Two-thirds of new light-duty vehicles sold in the U.S. by 2032 could be electric vehicles if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed standards go into effect, bringing benefits and challenges to cities nationwide. 

“A lot of cities and states have climate goals that the zero-emission vehicles will help to achieve,” said Larissa Koehler, director of vehicle electrification and senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund, in an interview. 

But EV sales are growing rapidly, putting pressure on municipalities and the private sector to provide the charging infrastructure necessary to meet the upcoming demand. 

More than one million EVs could be sold in the U.S. this year, according to Cox Automotive. First-quarter sales have already set a new record, with EVs accounting for 7.2% of new vehicle sales. Last year, the Edison Electric Institute projected that more than 26 million EVs would be on the road in the U.S. in 2030; McKinsey estimated 48 million. 

“This is a wake-up call if you weren’t already aware of the frenzy around electric transportation,” said Ashley Horvat, vice president-eMobility North America at Schneider Electric, a global energy management company, in an email. Horvat warned that “the transformation required to enable widespread vehicle electrification will be a massive challenge,” adding that they see “massive disparities across the country” on the ease of implementing EV infrastructure projects.

The challenge of providing sufficient, readily accessible charging stations may be most acute in urban centers, particularly in low-income communities, where the transition to zero-emission vehicles is most needed. “Because of housing discrimination and other unjust policies, communities of color and lower-income communities make up a higher percentage of the population near our roads and highways, and are disproportionately burdened by unhealthy pollution from cars and trucks,” said Melody Reis, senior legislative and regulatory policy manager at Moms Clean Air Force, in an emailed statement.

Andrea Marpillero-Colomina, sustainable communities program director at GreenLatinos, said in an interview that “it’s going to be pretty hard to convince” renters in low-income neighborhoods to choose an EV given the current lack of charging infrastructure. She recommended outreach in multiple languages to communicate the benefits of EVs.

City leaders are “very much thinking about how to equitably deploy” charging infrastructure in low- and medium-income areas, said Climate Mayors’ policy director, Meghan Pazik, in an interview. She added that many cities are already working to deploy EV charging stations and electrify their municipal vehicle fleets. 

Pazik also pointed out that the newly proposed EPA standards will help cities accelerate their climate action plans and meet their climate goals. “Cities are just trying to think through what makes sense for their city,” she said.

Charging companies are ready to meet the demand growth, executives said. 

Suzanne Goldberg, senior director of public policy North America at ChargePoint, said in an interview that the EPA’s action “provides a really clear signal to the private sector” and gives regulatory certainty to the trajectory of EV demand.

Blink Charging President Brendan Jones said the charging industry is “on the right track” but needs to keep expanding capacity to meet the projected demand. In addition to installing fast chargers, cities need slower level 2 chargers in garages, parking lots and multifamily dwellings, which can work just as well for most drivers. 

Other possible public charging locations include parks, libraries and other venues where people spend their time, said Ellen Kennedy, who leads the carbon-free transportation initiative at RMI, a nonprofit advocacy organization, in an interview. Major retailers, including Walmart and 7-Eleven, have also announced plans to install chargers at many stores. 

Kennedy said, “We'll need about 20 times the number of chargers that we have available today,” including home and public chargers. “We also need to make sure that we have grid capacity to support those chargers [and] that there's resilience on the grid.”

Thomas Boylan, regulatory director at the Zero Emission Transportation Association, called the EPA’s action “historic” in an interview, citing the beneficial effects on greenhouse gas reductions and local air quality. But he added, “It's going to take a lot of work across a couple of different sectors, one of which being the charging sector.”

Last year, municipal utility Seattle City Light launched a project to install approximately 30 public, fast electric vehicle chargers across Seattle. While many cities are building EV charging stations to support vehicle electrification and city climate goals, City Light’s pilot project was unique in how it chose its EV charger locations.

Instead of selecting potential locations and getting customer feedback afterward, the utility asked its Seattle customers to tell it where they want EV charging stations, said Angela Song, transportation electrification portfolio manager at City Light. 

