Currently, , each ready to fill your car with fuel and send you back out on your journey. But the number of charging stations for electric vehicles is just a fraction of this figure, and that’s presenting a problem for the U.S. government as it struggles on with .
According to the United States Government Accountability Office, the government has the funds to purchase a bunch of shiny new EVs but lacks sufficient charging stations to use them.
Catchily named the ‘Preliminary Observations on Electric Vehicles in the Postal and Federal Fleets,’ the report focuses on and makes for quite the Wednesday morning read.
Basically, it turns out that the U.S. government doesn’t have anywhere near the number of EV charging ports installed to support its rollout of battery-powered cars.
In fact, currently operating across the U.S., just 1,100 are managed by the federal government. Which, when lawmakers have outlined ambitions to switch to EVs wherever possible, presents a bit of a problem.
In contrast, there are currently across America. When you fill up , you can cover an average of 500 miles. Average.
An EV, on the other hand, is more likely to manage 200 miles on a charge and only has a third of the number of filling stations available to it. Clearly, something needs to be done to address this.
And that’s exactly what this report outlines.
With a focus on , the government watchdog found that lawmakers need to fund the installation of thousands more charging stations.
The , electric delivery vans. And as well as the cash to buy the electric trucks, the watchdog warned that investment must also be made to America’s charging infrastructure.
But how many new chargers are we talking here?
Well, the watchdog warned that “the federal government will need to rapidly expand its charging infrastructure.” And that means building an additional 100,000 charging stations to “support widespread electric vehicle use.”
According to the report, USPS estimated that each charging station it installs could cost as much as $18,000. Which puts the figure of installing sufficient chargers at $1.8 billion.
But while Biden’s recently announced Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will provide $7.5 billion worth of federal grants to install charging stations, cash may not the only problem facing states wishing to go electric.
looking to adopt the EV delivery vans may face problems with their locations. The report said that “officials told us that many USPS facilities are older and may not have the power capacity to support a larger fleet of electric vehicles.”
Clearly, a lot needs to be done before buying an electric truck is a viable option for most people, businesses and essential services.