Ohio primed to improve electric vehicle infrastructure as sales climb

Over the next 5 years, Ohio is scheduled to take in more than $140 million federal dollars, specifically to improve the state's electric vehicle infrastructure.

It comes as part of a $5 billion dollar federal spending plan to increase the amount of EV support -- mainly by adding charging stations - all across this country.

It's part of a larger move by the Biden administration to address climate change, but also a way support the potential for manufacturing jobs that go hand in hand with addressing our EV needs.

But while electric vehicles still lag behind in sales, making up only 3 % of auto sales in 2021 - those sales are a 94% increase over the number of electric vehicles sold in 2020.

Some economic forecasters predict EVs will make up 10 % of the total automobiles on the road by 2025, and in the same breath point out how much our current EV infrastructure does not support this predicted number.

That's very much the case here in Ohio, as clean energy advocates argue that Ohio needs to quickly adapt to these increasing EV sales... even though the state registrations showed just 14,000 of the cars in use, as of last June.

On today's Sound of Ideas, we learn about where the state stands supporting this still new tech, and what the next few years hold.

With us for the conversation are Tom Bullock, the Executive Director of the Citizens Utility Board of Ohio, Martin Cohen, an energy policy consultant, and Kathiann Kowalski, a reporter who covers energy in Ohio for Energy News Network.

- Tom Bullock, Executive Director, Citizen's Utility Board of Ohio
- Marty Cohen, Energy Policy Consultant
- Kathiann Kowalski, Reporter, Energy News Network