Biden Administration Looking to Spend $5 Billion on Charging Stations For Electric Cars

The Biden administration wants 50% of all new cars sold by 2030 to be electric or plug-in hybrids. But the average range of today’s electric cars is only about 180 miles. That means for any trip on an interstate, there have to be charging stations every few miles to ensure that people are stuck in the middle of nowhere high and dry.

Recognizing the problem, a big chunk of funding in the infrastructure bill was for building a network of power stations from Texas to Canada and from sea to shining sea.

That’s all well and good, but as the Washington Post points out, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The administration says the money is the largest investment of its kind, yet it still represents a fraction of the estimated $39 billion cost of building a public charging system by 2035.

“The $5 billion the EV Charging Program will provide is a historic investment, but it is far from sufficient,” the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, wrote in comments to the Federal Highway Administration. “Federal Highway Administration. “Federal guidance should do everything possible to encourage complementary commitments and hedge against displacing other investments or programs.”

Highway Administration. “Federal guidance should do everything possible to encourage complementary commitments and hedge against displacing other investments or programs.”

But adding a few thousand power stations across the vast expanse of the U.S. doesn’t even begin to address the problem.

Electric vehicles are a tiny fraction of annual sales and establishing a viable network of chargers — the administration wants 500,000 — is widely seen as a vital step to convince more Americans to switch out their gas-powered cars.

But it’s a job that must account for the needs of apartment and rowhome dwellers, who can’t charge on their driveway,

I got a 26% tax credit for the total amount (parts and labor). I used a HELOC (secondary mortgage) to pay for almost all of it (in other words it's little cash from my savings or my investments). It'll take 10 to 11 years to pay for itself, including the interest on the HELOC. After having it for half a year and seeing the throughput, I also replaced my two natural gas appliances with electric ones. This is my first winter all-electric and I'm getting a 40% average of "free power" with my solar system during the winter. The extra cost of going all-electric will also be paid off in 10-12 years. All of these predictions are assuming a 3% inflation rate for power rate and natural gas rate. Obviously, if the Dims keep jacking up energy costs a lot higher than 3% it'll all be paid off sooner.

My solar batteries have a 19 year warranty with gradual decline in performance to end the warranty at 50% efficiency. The same kind of thing with my solar panels only they have a 25 year warranty with guaranteed 70% efficiency at the end of the warranty.

I'm really banking on being "paid off" in 9-10 years by a little financial trick of putting any incoming money (or savings above my old budget) into an investment account. (Why put the extra to paying off the HELOC early when it's a low interest rate and I can get a much better return in simple mutual funds?). Here's what I mean: My old budget pre-solar expected to pay on average $310 per month for my power bill and natural gas bill. I keep it $300 to keep it simple. Now that I have no natural gas bill, only a HELOC payment and power bill, any time the two of those are less than $300 I put the difference into the investment account. Any time it's more than $300 I take the difference from the HELOC. For the most part, I'm slowing paying off the HELOC (which lowers my minimum payment), so there are more months that my HELOC + power bill are less than $300 (money to invest). And I also track what my power bill and natural gas bill would have been had I still been pre-solar. If I save more than $300 I count that as savings in another "account" (really a column in a spreadsheet). That's not money actually changing hands (like putting in an investment account). That's my tracking how much I didn't have to pay out of pocket but would have if I was still grumbling about my utility bills without solar. (I assume that amount for the natural gas bill, since I don't have one anymore, as 3% more each year. But for what the power bill would have been without solar I have an exact amount because my solar inverter tells me exactly how much power I consume each day, my power bill tells me exactly how much kWh I bought from them that month and how much it cost me, and I can derive from that my true cents-per-kWh rate they charge me with all the riders and tax. The difference between kWh consumed minus kWh bought from power company equal kWh my solar system saved me that month (times the rate = dollars it saved me that month). The day my investment account + total saved on top of that - HELOC balance still owed will be hopefully 9 years from original start date (assuming a 10% rate of return on the investment account).

I wouldn't get a solar system if I were you unless you spend a few months doing that kind of detailed homework on your power bills per month (both the dollar amounts and kWh consumed), the peak solar hours per month for your zip code, and how long you plan to live there, your roof won't have to be replaced for a while (my roof is metal), have a huge portion of your roof facing south with no shade, etc.

Thanks, Tell it Right. Much detail in your analysis. Appreciate that.

I also live in the hot South in northeast Georgia. House (2,200 square feet) faces south with no trees blocking.

No gas available — all electric. Roof will need to be 25-year old roof will need to be replaced in next 5 years.

Monthly Energy Costs

Winter (Dec,Jan,Feb) — $225
Summer (Jun,Jul,Aug) — $150
Other 6 months — $110

I never investigated solar seriously. From your analysis, I am surprised by a couple things:

1. The loss of efficiency in solar panels and batteries is very significant.

2. The 26% tax credit is huge. And American taxpayers have been paying these subsidies since the days of Jimmy Carter. The gains in efficiency and cost savings appear over those decades to have not improved very much.

* * *

The other insight I get from your analysis is that Bidung probably doesn’t care that Americans are being hit with inflation.

After all, this gets America to where they want to go by destroying the natural gas and petroleum industries.

