Biden’s electric road to nowhere: Two years after he vowed to spend $7.5 billion building 500,000 charging stations only SEVEN have been plugged in

More than two years after President Joe Biden pledged to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations across the United States, only seven are operational in four states.

The Washington Post reported on Friday Given the slow pace, the $7.5 billion allocated in infrastructure funds has been used.

The bulk of the funds, $5 billion, will go toward building fast chargers along major interstate highways, called the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure or NEVI program.

To meet federal program requirements, chargers must be built at least every 50 miles on major highway routes and be operational 97 percent of the time.

They must also accept credit card payments and certain components must be made in-country.

Additionally, states must submit proposals to the Biden administration for approval, solicit bids for construction, and then they can award funds.

So after the bipartisan Infrastructure Act was passed in November 2021, only seven charging stations are operational.

They are in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Hawaii and New York and offer 38 places to charge your cars.

Twelve additional states have received contracts to begin construction, while another 17 states have not even submitted proposals.

“I think a lot of people watching this are concerned about the timeline,” Alexander Laska, deputy director of transportation and innovation at the center-left think tank Third Way, told The Post.

Nick Nigro, founder of Atlas Public Policy, told the newspaper that some of the delays are to be expected.

“State transportation agencies are the recipients of the money,” he told The Post. “Almost all of them had no experience installing electric vehicle charging stations before the law was enacted.”

“I hope it goes much faster in 2024,” Nigro added.

If Republicans regain full control of Congress and also the White House, some of these programs could be set back.

Biden’s rival, former President Donald Trump, has been openly antagonistic to the Democrat’s green agenda.

In mid-February, at a campaign rally in the battleground state of Michigan, Trump said Biden ‘ordered a successful Michigan manufacturing job’ with mandates to shift the U.S. auto industry away from gas guzzlers toward electric vehicles.

And Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill were also unimpressed.

“We have grave concerns that, thanks to your efforts, American taxpayer dollars are being woefully mismanaged,” read a letter sent to the Biden administration by a group of Republican representatives in February.

“The problems with these programs continue to grow: delays in shipper delivery, states’ concerns about labor contracting requirements, and minimum operating standards for shippers,” said the letter, signed by Republican Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Jeff Duncan and Morgan Griffith.