CLEVELAND — The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded $15 million to the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA) for electric vehicle charging stations in five area counties.
This $15 million is part of about $623 million dollars being awarded to projects in 22 states and Puerto Rico. In Northeast Ohio, the funds will go towards Phase 2 of NOACA’s regional Electric Vehicle Charging Station Program, according to the agency.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said as more and more Americans are purchasing EVs, chargers need to be available and accessible for drivers.
“We need to get to a point where it is as easy and predictable where you’re going to find a charger, as it is today where you’re going to be able to fill up a gas tank,” Buttigieg said in an interview with 3News. “And that’s what this funding is helping to do.”
Buttigieg said not everyone has a single-family home where they can easily plug in to charge, and even if they do, their driving habits may require them to charge outside the home, as well.
“Local leaders provided a vision across Northeast Ohio for putting up about 70 of these charging points in a variety of different settings, community centers around the city, suburbs, and exurbs to make sure that those chargers are available, and more people can have the benefits, including the money you can save by using electricity rather than gas," he said.
“NOACA is thrilled that we were competitively selected among so many great projects across the nation. EV networks are rapidly growing, and Northeast Ohio will be able to meet this demand and embrace a clean energy economy and reap the benefits of improved air quality,” said Grace Gallucci, NOACA’s Executive Director and CEO, in a press release on the NOACA webpage.
Buttigieg said this is part of a “bigger picture” of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.
“This is a high stakes competition, because as the automotive industry moves more and more in the direction of electric vehicles, we’ve got to make sure that that EV revolution is made here in the U.S., whether we’re talking about the cars, the batteries that go in the cars, or the equipment that charges the cars,” he said. “These funds include a lot of requirements about making sure that there are more American components, that there’s more American manufacturing. We can create a lot of good paying jobs, and again, the race is on.”