Two years and $7.5 billion dollars later, the first EV charging station funded by the Federal Infrastructure Law opened earlier this month in London, OH. At the station, you’ll find an Arby’s, a Cinnabon, and tons of trinkets and merch for truckers and road-weary travelers.
But you won’t find any customers.
“At about 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, nobody was using the chargers,” Inside Climate News reported after visiting the station. And the extent of the Biden Administration’s wasteful and potentially self-destructive push toward green energy becomes even more apparent.
In 2021, as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law, $7.5 billion dollars was allocated for “a national network of EV chargers.” Now we have one. And now, nobody cares and nobody is using it.
So, what does the Biden Administration have to say for itself?
When the first station finally opened in Ohio, the White House said its plan to build “a national network of EV chargers … provides a case study for how Bidenomics is delivering for Americans by making smart public investments.”
Delivering what, exactly? Demand for EVs is way down —in fact, dealers can’t get rid of them.
According to The Washington Free Beacon, “Earlier this week…Ford announced plans to cut the production of its electric truck in half, citing insufficient demand. While Ford planned to produce 3,200 F-150 Lightnings per week in 2024, it will now produce just 1,600, with the company saying in a memo that ‘changing market demands’ motivated the cuts. Roughly 98 percent of the F-Series trucks Ford sold in 2022 were gas-powered.”
“We’ll continue to match production with consumer demand,” a Ford spokeswoman said.
Just hours before Ford’s announcement, the White House had a different take that was seemingly very out of touch with the reality on the ground.
“The White House…claimed in an economic report that the ‘U.S. consumer market for EVs is rapidly growing.” While the memo also said “overall consumer satisfaction with electric vehicles is very high,’ just 19 percent of Americans say it’s ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ likely they’ll purchase an electric vehicle when they need a new car, according to an Associated Press poll.
If you believe that, I have an EV charging station in London, OH I’d like to sell you.
