Philadelphia gets almost $9M federal grant to improve electric vehicle charging network

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia International Airport and three neighborhood recreation centers will get fast chargers for electronic vehicles, thanks to a nearly $9 million federal grant.

EV charging is a major challenge for Philadelphia. The city’s senior advisor for EV and Parking Anna Kelly says, after price, charging anxiety is the biggest obstacle to getting rid of fossil-fueled cars.

“Nationwide, like 80 percent of charging happens at home overnight, and then you think about Philadelphia’s housing stock is 70 percent rowhomes and the math of charging—people don’t have overnight parking often,” she said.

Kelly says the grant will allow the city to improve access to faster and more expensive chargers that can charge a car in 15 minutes and make EV ownership possible in a city like Philadelphia where so few people have access to a garage or driveway where a car can sit for 14 hours on a slow charger.

“One of the city’s priorities is to make sure that as this technology proliferates and as it becomes more accessible for people throughout the city that neighborhoods aren’t left out,” she said.

Smart Cities Director Akshay Malik says the city chose 12 rec centers with criteria such as proximity to commercial corridors, arterial roads, and other transit options. The grant will pay for chargers at three of them, as well as planning and evaluation studies.

Another part of the grant will fund a charging station at the airport. These grants are in addition to some $170 million in National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure grants going to PennDOT for chargers statewide, including one in a Philadelphia Parking Authority garage and several in surrounding counties.

The grants are part of a $7.5 billion program to install 500,000 chargers nationwide to ease the transition from fossil fuel vehicles to more climate-friendly EVs.