Tesla, together with other EV makers and environmental groups, is asking the Biden administration to invest in the buildout of charging infrastructure for electric buses, trucks, and other medium and heavy-duty vehicles.
In a letter addressed to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the group asked the Biden administration to allocate about 10% of the funds for electric vehicle charging in the bipartisan infrastructure bill for medium and heavy-duty EVs.
“Most public EV charging infrastructure has been designed and built with passenger vehicles in mind. The size and location of spaces reflect an interest in servicing the driving public, not larger commercial vehicles. If America’s MHDV fleet is to go electric, the charging infrastructure built under the BIL will need to take its unique needs into account,” the group wrote.
While most vehicles on the road are passenger cars, medium to heavy-duty vehicles contribute a disproportionate amount of pollution from the transportation sector. As such, the deployment of large all-electric vehicles like the Tesla Semi would go a long way toward reducing the transportation sector’s overall emissions.
Getting support from the Biden administration for the buildout of a charging network for heavy-duty EVs would likely help accelerate the adoption of zero-emission trucks, even if companies like Tesla are already hard at work in building their own charging infrastructure for their respective vehicles.
The Biden administration has already made pollution from large vehicles one of its key priorities, as hinted at by the Department of Transportation’s efforts to fund electric transit buses for state and local governments. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also proposed a new rule requiring new trucks to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 90% by 2031.
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Source: TESLARATI