“Just seven electric-vehicle (EV) charging stations have begun operating with funding from a $5-billion U.S. government program created in 2021, marking “pathetic” progress, a Democratic senator said on Wednesday.”
Am I reading this right? Am I supposed to believe that this number will jump from 7 to 1000 in just six months?
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Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told Reuters on Tuesday that 27 states have issued commercial requests to build charging stations and she expected about 1,000 EV-charging stations in public places to be operational by year-end from the federal government program.
I think it says more about the problems with local jurisdictions, permitting, and inspections than anything else.
I signed a solar contract in April of '22 and I knew going in that my city has major permitting problems. But they had a deal, no payments for the first 6 months, I figured I was golden. Solar would be up June? July? Peak wattage? Sure…
Well… OCTOBER rolls around, first bill is about due, NO work done. No panels, no site inspection, NOTHING.
So I called the company. “I’m not paying for work that hasn’t been done.” That lights a fire under SOMEBODY, panels get up, 6 more months of credits, but we can’t actually turn the system on until the city inspection…
Which it failed 3 times…
Finally passed and online in March of '23… 11 months after signing the contract.
They have spent this time doing prep work, streamlining the system, working with with vendors, getting permits and supplies/etc.
1000 is probally unrealistic, but it would make sense if a bunch of large projects across the nation are all about to start because of that preliminary work. With 27 states doing some kind of build out this year, it would take just 35 or so in each state to hit that 1000 number in 6 months.
Not so difficult.
