President Biden promised a national network of 500,000 EV chargers would “sprout up very quickly.” Four years later, only 25 charging locations had opened, handing Donald Trump perfect campaign ammunition to mock the program as government waste. But beneath the political disaster lies an unexpected success story: the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program forced America’s fragmented charging industry to adopt common standards that are finally making EV road trips reliable—and the program survived Trump’s inauguration day freeze attempt to become operational under his own administration.

The gap between Biden’s 2021 promise and 2025 reality gave Trump one of his most effective attack lines. At the Republican National Convention, he called the federal effort a “crazy electric Band-Aid” and claimed “They spent $9 billion on eight chargers, three of which didn’t work,” according to Politico Magazine’s deep dive into the program. The numbers were exaggerated—it was actually 15 stations at that point—but Trump had identified a genuine failure that resonated with voters frustrated by slow government action.

The Promise Versus The Reality

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg set expectations in 2021 when he predicted charging stations would appear “very quickly around the country.” Congress approved $5 billion for NEVI as part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, with the primary goal of building a safety net of charging stations every 50 miles along major highways.

The execution proved far more complex than anyone anticipated. States struggled with Title 23 regulations—the 818-page rulebook governing federal transportation spending—while navigating Depression-era labor requirements and Biden-era Buy America mandates requiring 55% domestic content. The problem: hardly any American factories existed to produce EV chargers that could meet those standards.

Supply chain chaos compounded delays. Getting an electrical transformer for a charging station could take three years during the pandemic recovery. State departments of transportation, experts at building roads and bridges, found themselves managing technology projects involving software, payment systems, and grid connections—skills completely outside their expertise.

The Hidden Achievement No One Noticed

While NEVI failed to deliver visible charging stations, it succeeded at something more fundamental: forcing the chaotic charging industry to get its act together.

Before NEVI, America’s charging network was fragmented chaos. Companies like EV Institute in Maryland operated stations with 50-kilowatt speeds when modern EVs needed 150kW or more. Payment systems didn’t work across networks. Reliability was abysmal—Politico reporters visiting Maryland stations found multiple locations completely non-functional, with disconnected customer service numbers and graffiti-covered chargers displaying “OUT OF ORDER” signs.

NEVI’s 35,000-word guidance document established mandatory standards for reliability, interoperability, cybersecurity, and payment systems. To access billions in federal funding, charging providers had to meet these requirements. The program essentially told the industry: “You want government money? Here are the rules everyone must follow.”

The impact extended beyond NEVI-funded stations. States and utilities began adopting the federal standards as their own requirements. What started as conditions for federal funding became industry-wide best practices.

Tesla’s Network Opened Because Of NEVI Incentives

One of NEVI’s most significant but underappreciated achievements was helping push Tesla to open its Supercharger network to non-Tesla vehicles. The chance to tap NEVI funding was part of what spurred CEO Elon Musk to make the strategic shift, according to Politico’s reporting.

That decision transformed the competitive landscape. As EVXL documented in June 2025, Tesla’s Supercharger network dwarfs competitors like Electrify America, particularly along key routes. Tesla operates approximately 73,000 Supercharger stalls globally, and the network processed roughly 587,000 charging sessions per day during 2025.

The reliability gap remains stark. J.D. Power reported in May 2025 that public EV charger reliability hit 84% success rate—a notable improvement from 80% in 2021, but still highlighting the work remaining for non-Tesla networks.

Trump Tried To Kill It But Couldn’t

On inauguration day, Trump announced he would freeze NEVI along with numerous other Biden programs. But Democrats had written the program into law with such specific detail and embedded it so deeply into core federal highway spending that Trump found little room to maneuver.

The program not only survived a court challenge but was reluctantly adopted by the administration. While Trump relaxed some of the most burdensome requirements, the core mission of constructing a federal charging network endured, shielded by layers of Democratic legalisms and technicalities.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced in summer 2025 that the administration would reopen funding, saying “While I don’t agree with subsidizing green energy, we will respect Congress’ will and make sure this program uses federal resources efficiently.”

Duffy threw out Biden’s 35,000-word guidance document and replaced it with a brief 2,500-word version “to allow states to actually build EV chargers.” Gone were strict spacing requirements and detailed federal oversight. States gained flexibility to declare when their networks were finished.

Some EV advocates who typically opposed Trump policies found themselves praising the changes. The Electrification Coalition said it “appreciate[d] the Department’s efforts to streamline the program.”

Stations Finally Coming Online Under Trump’s Watch

With regulatory burdens reduced and states now experienced with the process, NEVI is hitting its stride. State transportation departments have wrapped their heads around charging infrastructure. Money is flowing and thousands of stations are under construction.

Analysts expect thousands of NEVI-funded chargers may be online by 2027 or 2028—exactly when the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation predicted back in 2022, though that timeline offered no political benefit to Biden.

Maryland officials say their first wave of 22 stations will be online by late 2026. Across the country, privately funded charging plazas are being built near highways without any federal assistance, suggesting NEVI’s standards have helped create conditions for market-driven expansion.

Andrew Dick of Electrify America told Politico that NEVI created “a level of consistency and cohesion that didn’t exist before,” noting that the federal rules became adopted as standard industry practice even beyond NEVI-funded projects.

EVXL’s Take

This story perfectly encapsulates the subsidy-dependent dysfunction we’ve been documenting across the EV industry. Biden’s NEVI program failed spectacularly at its visible mission—building charging stations—while succeeding at the invisible work of forcing industry standards. Then Trump killed it on principle but was forced to resurrect it because Democrats had made it legally unkillable.

The irony runs deep. Back in August 2024, we covered Trump’s wildly exaggerated claims about NEVI, noting his “$9 billion for 8 chargers” line was hyperbole but pointed to genuine failure. Now those same charging stations are being built under Trump’s relaxed rules, and he’ll likely take credit for “fixing” a program he tried to eliminate.

Here’s what nobody wants to admit: the charging infrastructure problem was always solvable through market forces if government would just get out of the way. Tesla proved this by building the world’s most reliable charging network without federal handouts. The company operates 73,000 Supercharger stalls globally that actually work, process 587,000 sessions daily, and recently opened real-time availability data to Google Maps for all EV drivers.

Meanwhile, NEVI spent four years navigating Title 23 regulations, Buy America requirements, and state bureaucracy to build 25 locations. The program’s real achievement—forcing reliability standards—could have been accomplished through simple federal mandates rather than a $5 billion spending program.

But let’s connect this to the broader collapse we’re witnessing. NEVI’s slow rollout occurred during the exact period when federal EV subsidies were propping up demand. Now that the $7,500 tax credit expired on September 30, 2025, we’re seeing the real market. As we reported last week, U.S. vehicle sales cratered in October with EV sales plunging 24% in a single month.

The timing matters. All those battery plants we documented sitting idle? The $28 billion Battery Belt collapse? That’s happening simultaneously with charging infrastructure finally coming online. We’re building the roads after the gold rush ended.

NEVI will ultimately deliver thousands of charging stations using taxpayer money to solve a problem Tesla already solved profitably. The program survived not because it was good policy, but because Democrats buried it so deep in federal spending that even a hostile administration couldn’t extract it without Congressional action. That’s not evidence of smart governance—it’s evidence of how hard it is to kill bad programs once they’re embedded in the bureaucracy.

The real lesson here isn’t about charging infrastructure. It’s about the dangers of building entire industries on government subsidies rather than actual consumer demand. When the subsidies end, demand collapses, and you’re left with empty battery plants and charging stations that finally work but serve a market that no longer exists at scale.

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