Just as Philadelphia was getting ready to spend millions of federal dollars to install badly needed electric vehicle chargers, the Trump administration has jumped in to slow and possibly cancel the rollout.
Over the past couple years the city and nearby counties have been awarded more than $20 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds to subsidize installation of EV chargers.
To encourage more people to switch from gas cars to more environmentally friendly EVs, many more publicly accessible chargers are needed in urban neighborhoods, where people who don’t have garages or driveways struggle to charge their vehicles, advocates say.
“There’s a huge imperative to provide publicly available charging infrastructure to support this growing population of EV owners,” Anna Kelly, the city’s senior policy advisor for electric vehicles and parking, said in September.
Construction of the first such station, on a Philadelphia Parking Authority lot on 6th Street near Girard Avenue, was slated to start this summer, PPA officials said last year.
Separately, the city has been negotiating with private companies to install potentially dozens of chargers on street curbs and in public parking lots. The U.S. Department of Transportation also awarded $9 million last year for a charging hub at Philadelphia International Airport and for chargers in underserved neighborhoods.
But President Donald Trump’s effort to pull back on federal commitments for green energy infrastructure has led to confusion about the availability of grant funds and uncertainty over whether projects will go forward.
In an executive order last month, he ordered federal agencies to pause the release of money from two key programs, the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) programs.
Judges have blocked Trump’s spending freeze orders, but last week USDOT sent out a new memo to state transportation departments that apparently puts a hold on new NEVI projects specifically.
“No new obligations may occur” until the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) sends out new program guidance and new state spending plans are approved, an agency official wrote. The memo said the agency will issue draft guidance this spring and publish a final version after receiving public comment.
“Since FHWA is suspending the existing State plans, states will be held harmless for not implementing their existing plans,” wrote Emily Biondi, an administrator at FHWA. “Until new guidance is issued, reimbursement of existing obligations will be allowed in order to not disrupt current financial commitments.”
A sluggish rollout may be slowed further
The infrastructure law signed by President Joe Biden in 2021 allotted $5 billion to NEVI and $2.5 billion to CFI.
The early rounds of NEVI awards have gone largely toward installing chargers along highways to enable long-distance EV driving. The program has been criticized for a very slow rollout; while $3.3 billion has been awarded to states, only $40 million has been spent and 55 stations built, according to national news reports.
Pennsylvania is supposed to receive $171.5 million from NEVI over five years. The state so far has six working chargers funded by the program; the station closest to Philly is at a Royal Farms in Upper Chichester, Delaware County, according to a PennDOT map.
A total of 91 projects, each typically with multiple charging ports, are operating, being built, or are planned. They include the planned Northern Liberties station with four ports, several in adjoining counties, and others in locations across Pennsylvania. The state had also been expected to apply for funding for more locations.
State and local officials say they’re now not sure how many of those will actually be built.
“We are continuing to evaluate the FHWA memo … to determine what impact, if any, it will have on the 91 NEVI projects across Pennsylvania that are under contract,” PennDOT spokesperson Zachary Appleby said. “Our evaluation will also review the FHWA memo to determine potential impacts on upcoming project phases.”
Regarding the project on the 6th Street lot, a PPA spokesperson said the agency is waiting for PennDOT’s review of the memo. PennDOT administers the grant funding.
Officials in other states are reportedly confused and divided about how to respond, with some halting their charger installations altogether and others continuing projects that were already under way.
Status of urban charger projects is unclear
While NEVI money is going mostly toward highway charging, CFI grants are intended to subsidize chargers within communities, especially in urban and rural areas.
The Philly area has been awarded two rounds of CFI grants. The first, last summer, was for nearly $9 million to install fast EV chargers. It includes close to $6.8 million for planning and installation of chargers in underserved neighborhoods, including at three rec centers, and $2.2 million for the airport charging hub.
Those projects are likely under contract, Grid Philly reported, which could possibly exempt them from a spending freeze.
A more recent CFI round, announced by the Biden administration shortly before Trump took office, awarded another $11.1 million in the Philadelphia area. It will subsidize 100 charging stations with two ports each, or a total of 200 ports. Seventy-five will be in parking lots and other locations in Philly, and 25 in other area towns.
The PPA and the city’s Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems (OTIS) will identify city locations and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission will work with counties to select spots outside Philadelphia, OTIS said last month.
CFI was not mentioned in last week’s USDOT memo. That could mean those projects will still go ahead as planned, but that too is unclear.
“DVRPC is waiting for clarification on the impact of the recent executive orders and memos,” Executive Director Ariella Maron told Billy Penn. “We are awaiting guidance from our departments of transportation and federal partners.”
The PPA referred questions about the Philly locations to city officials. “As the anticipated primary grantee of these federal dollars, the city of Philadelphia will ultimately make the final decision on these projects,” a spokesperson said.
OTIS declined to comment. “We are not commenting on the potential effects to federal infrastructure funding until there is more solid information,” spokesperson Matt Cassidy said.
Funds intended for curbside, parking lot chargers
Last fall, as the city was waiting to hear the results of the upcoming round of CFI awards, OTIS put out a call for companies to submit proposals to install EV chargers on curbs and parking lots around Philly, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
About 15 companies listened in on a September call describing the project, including charger providers Blink, Shell Recharge, Itselectric, Greenspot and Voltpost, and multiple Philadelphia firms.
OTIS said it wanted the chargers to be installed and operated at no cost to taxpayers, and asked companies to give a percentage of their revenues to the city.
Kelly initially said firms should assume there were no federal funds available, but last month, after the new CFI award was announced, OTIS said some of that money would be available to subsidize the charger installations.
The bid documents had said installation of chargers could begin as soon as January 2025, but Cassidy said Tuesday that the process of receiving and evaluating vendor bids is still under way.
In September, Kelly said there were about 11,000 EVs registered in Philadelphia, or 1.3% of all vehicles, and the number of EVs statewide was increasing almost 60% annually.
Philly has 154 “public” charging stations with 394 charging ports, per the U.S. Department of Energy, although many are in gated parking lots or parking garages that are not freely accessible. As of Tuesday, a DOE map showed 23 of the locations, with 44 ports, as temporarily unavailable.
This story is a part of Every Voice, Every Vote, a collaborative project managed by The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. The William Penn Foundation provides lead support for Every Voice, Every Vote in 2024 and 2025 with additional funding from The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, Comcast NBC Universal, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Henry L. Kimelman Family Foundation, Judy and Peter Leone, Arctos Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, 25th Century Foundation, and Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation.To learn more about the project and view a full list of supporters, visit www.everyvoice-everyvote.org. Editorial content is created independently of the project’s donors.
