The US charging network 2.0—The evolution of a revolution: Part 2
» Read part 1 here: How the biggest US EV charging networks got their starts
The US public charging market did not emerge from private capital alone. From ARRA to IIJA, IRA and rural grant programs, federal policy repeatedly stepped in to create baseline charger demand, subsidize deployment, and teach the industry what real-world charging actually looked like.
The same is true in reverse: the policy turmoil of 2025 showed how quickly Washington can change the planning environment for network operators, site hosts and investors.
Government expands the fledgling market
Two federal programs provided essential funding for fledgling EV charging networks and greatly boosted the understanding of how EV chargers performed. The first federal action to fund EV charging came as part of the response to the global financial crisis caused by lax oversight of the mortgage industry. The recession of 2007-2009, described by the Federal Reserve as the Great Recession and its aftermath, triggered widespread foreclosures, a collapse of the financial industry, and a stock market crash that vaporized the life savings of millions of families. In an effort to reignite the economy, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which President Obama signed into law on February 17, 2009. Federal spending from the law ultimately reached $831 billion, of which $115 million (a scant 0.014%) went to the two EV charging infrastructure programs, the EV Project and ChargePoint America.
The ARRA-era programs did not just pay for early chargers. They gave the industry its first real-world data and lessons, which still underpin charging strategy today.
According to the Department of Energy’s 2013 final report on ChargePoint America, when electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids arrived in late 2010, there was “a substantial lack of infrastructure to support these vehicles.” The programs were designed to study charging infrastructure and use the lessons learned to support future deployment of plug-in electric vehicles and the charging infrastructure needed to support them.
These projects were literally and figuratively breaking ground as the awardees—Coulomb Technologies (later ChargePoint) and Ecotality—were figuring out how to work with local permitting authorities, utilities, engineering companies and electricians to design and implement chargers at residential and commercial locations. Mastering that process and getting chargers energized still bewilders novice (and some veteran) network operators and contractors. The studies also collected equipment and operating-cost data that charging networks and government agencies later used to estimate future costs and incentive levels.
Perhaps the most valuable insight from the programs was the first large-scale study of charger utilization: how many vehicles charge at a station, how long they remain connected, and how much energy is delivered to vehicle batteries. Combined, the two projects installed more than 17,000 chargers and collected data from millions of charging sessions. Ecotality went bankrupt before the EV Project ended, but its legacy endured after the network assets were purchased and morphed into today’s Blink network, while ChargePoint went on to operate more stations than anyone else in the US.
ARRA also made it easier for charging networks to accelerate their return on investment by expanding infrastructure tax credits beyond biofuels and hydrogen to include EV charging. For 2009-2010, the law increased the tax credit to 50% of total cost, up to $50,000 for commercial EV charging equipment, before returning to the previous 30% and $30,000 thresholds.
In 2016, the DOE went down another avenue to make more chargers available: loaning money to EV charging project developers. The Loan Programs Office clarified that EV charging builders were now eligible for low-interest loans from $4.5 billion in Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy funds. After the passage of the FAST Act in December 2015, the Obama White House designated 48 areas along highways across the US as national electric vehicle charging corridors. The act also directed DOE to study optimal national charging deployment scenarios, work that states and private developers later used to understand where future chargers should go.
Why this matters: The ARRA-era programs did not just pay for early chargers. They gave the industry its first real-world data on cost, utilization, siting, permitting and operations. These lessons still underpin charging strategy today.
IRA and IIJA try to save the day
Flash forward to 2021, and again an incoming Democratic administration grappled with a global financial crisis, and again it enacted legislation that included funding for EV charging infrastructure—only this time on a much larger scale than ARRA. The COVID-19 pandemic put global economies in a tailspin and, according to the Census Bureau’s summary of pandemic effects on employment, reduced the US workforce by 6.7 million between 2020 and 2021. During COVID, the previous decade of continuous growth in EV and charger sales unsurprisingly came to a screeching halt.
