Biden admin snubs Tesla’s $100 million big-rig charging funding request — again

The Department of Transportation announced Another $636 million in funding will be awarded to 49 applicants for electric vehicle charging infrastructure on Friday — and Tesla’s application for nearly $100 million to fund a big rig charging corridor was again passed .

Tesla’s name was not among the list of recipients released, and its project partner, the California South Coast Air Quality Management District, confirmed to TechCrunch that the company had applied for this time

The snub comes as Tesla has struggled to get its electric big rig program off the ground. The company provided some the first versions of the so-called Tesla Semi to customers such as Pepsi and Frito-Lay. But his biggest business program has yet to materialize. The company is still building a facility in Nevada where it plans to build its electric semi-truck, which was revealed in 2017.

Tesla first applied for funding in 2023 from what is known as the Charge and Power Infrastructure (CFI) program, part of a bipartisan infrastructure agreement that President Biden. signed into law in 2021. At the time, the company hopes to use that funding, along with $24 million of its own cash, to build nine electric semi-truck charging stations between its former headquarters in Northern California to the southern border of the Texas.

Each of these stations should be equipped with eight 750kW chargers for the Tesla Semi, and four other chargers that will be open to other electric trucks – a requirement for federal funding.

The project, officially called “Transportation Electrification Supporting Semi Operations in Arizona, California and Texas,” or TESSERACT, was past early 2024 when the Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced the first round of CFI awards. This first round saw $623 million in funding going to 47 applicants.

The FHWA distributed another $521 million to 51 applicants drawn from the same pool in August 2024. The agency also began accepting applications for a new round of funding in mid-2024.

Tesla continued to pursue the idea of ​​​​the charging corridor even after being left out of the first round, TechCrunch. reported in April 2024. Former VP of policy Rohan Patel said at the time that some of the sites along the 1,800-mile route were “no brainers even without funding.”

The status of the TESSERACT Project was unclear after that, however, as Tesla laid off more than 10% of its workforce and, in particular, he cleared his charge team.

In theory, there could be another round of CFI funds available, as the bipartisan infrastructure law allocated $2.5 billion for the program. The FHWA website for the CFI program currently says there is “(n)o estimated date” for the next “funding opportunity notice,” however, and it is unclear what effect the incoming Trump administration’s priorities will have on programs like and this.