Tesla, along with other electric car companies and environmental groups, has asked the Biden administration to invest in charging infrastructure for electric buses, trucks and other medium and heavy vehicles.
The groups want the government to allocate 10 percent of the money for charging electric vehicles in the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed last November — a pot that includes $7.5 billion — to infrastructure for medium and heavy vehicles, they said in a statement. letter this week to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
“Most public charging infrastructure for electric cars is designed and built with passenger cars in mind,” reads the letter, also signed by the Environmental Law and Policy Center, Moms Clean Air Force and Lightning eMotors. “The size and location of spaces reflect an interest in serving the moving public, not larger commercial vehicles.”
Most of the cars on the road are passenger cars. But medium and heavy vehicles contribute a disproportionate share of the smog-causing pollutants and greenhouse gases that come from the transportation sector. Electrifying that category of vehicles could then remove a larger part of the emissions; it would have a significant impact on air quality and reduce climate impacts. The US needs a charging infrastructure to make that possible, the letter states.
Biden administration has already made truck pollution a priority: Department of Transportation is financing electric transit buses for state and local governments, and the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new rule requiring new trucks to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 90 percent by 2031.
Read the full letter below.