The utility received just under 2,000 applications for public EV chargers, Song said, and that interest was evenly distributed across the city’s districts. She identified “listening to the community and understanding their needs” as two key requirements for city leaders installing EV charging infrastructure.

Still, EV chargers are not always easy to access, especially for marginalized groups. After all, EVs are more likely to be purchased by White, wealthy men who own their homes, making them more likely to have residential charging access. As a result, EV chargers tend to be located in wealthier, Whiter areas. 

Cities can work to ensure they roll out EV charging infrastructure in an equitable manner by listening to and collaborating with their communities, Song said.

Charging infrastructure can improve access to electric vehicles and electric mobility,  said Jeff Allen, executive director of electric transportation advocacy group Forth Mobility, but it “doesn’t really provide any benefits by itself.” 

If communities don’t have experience with electric vehicles or knowledge about electrification, a charging station arbitrarily dropped into a neighborhood might “actually do harm,” he said, because communities may perceive it as a sign of gentrification instead of the transition to clean energy.

When a city wants to implement EV charging equitably, it needs to “focus more on the people than on the hardware,” Allen said. That involves listening to and talking with communities about their needs — just as City Light did when planning its curbside EV charging pilot. 

Before the City Light project even began, the utility sought out several layers of community feedback, connecting with state and local agencies, environmental justice organizations, labor unions and community leaders to inform its plan for transportation electrification. Song said the feedback process helped the city understand where there were “gaps in awareness about the benefits of electric vehicles.”

Allen described three key benefits of EV chargers for historically disadvantaged communities that are important to communicate. 

People living in low-income communities are likely to experience larger environmental benefits than those living in wealthier neighborhoods since low-income areas are more likely to experience air pollution. EV chargers can also benefit an area economically by creating more jobs, as local residents may be hired and trained as charger technicians. Song said at least one charging repair firm in Seattle hires locally. 

The most important benefit, Allen said, is that residents are “going to have access to more mobility options because of this charging infrastructure,” even if they don’t yet own an EV themselves. For example, Forth has worked with affordable housing providers in Portland, Oregon, to provide electric vehicles for staff use and also rent them out to residents when not in use. In St. Louis, local groups providing transportation to seniors in low-income areas have transitioned to electric vehicles, allowing riders to experience EVs.

For personal charging, “different contexts might require different formats of charging infrastructure,” said Alessandra Carreon, a manager with Rocky Mountain Institute’s carbon-free transportation program. 

Charging in rural areas dominated by single-family homes looks different from charging in apartment-heavy cities. Carreon notes that 80% of EV charging occurs at home, but low-income people are more likely to live in multifamily dwellings or urban homes without driveways. As a result, she said, positioning EV chargers at multi-unit dwellings could improve charging access, but cities also need to ensure the availability of public EV chargers. They should also consider the speed of public charging, with the caveat that fast charging, while convenient, is usually less affordable, as Allen pointed out.

Of course, new EV chargers cost money. The federal government has made billions of dollars available to state and local governments through the bipartisan infrastructure law to install EV charging stations — and more funding is coming. The Biden administration has invested in EV charger implementation along highways and interstates and recently renewed a tax credit for new EV chargers under the Inflation Reduction Act. Soon, $700 million in competitive grant funds will be open to state and local governments to build public EV charging stations, particularly in underserved areas.

City Light’s Song noted that equitable electrification will take time. 

“Trust is not built overnight,” she said, speaking of government entities working with historically marginalized community groups. Song added that city leaders should consider their priorities as they fashion their EV charging plans and timelines. Is the goal “to push out infrastructure? Or is it to [ensure] equitable charging?” she said.

The U.S. Department of Transportation published the “Urban Electric Mobility Toolkit” on its website in July to help larger communities take advantage of federal funding for electric vehicle charging stations and other forms of electric transportation.

