Trump order freezes funding for Illinois EV charging network, raises questions about other clean energy projects

[Eugene]

Source: Chicago Tribune

Trump order freezes funding for Illinois EV charging network, raises questions about other clean energy projects

Nara Schoenberg, Chicago Tribune
Updated Mon, January 27, 2025 at 12:51 PM EST·6 min read

In its quest to get a million electric vehicles on the road by 2030, Illinois was counting on $148 million in federal funding to help build a statewide network of public EV chargers.

Now that funding has been frozen — and targeted for possible reduction or elimination — under a wide-ranging executive order that President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office.

Also in limbo: another federal program that was to provide Illinois with millions of dollars for public EV chargers.

-snip-

EVs and their chargers appear to be a prime target of Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” executive order, but they are by no means the only Illinois clean energy projects that could be in for a bumpy ride as the president takes bold steps to reverse the ambitious clean energy policies of his predecessor.

-snip-

Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/news/trump-order-freezes-funding-illinois-110000001.html

[boonecreek]

1. Is E-loon on board with this? nt

[Eugene]

2. If it hurts Tesla's rivals more that it hurts Tesla, this might be part of Doge Boy's overall plan.

Tesla has its own charging network. Observers speculate that Musk seeks to "win" by making everyone else lose.

[CoopersDad]

3. Correct. EV network expansions have never been for Tesla chargers, AFAIK.

And Tesla has a robust network now, and is free to continue to expand.

They are within their rights to permit other makers's cars to charge and even make them pay more $/kwh than Tesla owners do.

[NNadir]

4. Over the last 12 months, the MISO grid and PJM grid which...

...serve Illinois have respectively, according to Electricity map, carbon intensities of 507g CO₂/kWh and 404g CO₂/kWh.

Under these conditions electric cars have worse carbon intensities, if one includes embodied energy, than straight up internal combustion engines in Illinois.

This is true of Eloon's cars and cars from other manufacturers.