$10 billion in government loans announced for United States EV charging network, battery production

Government support is valuable for accelerating the adoption of important technology like electric vehicles (instead of gasoline-powered vehicles).

The current administration seems to be finalizing as many loans as possible before January. While the incoming admin is ambivalent about EVs, it's unlikely that existing infrastructure funding would be rolled back because it supports American-based manufacturing and commerce.

The LPO [of the $1.25 billion loan] states that “the loan guarantee will support EVgo’s deployment of approximately 7,500 chargers at roughly 1,100 charging stations across the United States.” These stations will be equipped with dual-port, high-power 350kW direct current (DC) chargers that can charge two vehicles simultaneously.

EVgo will incorporate its “dynamic power sharing” technology to efficiently distribute power among connected vehicles, reducing charging times. Furthermore, the Autocharge+ technology will allow pre-enrolled customers to initiate charging simply by plugging in their vehicles.

There are currently about 210,000 EV charging ports in the US, about 190,000 of which are public (Q2 pg. vii), but only about ~42,000 of those are DC charging ports (Q2 pg. viii). So 7500 new ports is a big deal. That's a 19.05% increase from just one company. The EV charging network is already more robust than you think, but it's still continuing to grow and adapt to market demand.

The second loan, totaling $9.63 billion, has been awarded to a joint venture between Ford and South Korea’s SK, a global leader in battery production. The financing will support the construction of three facilities, each spanning four million square feet, dedicated to producing battery cells for electric vehicles.

And it's coming soon:

Originally, both Kentucky facilities were set to begin operations simultaneously in early 2025, or possibly as early as late 2024. However, the opening of the second facility has been postponed to later in the year, pushing component production to 2026.