New Research and Interactive Map Show Rural America Underserved by EV Infrastructure
July 30, 2024
New research from CivicPulse shows more rural, conservative counties are significantly less likely to have EV charging infrastructure than more urban, liberal counties. CivicPulse's newly released research report, which includes an interactive map, shines a light onto the role that local governments across the United States play in developing electric vehicle charging infrastructure nationwide.
"The rapid buildout of an EV charging network in America is a once-in-a-century event," states Nathan Lee, Managing Director and Founder of CivicPulse. "But we are a long way away. More attention is needed to know what the reality of accelerating successful completion of EV charging stations on the ground looks like. To do this, we need to take a closer look at the role of local government. We often misunderstand, or simply ignore, the realities of local government in these major national initiatives, to our own detriment."
To take that closer look at the role of local government in the EV infrastructure rollout, CivicPulse fielded a nationally representative survey in February 2023 – the results of which are being released to the public for the first time. CivicPulse coupled this data collection with a location analysis of existing charging stations as well as the location of recent local government grant recipients.
"Equity along several different dimensions has been mainstreamed into policymaking today in America, but the urban-rural divide often remains left out of these frameworks, despite its importance for explaining our current predicament," Lee says.
Users can filter the interactive map to find out whether counties have at least one EV charger as well as if counties fall above or below the median population of 25,000.
CivicPulse's comprehensive research report contextualizes our key findings listed below.
Key findings:
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A pervasive gap in access to charging infrastructure falls along the urban-rural divide (Figure 1).
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Recent public sector investments run the risk of making this problem worse, not better (Figure 2).
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Local governments from the largest population tercile were seven times more likely to have applied for funding than local governments from the smallest population tercile (Figure 3).
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Likewise, local governments in the most liberal tercile (measured by 2020 presidential vote share) were five times more likely to have applied for funding for EV charging stations than those from the most conservative tercile (Figure 3).
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Several explanations exist but our survey points to a key one: path dependency. Local governments with existing charging stations are more likely to report an intent to take action in the future to procure additional stations (Figure 7).
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Local governments without stations are twice as likely to cite lack of technical knowledge as a barrier (Figure 8).
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If state and federal policy- and grant-making entities do not explicitly take corrective steps to mitigate these divides, urban centers will outstrip rural areas in per-capita access to locally-supported charging infrastructure.
ENDS
The report can be read at: www.civicpulse.org/research/energy-and-environment/local-government-ev-charging-urban-rural-divide
Data workbooks and images are available upon request.
Media Contact
CivicPulse | Victoria Starbuck, Research and Communications Associate
victoriastarbuck@civicpulse.org
About CivicPulse
CivicPulse is a non-partisan, non-profit research organization seeking to promote more effective governance in the United States through improved access to reliable data, benchmarking, and research. We accomplish this by bridging the gap between top-tier academic research in politics, governance, and public administration and the needs of elected officials, civil servants, and community stakeholders.