After ripping into Electrify America’s latest public EV charger spending plan for its perceived inadequacies, members of the California Air Resources Board approved it unanimously.
“I want to get the money out,” board member Davina Hurt said.
The air board oversees an $800-million court settlement that requires German carmaker Volkswagen to pay for a fast charger system in California — the effective penalty for VW’s decision to install software in its cars that falsified emissions testing results and hid the fact that its vehicles were spewing more pollution than state law allows.
Thursday’s vote approved the final $200-million tranche, and a plan for spending it.
Already, $600 million has been doled out to pay for 1,093 chargers and EV education and marketing programs.
Literally yes, but in spirit no. VW had to create Electrify America as part of its diesel gate settlement. EA may or may not have been created without punitive legislative action.
It seems like a pretty reasonable alternative to massive fines out the ass. Here, they go towards building out infrastructure that was dominated by Tesla with a few smaller companies in the mix like ChargePoint.
Smaller? With just over 31,000 locations and 56,000 total Level 2 and Level 3 ports, ChargePoint operates the single largest EV public charging network in the United States.