Michiana has seen a rising number of electric vehicles and thanks to a newly announced grant from the Biden Administration, local leaders aim to increase the number of charging stations as well.
On Thursday, the Michiana Area Council of Governments received $4.2 million from the federal government to build 35 charging stations throughout the area.
"As auto manufactures have more vehicles that are rolling off the line that have electric options. One of the major concerns consumers have is charging," said James Turnwald, the executive director of MACOG.
Of the 35 stations, 32 will be what Turnwald called Level 2 ports which charge vehicles more slowly, taking eight hours to charge most cars up to 80%. Of those, 14 will go in rural areas including Bristol, Culver, New Carlisle, Mibblebury and Walkerton. Turnwald said the other 18 will go to underdeveloped areas of South Bend, Elkhart and Goshen, with a focus at putting them in areas that have multi-family housing complexes nearby.
"What we wanted to focus on is gaps in our network where those grant programs and the market they’re just not going to naturally going to fill those gaps in," Turnwalkd said.
In total, the federal program doled out over $620 million dollars as part of a national push to beef up EV infrastructure. And though the need right now in Michiana isn't overwhelming, by the time the stations come online in 2025 and 2026, Turnwald expects the number of EVs locally to shoot up.
Per Indiana's Department of Energy Development, there were around 235,000 cars registered in St. Joseph County in 2023. Of those, just shy of 3% are electric hybrids, or fully electric. In Elkhart for 2023, roughly 2% of the county's 194,000 registered cars are electric or hybrid. But as automakers continue to churn out electric cars, those numbers are sure to increase.
"We're really energized about this," Turnwald said, noting that the General Motors battery plant coming to the area is proof of the investments big car makers are putting into EVs.