Cities, states, metropolitan planning organizations, transportation providers, nonprofits, businesses and property owners and developers can also use the resource to find partners for and plan electric vehicle charging projects. 

“Building an affordable and accessible public charging network will help make electric forms of transportation more convenient for the 71% of Americans who live in communities with a population over 50,000,” the Department of Energy said in a press release.

Government and industry have an unprecedented opportunity to expand micromobility and support the transition to EVs, with the rapid rise in sales of new electric vehicles, growing popularity of e-bikes and shared e-scooters and federal funds from the 2021 infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act.

“Right now, there is incredible energy and momentum in communities across this country to transform and electrify our transportation system to ensure that every American has access to convenient, affordable, and reliable mobility options,” said Gabe Klein, executive director of the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, in a press release.

The expansive online toolkit provides basic information on electric mobility, planning information to support electric mobility infrastructure, resources for funding and partnerships and information on relevant laws and executive orders. Another section of the toolkit lays out the benefits of urban mobility electrification and the challenges of implementing the necessary charging infrastructure. 

According to the DOT, 158 communities in the U.S. had access to shared e-scooters in 2022 and many of the 96 bike-share systems in operation last year offered e-bikes. The DOT says on its website that urban mobility electrification creates job opportunities, improves air quality, lowers greenhouse gas emissions and reduces vehicle noise.

The DOT accepted applications this spring for the first $700 million of the $2.5 billion, five-year Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program to support community and neighborhood electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

Separately, last year the Federal Highway Administration approved electrification plans funded by the $5 billion federal National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure formula program for all 50 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico. Hawai’i will become the first state to roll out these charging stations, the state’s Department of Transportation announced in July.

Amtrak’s first electric bus began operating Aug. 16 between Seattle and Bellingham, Washington, to supplement two daily round-trip trains. The round-trip bus journey of nearly 200 miles will run on a single charge using a Van Hool 45-foot motor coach that can seat up to 60 passengers.

While Amtrak is known for its intercity passenger trains, the company also serves many destinations with dedicated buses that connect with and coordinate schedules with Amtrak trains. But unlike electric city transit buses, which can return at night to their depots to recharge, the lack of bus-specific, over-the-road charging infrastructure means intercity bus operators have had limited opportunities to electrify longer routes. 

That’s beginning to change: In July, ABC Companies, the North American distributor for Van Hool motor coaches, established a charging facility in Newark, California, capable of charging up to 40 electric buses. James River Transportation, based in Virginia, and Jefferson Lines, a Midwest scheduled bus operator, tested and demonstrated battery-electric buses for intercity service in 2022.

MTRWestern, which participated in a “zero-emissions tour” with ABC Companies last year, won the contract with Amtrak to operate the Bellingham service. Jeremy Butzlaff, president of MTRWestern, said in an interview that when Amtrak put the route out to bid, he thought, “This would be a really perfect route that we could electrify and be the first in the nation.”

Butzlaff said the company installed chargers in Seattle, and the 260-mile range of the Van Hool CX45e was more than enough to eliminate the need for charging in Bellingham. “We're pretty excited to finally get that first one on the road,” he said.

Competitors or collaborators?

With intercity bus companies both competing with and collaborating with Amtrak, it’s unclear how the passenger railway’s planned expansion will affect the private bus companies. Both Amtrak and bus lines are continuing to recover from ridership losses during the pandemic. While Amtrak cut service and staff and received $1 billion in CARES Act support in 2020, nearly one-fifth of motor coach companies in the U.S. went out of business that year.

Despite those setbacks, intercity bus service still appears to be undergoing a renaissance. Bus operators have introduced first-class and sleeper-bus options along with expanded schedules, “accelerating the transformation of an industry that many regarded as stodgy and stuck in a bygone era just a few years ago,” according to a February 2023 report from the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University. The report sees ridership on intercity bus lines returning to between 80% and 85% of pre-pandemic levels by the end of this year.

Flixbus, a brand of Munich, Germany-based Flix, which acquired Greyhound in 2021, has built a web of partnerships with independent bus operators in the U.S. Megabus partners with several bus lines as well. Amtrak operates bus services to more than 100 communities in conjunction with private contractors under the Amtrak Thruway brand. Bus operators have also filled gaps in Amtrak service. Trailways of New York added bus service to Montreal in July after Amtrak suspended its daily round-trip train due to a 10-mph speed restriction north of the U.S. border put in place by the host railroad, Canadian National.

Butzlaff said collaboration with Amtrak, for bus operators, is “super important” and sees it as a benefit to the motor coach industry, raising the visibility and acceptance of bus travel. “I think it's just a benefit to the entire industry,” he said.

After Amtrak received a $66 billion infusion of funds from the 2021 infrastructure law, more than 90 applications for new Amtrak intercity passenger rail routes under 750 miles were submitted to the Federal Railroad Administration, Amtrak’s CEO, Stephen Gardner, told a House committee in June. Amtrak is also in talks with Texas Central Partners on a new high-speed rail route between Dallas and Houston. The Chaddick Institute says in a 2022 report that “The Amtrak Thruway bus system is positioned for dramatic expansion as federal and state agencies work to enhance the country’s rail-passenger network.” 

In the institute’s July 12 email newsletter, its analysis found that rail routes with four or more daily trains, along with attractive fares and comfortable stations, “are a strong deterrent to intercity bus expansion.” Institute Director Joseph Schwieterman said in an interview, “There is a real headwind for intercity bus service when there are good, inexpensive Amtrak offerings, and it's pretty consistent around the country.”

With federal support behind adding new routes or increasing Amtrak service along existing routes, Schwieterman said, “That is giving a real boost to the competition, which suggests that bus lines begin to start working with Amtrak more aggressively or systematically than in the past,” including on new feeder routes.

Schwieterman also noted, however, that “adding Amtrak frequencies or Amtrak service is a notoriously slow process,” thus increased bus service along proposed routes could be an “incremental step toward boosting train frequencies.”

The future of electric intercity buses

Orders for electric transit buses are shattering records since the Federal Transit Administration awarded nearly $1.7 billion in grants for low- or no-emission buses, which will fund the purchase of 1,700 such vehicles. But despite tests, demonstrations and a pilot program by FlixBus last year running an electric bus between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., route distance and charging availability remain roadblocks to greater adoption.

Nevertheless, Butzlaff is hopeful. He said the solution is “opportunity charging,” where an intercity bus might stop for 15 or 20 minutes to top up its charge while passengers can grab a coffee or shop at an adjacent retail center.  “I’m holding out hope that we'll be able to get some of those done so we can continue to decarbonize our fleet,” he said.

The Federal Transit Administration’s Low or No Emission Vehicle Program, which helps state and local governments acquire less-polluting transit buses, instead “is artificially constraining the conversion to zero-emission vehicles,” according to a white paper submitted to Congressional leaders by Transportation for America, an advocacy organization.  

Based on data from a Freedom of Information Act request, T4A found that while 88% of grant applications were for zero-emission buses and facilities, more than two-thirds were rejected, while nearly 100% of applications for low-emission projects, which can include diesel hybrid and compressed natural gas buses, were approved. 

The organization blamed the disparity on the program’s statutory requirement to set aside 25% of funds for projects using low-emission fuels, written into the law in 2015 by Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey. T4A notes that CNG is one of the state’s key products. 

The demand for zero-emission transit buses more than doubled from 2018 to 2021 and increased a further 66% in 2022, according to data compiled by Calstart, a national nonprofit that researches, advances and advocates for clean transportation. The FTA states that the so-called Low-No program aims to help the nation’s transit fleet transition “to the lowest polluting and most energy efficient transit vehicles.” The 2021 infrastructure law included $5.5 billion over five years to fund the competitive grant program and awarded $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2022.

But according to the T4A white paper, the demand for low-emission projects, as opposed to zero-emission projects, was so low that the total awards couldn’t meet the 25% requirement. That meant that every low-emission applicant received an award, while those seeking no-emission grants had just a one-in-three chance of getting an award. 

