were fully spent. Nor were all of the stations located in the Midwest. The articles said the stations had opened in Hawaii, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

As already mentioned, 61 charging stations were built at 15 locations with federal funding by mid-August, and 14,900 more stations are currently in the development phase. As part of the funding, each charging station or location must have at least four charging stations.

Michelle Levinson, senior manager of eMobility finance and policy at the World Resources Institute, told us that the number of stations currently open “represents only a small fraction of what the program is designed to accomplish” and that “the Biden administration has made good progress in terms of allocating funds.”

The Federal Highway Administration, which does not fully fund all projects, could not tell us how many charging stations or ports could ultimately be built with the $7.5 billion because it “ultimately depends on how states and localities want to use their funds,” a FHWA spokesperson said in an email. The new charging stations will use both federal funds awarded to states and private funds.

But electric vehicle policy analyst group Atlas Public Policy told The Washington Post in March that the $7.5 billion should be enough for “up to 20,000 charging points, or around 5,000 stations.” Nick Nigro, founder of Atlas Public Policy, told us his group has since revised those estimates upward.

The $5 billion program to build charging stations along major highways alone, says Nigro, shows that the state’s share of building each port is an average of $150,000. That’s more than 30,000 ports and up to 7,500 stations if you assume each port has four ports (Nigro says the station count will likely be lower because many stations will have more ports). The other $2.5 billion can be used to build even more charging stations and ports.

Levinson of the World Resources Institute told us that was a reasonable estimate, “and our experience with similar projects would lead to similar numbers.”

The Biden administration’s goal is to have 500,000 charging stations by 2030 with additional public and private funding. According to the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation’s Alternative Fuels Data Center, as of August 14, there were 65,904 public stations in the U.S., with a total of 179,547 electric vehicle charging stations.

Financing process and progress

Of the $7.5 billion in grants, $5 billion will go to the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program, which provides funds to states to build charging stations along the nation’s major highways, according to a statement sent to us by the FHWA. So far, about $2.4 billion has been made available to all 50 states, plus DC and Puerto Rico. But that money hasn’t been fully spent yet — and states haven’t even awarded their grants yet. As of mid-April, 19 states had awarded $287.6 million in NEVI funds, according to a report from the National Association of State Energy Officials.

The FHWA told us that states are in different stages of deploying the funds they received based on their respective plans. So far, funds awarded through NEVI have deployed 15 operational charging stations and 61 connectors in eight states. The agency said that number is expected to “increase rapidly, as 28 states have announced conditional or final awards for 719 charging stations.”

In addition, about $623 million was awarded to 47 projects under the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program, which received the remaining $2.5 billion in funds allocated by the infrastructure bill, according to FHWA. The first round of funding, which will be awarded under the CFI program in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, is expected to result in about 7,500 electric vehicle charging stations in states and communities where people live and work, the agency said.

Finally, the Electric Vehicle Charger Reliability and Accessibility Accelerator Program, aimed at states and localities that need additional help, awarded about $148.8 million in grants to 24 projects in 20 states. These funds come from the NEVI program and are intended to “repair or replace approximately 4,500 electric vehicle charging stations,” the FHWA told us.

To receive federal funding to build electric vehicle chargers, states must submit plans to the Joint Energy and Transportation Office before August each year. If the plans are approved, they must then solicit bids and award funds for the work to be done.

“There is certainly a long way to go before projects get off the ground, and we would love to see states move faster, but that’s not unusual for such a massive undertaking,” Levinson said. “Some states are further along than others, but all participants must navigate a complicated landscape of considerations, such as siting and permitting issues, ensuring adequate infrastructure for this new technology, and tailoring projects to the unique needs of their communities. These processes can take some time – it’s not unusual for a new charging station to take 2-3 years to build – but we’re encouraged to see that 36 states have bid for their first round of funding.”

Administration officials and experts also said that implementing Biden’s plan took time due to other factors, including policy creation, new and strict standards and requirements for building these charging stations, and partnerships with states that, in most cases, had no experience with electric vehicle charging stations.

As for Trump’s call for a Biden-Harris “electric vehicle mandate,” which he repeated at a rally in North Carolina on August 14 and at a press conference in New Jersey on August 15, as we have previously explained, the government cannot dictate how many cars must be electric.

Biden’s goal is for electric vehicles to make up 50% of all new car sales by 2030. A new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency emissions rule that caps pollutant emissions could boost the share of electric vehicles in new car sales beyond Biden’s goal by 2032. Vehicle manufacturers would have to meet the standards but would have flexibility in how they achieve them. For example, they could choose to make more efficient internal combustion engines for gasoline-powered or hybrid vehicles.

---

Editor’s Note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider making a donation. Credit card donations can be made through our Donate page. If you prefer to donate by check, send it to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104.