The Trump administration has tried to pull the plug on the federally funded EV charger program designed to electrify America' highways, but that isn't stopping Pennsylvania from charging ahead.

The $7.5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program was included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021, and aimed to build out charging infrastructure in all 50 states.

But a Feb. 6 letter from the Federal Highway Administration pulled back much of that money, leaving states scrambling to determine exactly what they could do.

Pennsylvania is among the states in a position to forge ahead.

"Kudos to PennDot — PennDot was on it," said Ingrid Malmgren, senior policy director for the EV advocacy nonprofit Plug In America. "They really have been paying attention, they've been making plans, they have chargers up and running. They're definitely ahead of other states."

PennDot announced at the end of last month that three new NEVI chargers have been added to the network, giving the Philadelphia region's EV owners more freedom to plan trips west to Pittsburgh, with a station near the Pennsylvania Turnpike at Carlisle, and north to upstate New York, with another on I-81 just south of the border. A third station near Chambersburg has also come online, bringing the total number of stations to eight, with three more to come soon, PennDot said.

The three new stations join five already in service in the Commonwealth, including one in Aston, Delaware County.

Pennsylvania has probably the most to lose if money doesn't come through, with 91 total chargers planned in this first round of funding, totaling $71 million. Other states have been slow on getting the funding obligated, or contracted out to vendors to commence building.

"Compared to many other states, we have more NEVI stations built," said Alexis Campbell, press secretary for PennDot, a point that Malmgren confirmed with her own research. "We hit the ground running as soon as we could on this and we had a really good response from the private sector wanting to take advantage of this money.

"As far as using obligated funds, I think we're in a pretty good position, but it's still really up in the air."

But the battle for charging stations is far from over.

Funding of the unfinished first-round charging stations in the Keystone State had been put into doubt after a Feb. 6 memo from the Transportation Department's Federal Highway Administration, but PennDot said their lawyers are confident that obligated funds must be covered and decided to green light proceeding.

"NEVI is in Division J of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and as part of the statutory language, it provides an explicit process by which state departments of transportation have funding made available for them," said Andrew Wishnia, a senior vice president at Boundary Stone Partners and the former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate Policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation, and a principal architect of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

"That process was followed by every state department of transportation, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico consistent with the law, and as a result I think that is why there is as much concern as has been made apparent because states have complied with the law and as such are looking to access funds that have been duly apportioned."

The next round is the uncertain part: About $100 million for Pennsylvania is not obligated, and it was intended for chargers in communities, Campbell said.

"Whether or not that happens, I don't think anyone knows," Campbell said. "That's the part that's up in the air right now."

Litigation is expected from many states on all aspects of the funding pause, Malmgren said.

If the pause was intended to upend EV drivers' confidence in finding charging around the country, it appears to be working. A map published by Plug-In America shows stations listed as "paused per FHWA directive" across Wisconsin, Michigan, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arizona, to name a few. Charging stations in North Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, Texas, and California are still listed as "announced," as are Pennsylvania's. Pennsylvania was among the first four states to begin the NEVI process.

But even with the money considered obligated, the Trump administration's early leanings toward ignoring court rulings adds some risk.

Private EV charging operators — like Pilot, Oklahoma-based Francis Energy, EVGo, and Tesla, to name just a few — apply for the federal funds through PennDOT, and the operators are eligible to have up to 80% of their costs covered. But that money is reimbursed, and the operators have to front the costs.

So the question lingers — will that money be paid?

"I think time will tell," Wishnia said.

"What we have seen is not delivery but delay," Wishnia added. But, he noted, transportation secretary Sean Duffy "has stated that he is committed to deploy chargers quickly, and I think that's a hopeful sentiment."

The Biden administration took care to get buy-in from all corners of the country, setting up EV factories in red states and focusing charger funding on making it easier for EV owners to gain access to underserved areas.

But Trump made it a recurring theme in his campaign that EVs and other alternative fuel vehicles would have little support if he was re-elected.

Still, EVs are hardly a blue state vs. red state issue.

"We didn't have to twist any arms to get these NEVI plans approved," Wishnia said. "Every single state in the country, including every deep-red pocket of the country, submitted voluntarily a NEVI plan. I think [it] was a demonstration of the fact that this was bipartisan on the ground and that looks very different from the politics in D.C."

That bipartisanship may remain because, despite continued predictions that EV sales would tank, the evidence for that is slim.

Year-over-year EV sales rose 16.1% for the month of February, according to data provided by the everything-automotive site Edmunds.com. Of all auto sales last month, 7.6% were EVs, down from a high of 8.8% in September.

Continuing high sales may be affected by the Trump administration threatening to end rebates for EVs. But the federal government's fuel economy website still lists 15 EV models eligible for a $7,500 rebate as of February.

J.D Power expects EV sales to hold at about 9.1% of vehicles sold in 2025.

And charging in the country continues to build, with or without NEVI. The number of DC Fast chargers — the fastest available and the kind the NEVI program supports — have doubled to over 51,000 since September 2022, according to the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation. Add in Level 2 chargers — which add 15 to 30 miles in an hour of charging — and that number swells to 200,000.

Malmgren and other experts worry about what this will mean for the future. Charging stations will be slow to build and cost more, Malmgren said, and contractors will become reluctant to work with federal and state agencies.

And it could even put the U.S. on the back foot in trying to compete with other countries.

"As a country, deciding not to help make the move to electric vehicles will put American manufacturing at a disadvantage as the competition from all over the world develops better and better products for their home markets," said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting for AutoForecast Solutions in Chester Springs.

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