Virginia Gets $10 Million From The Feds To Build EV Chargers

US Senators Tim Kaine and Mark R. Warner announced that the Virginia Department of Energy would receive $10.8 million in federal funding to install 392 electric vehicle chargers. The senators, who represent Virginia for the Democratic Party, said in a joint statement that the chargers would be strategically placed near rural and urban tourism destinations and that over half of them would be installed in “disadvantaged communities … to increase EV access for all Virginians.” Hopefully, that’ll mean that average folks with cheap EVs like the Chevrolet Bolt and Nissan Leaf will be able to juice up in more locations.

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The Money Comes From The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

One of Joe Biden’s tentpole achievements during his term as president was the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which identified more than 45,000 bridges and hundreds of thousands of miles of road that were in need of upgrade or repair. The law also prioritized improving transportation access for folks who own electric cars, recognizing that a huge obstacle to EV adoption is the lack of easy charger access. It earmarked $7.5 billion in federal funds to install charging points across the country.

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The Commonwealth of Virginia (don’t call it a state) is one of the many state-level jurisdictions to receive money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for EV chargers. Senators Kaine and Warner announced an initial investment of $15.7 million to install EV chargers in 2022, and the latest infusion of $10.8 million would get Virginia closer to its $106.7 million total investment through 2027 – assuming President-Elect Donald Trump doesn’t attempt to curtail all EV initiatives when he takes office on Monday.

This Is How Much America’s EV Charging Network Has Grown Since 2021

This comes as the Department of Transportation announces a further $521 million in grants earmarked for additional EV infrastructure.

Funding Will Also Provide Grants To Private Charging Companies

Of the $7.5 billion earmarked for charging facilities, two-thirds will be reserved for public jurisdictions. The remaining $2.5 billion will be available in grants for private EV charging companies – such as Electrify America, Flo, Chargepoint, and Tesla – to incentivize them to build and maintain more chargers. Currently, there are about 192,000 publicly accessible charging ports in the US, a number that doubled between 2021 and 2024.

The infrastructure law changed slightly in 2023 to allow cities, towns, public utilities, and tribal governments to apply for a piece of the public pie, expanding access beyond the initial push for states and commonwealths. At the time of this writing, all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. had applied for some of the cash to flesh out their EV charging infrastructure.