by Jeff Della Rosa (JDellaRosa@nwabj.com)
The Arkansas Department of Transportation (ArDOT) will provide $14.91 million to build 19 electric vehicle charging stations along Arkansas highways and interstates.
The money comes from the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act or Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. In February 2022, the U.S. Departments of Transportation and Energy released plans to use nearly $5 billion made available by the law to build a national electric vehicle charging network by 2030. Arkansas will receive up to $54.12 million over five years for its network.
The federal infrastructure law established the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program to help states build a network of 500,000 charging stations along alternative fuel corridors, primarily interstates. According to Arkansas’ charging infrastructure plan, it would need to build 15 charging stations to meet the minimum requirements for the NEVI program. It requires a public station every 50 miles along alternative fuel corridors. Arkansas has five existing charging stations that meet the NEVI program requirements and 34 stations that were identified as upgradable to meet the requirements.
