By Kyle Stock
US electric vehicle charging networks were still racing to catch up to demand when the Iran attack and surging gas prices reignited EV interest.
Some 605 public, high-speed EV fueling stations switched on in the first quarter, a 34% increase over the year-earlier period, according to Bloomberg News analysis of federal data. The country now has nearly 13,500 places to quickly add electrons to a car or truck, 25% more than it did a year ago.
The charging boom proved particularly propitious in March, as the Iran War roiled oil markets, gas prices surged and Americans started searching for EVs en masse. After skidding for months, Tesla Inc. sales climbed in the first quarter compared to last year. (Though they did come in under analysts’ expectations.)
“It’s obviously been a very anti-EV situation at the federal level,” said Ingrid Malmgren, senior policy director at Plug In America, an EV advocacy group, referring to the Trump administration’s gutting of subsidies and clean air regulations. “But what we’ve seen continuously is that people love their cars, and once they start driving an EV, nobody wants to go back.”
