Why the Road to EV adoption is currently paved with broken chargers.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Lily Jamali. Gamai. More than a million electric vehicles were sold in the U.S. this year.

More than a million electric vehicles were sold in the US this year.

Despite that, this fall, GM, Ford, and Tesla all announced they were slowing down production of EVs.

As more drivers make the switch to electric,

the availability of public places to juice up those cars

hasn't exactly kept pace.

Back in 2021, the federal government set aside $7.5 billion to build tens of thousands

of chargers across the country, but the project has barely broken ground in the two years

since.

This is all very personal for Megan McCarty Karino,

who's also been following the issue as a reporter for Marketplace.

She drives a 2019 electric Volkswagen golf and says relying on public chargers has only gotten harder.

I have owned my EV since 2019. It's kind of an older model. It's a lower range EV. And this was the first year I would say I

really started to question my decision to get an EV. There are a number of reasons, I think,

but basically the charging situation became untenable.

Well, I'm surprised by that, because you'd think if you'd had it since 2019, it would have only gotten better.

So what's going on?

So as I have shared on the program before, I live in an apartment where I cannot charge the vehicle at home.

I thought I would be able to when I bought the car, but the trickle charge from the outside

outlet has not worked.

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