“We don’t have a single CPO [charge point operator] in the United States that says, this is going to hurt us. Or change anything about what they’re doing,” said Andrew Bennett, CEO of Driivz, a software maker for EV charging infrastructure, referring to the halt in federal funding to build it out. “Now, having said that, obviously, it was a positive thing.”
Bennett was referring to the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program, a $5 billion piece of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act from 2021. The money went toward developing around 500,000 high-speed charging ports on major corridors, via state-submitted plans. In February, the Federal Highway Administration suspended the funding as it develops new guidance for NEVI “to align with current U.S. [Department of Transportation] DOT policy and priorities,” according to a memo sent to state transportation directors.
In response, California is leading a coalition of 17 states in suing the Trump administration for withholding funding allocated by Congress.
About 80 percent of the funding has been awarded and allocated to the various state EV charging infrastructure programs. But only about $33 million has been spent according to the EV States Clearinghouse database dashboard, which is maintained by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the National Association of State Energy Officials. That’s due in part to the time it takes to plan and develop charging locations.
To put this into perspective, Bennett said, NEVI funding in the U.S. last year contributed to 0.1 percent of all new chargers going online.
A top concern among charge point operators is grid capacity, according to the 2025 State of EV Charging Network Operators report, released by Driivz earlier this month. The survey found that 90 percent of charging operators anticipate grid capacity will limit their growth in the next year.
“Clearly, capacity is already a big problem,” Bennett said. “You have these network constraints all over Europe. In the United States, we have an even more pronounced problem.”
A separate report released Tuesday by ICF, a global consulting firm, found U.S. electric demand is expected to climb 25 percent by 2030, and 78 percent by 2050 — driven largely by the growth of data centers and the power needs of artificial intelligence, plus EVs and fully electric buildings.
Meeting this demand will require an “‘all-of-the-above’ strategy,” Anne Choate, ICF executive vice president for energy, environment and infrastructure, said in a statement. That, she said, could mean electric generation produced by a range of sources from renewables to natural gas, and demand management strategies like programs to encourage the use of energy-efficient appliances and rooftop solar.
In view of challenges like grid constraints, the NEVI pause has turned out to be “not much of a concern” among CPOs, Bennett said, indicating the development of charging infrastructure is moving forward. This is a good thing according to observers of the EV transportation transition, who have said public charging infrastructure needs to scale quickly to serve the growing number of electric light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles on U.S. highways.
In the last five years, the number of battery-electric vehicles in the U.S. has more than quadrupled, Aradhana Gahlaut, senior associate, carbon-free transportation at the Rocky Mountain Institute, said during a May 13 panel organized by Forth Mobility, an EV policy and advocacy group. By 2030, she said, the U.S. will need 15 times more charging infrastructure than is available today — “a massive scale-up.”
“And it’s not just about adding a large quantity of chargers,” she said. “It’s also about putting them in the right places.”
The right places are not always at interstate exits. The most convenient and preferred methods of charging happen at home and work. It doesn’t need to be high-speed charging requiring costly, complicated utility upgrades. In fact, developments like multifamily housing could simply install low-level trickle charging for each parking space, giving residents the kind of daily charge needed for most daily commutes and trips, Forth Program Manager Anna Guida said during the panel.
“Using Level 1, and low-level power options, is a great solution on existing builds to work with the limited electrical capacity,” Guida said.
“The need is clear,” Gahlaut said. “EV demand is rising. There are economic opportunities in electric mobility. Utilities are taking note of the need to update the grid.”
