WH Announces Latest Investments Under EV Challenge

WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday announced the second set of public and private investments under its EV Acceleration Challenge.

As part of the administration’s goal of having 50% of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030, the White House issued a call to all stakeholders in the private and public sectors last year to dedicate resources and make independent commitments in order to actively support this transition.

Specifically, it asked organizations to share details about any new or not yet publicly announced commitments they’d made in regard to the EV transition, and promised to highlight them.

The EV Acceleration Challenge focused on four primary categories:

Tools and Resources: Spotlighting those who develop tools or interactive resources that will help consumers, businesses or state, regional, tribal or local governments understand and access EV incentives, and make informed new and used car-buying decisions that consider electric options.

Consumer Education and Support: For those who work to increase awareness among the public, and especially among groups with currently low rates of EV adoption, about how EVs work and the benefits they offer.

EV Fleet Expansion: Those increasing EV penetration in public and private fleets.

Community Charging: For those who are working to expand access to EV charging in commercial and multifamily settings.

Monday’s announcement highlighted the following participants:

• Blink Charging is committing to invest $49 million to increase its manufacturing capacity in Bowie, Maryland, from 10,000 to 40,000 chargers per year by 2024.
• Zipcar is committing to allocate 25% of its electric vehicles to disadvantaged communities in 2023.
• Uber is committing to reach 400 million EV miles driven on its platform in the U.S. by the end of 2023 by distributing resources through its Green Future program to help hundreds of thousands of drivers transition to EVs and through its partnerships with automakers, rental companies and charging companies.
• Pacific Gas & Electric and Ecology Action are committing to directly install approximately 2,000 electric vehicle charging ports at no cost to customers at approximately 450 multifamily properties and small businesses in underserved communities by 2025 to increase access to charging and EV adoption.
• National Automobile Dealers Association and Center for Sustainable Energy are committing to launch online dealer training in 2023 that will be available to over 180,000 salespeople at NADA’s 16,000+ member dealers to help them master the nuances of selling electric vehicles and accelerate mass-market EV adoption.

Two additional recent major announcements that are part of the EV Acceleration Challenge were:

• Enel X Way is committing to sell over 2 million EV chargers in North America by 2030, including over 10,000 public D.C. fast charging stations, and is also committing to enter the North American EV public charging station market in 2023.
• Walmart is committing to install new electric vehicle fast-charging stations at thousands of Walmart and Sam’s Club locations across the country by 2030.

The White House said these commitments are all part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to spur domestic manufacturing, strengthen supply chains, boost U.S. competitiveness and create good-paying jobs. 

Since Biden took office, electric vehicle sales have tripled and the number of publicly available charging ports has grown by over 40%. There are now more than 3 million EVs on the road and over 135,000 public EV chargers across the country, the White House said.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue