Featured image: Tesla
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announces a new investment program. The state will provide $750 million to build charging stations and other infrastructure for electric vehicles as part of the state’s long-term goal of reducing emissions.
According to the program, more than 50,000 charging stations will be created. All of them, to a large extent, will be financed by public utilities owned by investors, with a total budget limited to $701 million by 2025.
An additional $48.8 million is allocated from a 2017 settlement with German carmaker Volkswagen AG over its diesel emissions cheating scandal to fund electric school and transit buses, as well as charging stations.
These settlements resolve allegations that Volkswagen violated the Clean Air Act (“CAA”) by the sale of approximately 590,000 model year 2009 to 2016 diesel motor vehicles equipped with “defeat devices.” The EPA alleged that these vehicles are equipped with defeat devices in the form of computer software designed to cheat on federal emissions tests. The major excess pollutant at issue, in this case, is oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and is a serious health concern.
Last week, Florida announced an $8.6 million investment into the expansion of charging stations. This project also benefited from a settlement against Volkswagen for violating the Clean Air Act. Tesla will be the main beneficiary of the deal to expand the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Most of the infrastructure will consist of Tesla supercharger stations, extending 1,200 miles on state evacuation routes and major I-75, I-4 and I-95 highways -- increasing the presence of public charging stations by about 15%.
VW Clean Air Settlement Helps Tesla Build More Superchargers In Florida https://t.co/BXzl1vPw4q pic.twitter.com/uswtYvU3Qe
— Tesmanian.com (@Tesmanian_com) July 17, 2020
Despite the gradual increase in electric car sales, their share is less than 2% of all U.S. car sales in 2019. One of the most common reasons for not buying an EV is the lack of reliable charging networks. In most cases, chargers are concentrated in densely populated urban areas and along the east and west coast of the U.S. Investing in charging networks should have a positive effect on the attractiveness of electric vehicles.
Article edited by @SmokeyShorts, you can follow him on Twitter
About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