“Congress’s goal was not to drive a shift in demand and investment toward low-emission projects at the expense of investments in zero-emission transit,” said Chris Rall, T4A’s outreach director, in a press release. “This trend could lock transit agencies into more polluting technologies for decades.”

The organization recommends eliminating the 25% requirement, increasing overall funding and creating incentives to “leverage state, regional, utility, and local funding.”

Corey Aldridge, CEO and general manager of Missoula, Montana’s transit agency, which is in the process of transitioning to an electric fleet for its fixed-route service, said in a press release, “Updates to the program could help fleet managers access the cleanest vehicle technologies that make the most sense for them.”

But low-emission buses might be needed by some transit agencies, especially those in rural areas or with longer routes. James Keel, director of public transportation for the Greenville Transit Authority in Greenville, South Carolina, testified at a Senate hearing in March that battery-electric buses have limited range. GTA has operated four electric buses since 2019, he said, but they need two electric buses to do the same work as one diesel bus. 

Customer satisfaction with public electric vehicle charging infrastructure continues to decline, according to an August J.D. Power survey.

Satisfaction with public Level 2 charging decreased 16 points year-over-year, from 633 to 617 on a 1,000-point scale. Customer satisfaction with direct current fast chargers dropped even more, declining from 674 to 654 points since last year, a 20-point reduction.

A lack of adequate public charging infrastructure could slow consumer adoption of EVs, J.D. Power said. Federal incentives, rising fuel costs, environmental concerns and lower ownership costs are driving consumer interest in EVs. But consumers remain concerned about vehicle range, inconvenient charging infrastructure and charging interoperability.

“While automakers continue to introduce new [EVs] and experience growth in market share, the beleaguered public vehicle charging infrastructure has not kept pace,” J.D. Power said. “If anything, it is falling further behind.”

Brent Gruber, executive director of the EV practice at J.D. Power, said in a statement that, in addition to needing more public chargers, EV owners are dissatisfied with charging costs and speeds, as well as a lack of “things to do while waiting for their vehicle to charge.”

“The declining customer satisfaction scores for public charging should be concerning to automakers and, more broadly, to public charging stakeholders," he said.

Public EV charging reliability also remains a concern. Roughly one in five public charging attempts fails, often due to out-of-order stations or long lines, leading to driver frustration. 

J.D. Power said that Tesla’s recent decision to open its Supercharger network to non-Tesla owners, including General Motors and Ford, may improve the situation because its charging network has higher overall customer satisfaction scores.

 

“It’s just too early to tell if it can reach the satisfaction levels of Tesla owners who are already part of that fully integrated Tesla ecosystem,” Gruber said.

J.D. Power said faster charging times, more convenient charger locations and improved reliability could spur greater EV adoption.

"The results of this year's study should be very concerning to all those involved in the transition from gas-powered vehicles to electric vehicles," Gruber said. “Although the majority of EV charging occurs at home, public charging needs to provide a much better experience across the board—not just for the users of today, but also to alleviate the concerns of skeptical future customers. A lot of work is underway to address these issues but there is certainly much more work to be done.”

There will be 30 million to 42 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads in 2030, requiring a rapid, widespread buildout of charging infrastructure that will be focused on homes and multi-family residencies, according to a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The mid-adoption scenario of roughly 33 million plug-in vehicles will require 26.8 million Level 1 and Level 2 ports at single-family homes, apartments and other locations, NREL said. Another 182,000 public direct current fast chargers, or DCFC, will be needed, along with 1 million Level 2 public chargers located near offices, retail stores and in high-density neighborhoods.

The study shows “we're going to need to continue to work together — both public and private entities — to build the national network that we'll need,” said Eric Wood, an NREL senior researcher who led the study’s team.

A cumulative national capital investment between $53 billion and $127 billion will be needed to construct sufficient charging infrastructure by 2030, according to NREL’s study.