And now, on top of these huge alternative energy subsidies Bidung is proposing massive grid expansion to support electric cars. Once again, putting the burden on the whole country for electric car buyers whose cars on the road are less than 1% of all.

I can see a country like Japan, who is 100% reliant on external countries for its supply of oil and gasoline. But in this country, we’ve got tremendous supplies of clean energy through fracking and much-improved gasoline powered cars.

It’s insane that the public is expected to pay for all this new infrastructure. It’s another subtle way of robbing the average Joe and Jill while elites like Bidung and Pelosi get a tax break they don’t need.

Thanks for the compliment, PCP.

A couple of things. Yes, I hate the solar tax credit. I don't like the gubment encouraging one behavior and punishing another. As far as whether or not the tax credit moves the decision to use more solar, it's probably a wash. Basically, I believe the tax credit caused my solar equipment and labor to be artificially inflated (much like other tax credits and subsidies to do the costs of tuition and medical care). So, Yes to get rid of the tax credit, but No in thinking it has stimulated the solar purchases (with no tax credit my costs would have been lower and I would have bought anyway).

As far as loss of efficiencies in batteries goes, that's the norm for batteries in all our lives. It doesn't matter if we're talking about rechargeable C size batteries I powered my RC car with when I was a kid, the battery in a phone or laptop, the battery in my gas powered truck, or solar batteries in a house. They all degrade in time and after a few years are incapable of holding their charge like they did when they were new. In the end the only thing that makes solar batteries different is the fact that they cost A LOT more and, therefore, we have to do the math on the degradation to make sure they're worth the cost. I waited a while to go solar in large part because the costs of batteries had to go way down while their storage capacity and lifespan went way up.

The energy policies you're pointing out are exactly why I went solar. Obama forced a nearby coal plant to shut down, making my power company spend a beeellyuuun dollars to build a gas powered plant, direct the transmission lines from the new location, and close down the coal plant. My power bills went up because of that even though at about that time some of my kids were growing up and moving out (read: less power consumed at my house, should have been a moment when my bills went down). Not only that but my natural gas bill went up because the power company demanded more gas (more demand = higher price for everybody else). Then Trump came and started exporting natural gas. I like that policy, it's a good thing overall, but that means other countries were buying our natural gas too: more demand = higher price. The higher natural gas price translates into higher power prices because my power company adds their material commodities cost as a rider to the bill. Then Biden came and made it harder to drill, particularly fracking, which is a yuge supplier of our natural gas. Lower supply = higher prices of both natural gas and electricity.

Three administrations in a row, two different parties, and their policies increased our energy costs. Even if you agree with some or all of their reasons for doing so, the end result in my budget is the same -- much higher energy costs than a reasonable 2% or 3% inflation rate.

THAT's why I went with solar. Right now I produce about half of all the power I consume, so gubment polices bug me and my budget only half as much as they used to. If I get an EV truck I'll increase the power/solar portion of my budget from $300 to $450 per month (since I'll no longer be spending $160-ish per month in gas to drive my current gas truck, but that means a higher power demand to charge the EV). If I get one for $45K and get a 1.9% finance rate the payments will be $751. Add $90 to that to go from liability insurance to comprehensive insurance, but subtract $200 from that because I'll use half of the $400 per month savings I do to a car savings account (what I use to repair and replace mine and my wife's old used cars with another old used car every 5 to 10 years) and the overall drain of the new car payment to my budget is $641 per month. If I do that I plan to spend about $40K upgrading the solar system so that it provides about 90% of all the power I consume (including the extra power to drive the EV for 200-ish miles per week with a throughput of 1.8 miles per kWh, assuming the reality is about 90% of what Ford is promising with their F-150 Lightning). Obviously my new HELOC payment + car payment + power bill will be well over $450 per month -- I'll get the difference from the HELOC during the 5 years I'm making truck payments. After that my HELOC + power bill will be well under $450/month -- I can use that excess to either pay extra on the HELOC or put into an investment account. Assume oil changes cost $60 every 5,000 miles and that goes up by 3% inflation (since I'd be avoiding that cost with an EV that's extra I save twice per year). Also assume I'm avoiding buying another used truck every 7 to 8 years for $8K to $10K, but at 10 to 12 years I'll spend $10K to $15K to replace the battery in the EV. And assume all other costs are the same (i.e. by getting a new EV I'd be avoiding many of the times I have to have my old gas truck repaired, but the few times I have the EV repaired the costs are high enough to make up for the fact that the repairs are few). In 12-13 years I'll break even and hope to have another 7 to 15 years left of the EV (the only other time in my life I bought a new car I drove that truck for decades). And most importantly, I would have provided my wife and me a hedge against gasoline costs having high inflation too.

I basically can budget going into retirement without worrying about the Dims' energy policies busting my budget and my lifestyle to save the world from cow farts and rising sea levels that aren't even as high as they were during the Medieval Warm Period (when Pisa, Italy was a seaport, but the coastline is now a mile away) or the Roman Warm Period (Ephesus was a seaport when the apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians, but it's now miles from the coastline because the Dark Age and Little Ice Age cooling periods lowered the sea levels more than the Medieval Warm Period and Current Warm Period raised the sea levels).

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