What Virginia wants to do with $100 million in electric vehicle charging money

As efforts to speed up the transition to electric vehicles intensify, Virginia is expected to receive $100 million from the federal government over the next five years to install public electric vehicle charging stations.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act puts $7.5 billion toward building out a network of electric vehicle charging stations nationwide. Of that, $5 billion will go toward the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, the main pipeline for money to be funneled to the states.

To access its share of the NEVI money, Virginia submitted its plans for how it would use the windfall to the Federal Highway Administration last month. Here’s what they say.

Chargers will initially be focused along interstates

The NEVI Program calls for states to initially focus on building public charging stations at least every 50 miles along interstate highways and within one mile of federally designated alternative fuel corridors.

While neighboring states, including Maryland and North Carolina, have identified alternative fuel corridors outside the interstate system, Virginia’s eight existing and proposed corridors all lie along interstates.

As of September, Virginia had 1,139 public charging stations with 3,301 ports across all charging speeds.