Of the total, up to $72 billion will be required for Level 1 and Level 2 private chargers, while up to $44 billion will go to build out public DCFC infrastructure. In addition, up to $11 billion will be needed for publicly accessible Level 2 ports. And those figures do not include the costs of grid upgrades and distributed energy resources, NREL said, which “can be significant in many cases and will ultimately be critical in building out the national charging network.”

NREL determined power system costs “tend to be site-specific” and considered them out of the scope of its analysis.

There are less than 1.5 million charging ports in the U.S., according to the report, which also identified about about 132,000 publicly accessible charging ports already installed as of March, including 29,000 DCFC ports.

“We have detailed estimates of what infrastructure will be needed," Wood said in a June 27 statement. "American drivers' interest in electric vehicles is accelerating year over year, and we're already seeing the market respond with new investments.”

Electric vehicles comprise up to 10% of new vehicle sales as of early 2023, according to the report. President Joe Biden wants half of new light-duty vehicle sales to be electric by 2030, and is directing the rollout of a 500,000-public-charger network.

The report notes the technology behind vehicle charging is evolving, particularly for fast chargers.

“While most near-term fast charging demand is simulated as being met by 150-kW DC chargers, advances in battery technology are expected to stimulate demand for higher-power charging,” the report noted. “We estimate that by 2030, DC chargers rated for at least 350 kW will be the most prevalent technology across the national fast charging network.”

Electric vehicle sales are ramping up, with 800,000 of them sold last year alone — an increase of 65% from 2021, according to a report by StorageCafe ranking the nation’s largest metros by their electric vehicle infrastructure. 

California has had the most electric vehicle adoption by far, up from 258,000 vehicles in 2016 to 878,000 in 2021. On a city level, Los Angeles has the most registered EVs at 290,000, while Jackson, Mississippi, has the least at 480.

However, the availability of EV charging infrastructure varies widely depending on geographic location. Out of the top 10 U.S. metros for electric-vehicle friendliness, California metros make up more than half of the spots — while Miami is the only Southern or East Coast city in the top 10.

In a 2022 National Multifamily Housing Council survey, 27% of renters said they were interested in EV charging stations, and respondents said they would pay $28.12 more per month for them. At the same time, on top of state level rebates and incentives, the Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Congress earlier this year, reinstated a tax credit of up to 30% of the cost for chargers nationwide.

As of now, about 4.7% of multifamily residential buildings nationwide offer EV charging stations as an amenity to residents, according to data shared with Multifamily Dive by StorageCafe. At the metro level, San Jose has the highest concentration of residential buildings with EV chargers — 10.3% of the total number of rentals, according to Yardi Matrix data from the StorageCafe report. Seattle’s 7.3% concentration gives it the second-highest share of rentals with EVs.

StorageCafe ranked each metro by the concentration of residential and public chargers as well as the number of EVs on the road, the cost of electricity and local incentives.

Based on these factors, the report found Seattle to be the top metro for electric vehicle friendliness overall. The city has over 47,000 EVs on its roads, approximately 0.6 public charging stations per 1,000 households and charging stations available at 7.3% of its rental properties. 

San Francisco came in second, with over 105,000 registered EVs — roughly 5% of the national total — 1.4 charging stations per 1,000 households and stations available at 6% of rental properties. San Jose ranks third with 44,000 EVs registered locally, 2.2 charging stations per 1,000 households and stations available at 10% of rental properties.

Charging station numbers rose by 58% in 2021 compared to 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center. Still, one of the biggest obstacles to electric vehicle adoption is the inconsistent charging infrastructure.

As of now, while the top metros for EV concentration have 0.6 or more public EV charging stations per 1,000 households, nearly half of U.S. metros with 500,000 or more residents have 0.2 or fewer public EV charging stations per 1,000 households. One metro, McAllen-Edinburgh-Mission, Texas, has no public EV charging stations at all, and 17 metros do not have any rental properties with EV charging stations available.