America’s fast-charging network is getting a jolt

More electric vehicle fast-charging stations are coming to the US.

Yesterday, a group of seven major automakers – BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis – announced plans to collectively invest $1 billion in a joint venture that will build 30,000 EV charging stations in North America over the next few years.

🤔 Behind the move: While the number of EVs currently on the road pales in comparison to the number of combustion vehicles – only ~7% of new vehicles sold last quarter were EVs – that won’t be the case forever.

By the mid-2030s, most automakers will exclusively offer electric vehicles. And the EV charging network needs a lot of work between now and then.

• There were 32,000 publicly available DC fast chargers in the US as of this month, per data from the Department of Energy.
• That’s compared to the 182,000 fast chargers that’ll be needed nationwide by 2030, according to calculations from the federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

🚗🔌 Zoom out: The two biggest barriers to EV adoption today, according to consumers, are 1) high prices and 2) range anxiety due to the lack of a public charging infrastructure. To address the second problem, the US government has set aside $7.5 billion to create 500,000 public EV chargers by 2030, mostly on high-traffic highways and in densely populated residential areas (though a majority won’t be fast chargers).