If ARRA helped prove the concept, IIJA and IRA attempted to industrialize it. They did not just underwrite more equipment, they created a far larger and more durable baseline of charger demand and available infrastructure.
Enacted in November 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act established two major programs to expand EV charging. The five-year National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program provides $5 billion to deploy public DC fast charging infrastructure, and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure discretionary grant program provides $2.5 billion for the strategic deployment of EV infrastructure as well as liquid and gaseous fueling.
The NEVI program, which pays for up to 80% of eligible project costs, allocates funds to states based on a formula determined by FHWA on an annual basis. As of February 2025, $526.6 million of the $5 billion in NEVI funds had been obligated by approved state plans. FHWA had also awarded three rounds of CFI grants totaling $1.7 billion.
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 contained multiple provisions intended to stimulate EV and charging markets. The law reinstated the Alternative Fuel Refueling Property Tax Credit, better known as 30C, after it had expired in 2021; raised the maximum credit for charging equipment to $100,000; and extended the incentive through 2032. By expanding the credits, the IRA aimed to build on the more than 47,000 public and private places to charge and more than 2.24 million plug-in vehicles registered in the US in 2021, according to DOE.
Another federal funding source for growing the charger network is the USDA’s Community Facilities Direct Loan and Grant Program. The funding is available to community-based nonprofits and tribal organizations that can work with network operators to develop essential community facilities in rural areas—a category that now includes EV charging infrastructure.
Why this matters: If ARRA helped prove the concept, IIJA and IRA attempted to industrialize it. They did not just underwrite more equipment, they created a far larger and more durable baseline of charger demand and available infrastructure.
Putting EVs and charging in reverse
Jump ahead to 2025, and quickly after taking office, Trump administration officials took steps to dismantle federal support for EVs and charging infrastructure. In February, the administration rescinded prior guidance to states on how to implement NEVI, and suspended approval of all State Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment plans, effectively putting the program on hiatus. On May 7, 2025, 17 state attorneys general sued the federal government for attempting to cancel congressionally approved NEVI funding, and on June 26 the US District Court for the Western District of Washington ordered that the funding be restored.
Charging has become a partially policy-built market. This means that policy whiplash can quickly become project whiplash.
In August, the Secretary of Transportation issued revised NEVI guidance that sought to remove some document requirements and reduce the need for public input. The revised guidance “simplifies things and gives more local control and flexibility” in where to install chargers, according to Ben Prochazka, Executive Director of the Electrification Coalition, a nonpartisan nonprofit that works to accelerate EV adoption.
In July 2025, the One Big Beautiful Bill became law, adding a deadline for the 30C investment tax credit that requires projects, including EV chargers, to be in service by June 30, 2026. The administration also paused the CFI program in 2025, and no date has been given for future rounds of funding.
On November 21, 2025, a bipartisan group of 88 senators and House members wrote a letter urging continued funding for NEVI, CFI and related infrastructure programs. The lawmakers argued that surface transportation reauthorization is essential to giving states and localities the stability they need to plan long-term infrastructure projects. Providing that support would put money into the system and unlock private investment by reducing risk for infrastructure companies, according to Prochazka. “Finishing the job regarding NEVI and CFI shows that there is consistent support from the federal government. In the end, we are going to electrify transportation,” he said.
Dave Packard, the former president of ClipperCreek, believes the industry will continue to grow despite the vicissitudes of federal support. “Having been in this industry for 30 years, we’ve lived through swings in federal charging policy plenty of times,” he said.
Why this matters: Charging has become a partially policy-built market. That means policy whiplash can quickly become project whiplash, affecting siting decisions, private investment, and confidence that buildouts will continue on schedule.
Next in the series: Policy helped create the market for EV charging, but building chargers and running them profitably are two very different things. In Part 3, we look at why the economics of public charging remain so challenging.
About the author: John Gartner has been analyzing and writing about EV infrastructure since 2009. He is the Senior Director at the Center for Sustainable Energy.
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