We're not sure if you heard about this, but there was a presidential election in the United States last week. Unlike, well, seemingly every other post on the Internet that mentions it these days, we're not going to analyze, opine, or parse voting data; no, we're simply here to bring up the fact that, under the Biden Administration, owning an electric car will likely become a lot easier.
See, last July, as part of his expansive climate plan, Biden announced his intention to help bring half a million new public electric car charging stations to the U.S.A.
"There are now one million electric vehicles on the road in the United States," Biden's plan reads, "but a key barrier to further deployment of these greenhouse-gas reducing vehicles is the lack of charging stations and coordination across all levels of government. As President, Biden will work with our nation’s governors and mayors to support the deployment of more than 500,000 new public charging outlets by the end of 2030."
To put that in perspective: as of today, the U.S. Department of Energy lists just 27,329 electric car chargers spread across America. Now, granted, those are stations, each of which can have multiple outlets — and the latter is the noun chosen by the Biden plan. Still, if each new public EV charging station packed an average four charging outlets, that would equal 125,000 new stations — putting it almost on par with the number of gas stations in the United States.
The plan also goes on to say that Biden intends to "restore" the federal EV tax credit, though perhaps "maintain" is a better choice of word; the up-to-$7,500 tax rebate for buying an electric vehicle is still currently in effect, though President Trump did attempt to see it struck down last year, and presidential opposition did lead to an expanded version of the credit supported by both parties being nixed. Regardless of the language, the meaning is clear: the EV tax credits are far more likely to stick around or expand.
All this, of course, is dependent upon Congress as much as it is the president. (Here's the old Schoolhouse Rock cartoon in case you've forgotten how a bill becomes a law.) Still, given that the aforementioned EV tax credit legislation was supported by both sides of the contentious Senate (as well as both the automakers and environmental groups), it seems as though electric vehicle-friendly laws might be something that, even in today's America, we can (mostly) agree on.
