Secretary Buttigieg Compares Current EV Charger Push To 1930s New Deal Airport Boom

Photo: Kevin Dietsch (Getty Images)

The White House announced a $325 million investment in three programs aimed at bolstering the country’s electric vehicle infrastructure. As figures indicate that charging stations will reach parity with gas stations by the end of the decade, the federal government is also ensuring that this massive network will be well-maintained. The Department of Transportation is devoting $148.8 million to repair and replace EV chargers across 20 states.

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Jalopnik spoke with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg earlier today about the announcement. He emphasized the importance of policy support to encourage the construction of charging stations where it wouldn’t typically be profitable for private companies. Buttigieg made a comparison to similar transportation infrastructure efforts done during the New Deal:

“In some ways, I would liken it to the way the U.S. invested in airports and airfields during the FDR administration in a way that wound up kickstarting the development of the U.S. commercial aviation industry writ large. There’s going to continue to be major private-sector investment, but we know the federal investment is needed.”

Buttigieg is alluding to the Works Progress Administration improving or entirely constructing 800 commercial airports across the entire country during the 1930s. Many of those facilities remain vital to the passenger aviation industry to this day. LaGuardia Airport in New York City was a WPA project in partnership with the local government and American Airlines.

The national charging network is expanding rapidly. The country now has the production capacity to build over a million chargers per year, including 60,000 fast chargers. Such a massive expansion is pushing our workforce to the limit. Buttigieg noted, “Our ability to deliver will largely depend on our ability to produce the kind of skilled workforce that’s going to be needed.”

Funding has been allocated to help recruit and train people from all backgrounds as electricians certified to work with EV infrastructure, but the United States is working from behind. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has stated that the labor pool of electricians is trending to shrink by 14 percent while demand will increase by six percent.

It’s a complicated path to a simple finish line: ensuring that everyone in the United States has easy access to an EV charge no matter where they are. We will have enough chargers built by 2030, but we’ll have to wait and see if they’ll be installed and fully functional.