Electric vehicle battery charging stocks moved higher in early trading on Thursday after the U.S. Transportation Department said it is awarding $148.8M for projects in 20 states to repair or replace nearly 4.5K existing electric vehicle charging ports. The overall goal is to aggressively expand the nationwide network of chargers to 500K by 2030, which include high-speed chargers no more than 50 miles apart on key highways.
Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt told Reuters the goal is to help build out EV charging infrastructure and help frustrated owners who find EV chargers out of service. “We know there’s going to be more demand for the technology,” stated Bhatt. “We anticipate reliability being less of an issue going forward.” he added.
The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program requires states to operate federally-funded charging ports for at least five years, with the charging ports working at least 97% of the time.
Shares of Blink Charging (NASDAQ:BLNK) rallied 6.32% in premarket trading on Thursday, while ChargePoint Holdings (NYSE:CHPT) pushed 2.95% higher. EVgo (NASDAQ:EVGO) was up 2.75% in the early session.
Home Department of Transportation Electric vehicle charging stocks get a jolt from new federal funding