{"id":748,"date":"2025-01-20T15:50:34","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T20:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/?p=748"},"modified":"2026-06-30T07:05:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T11:05:03","slug":"elon-musk-california-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/elon-musk-california-texas\/748\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden’s DOT gave out $636 million for EV charging and Tesla was rejected for the second time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elon Musk has been shut down by Joe Biden \u2014 again. Tesla approached the Department of Transportation for $100 million towards setting up a big-rig electric charging network stretching from California to Texas<\/strong> and the answer was no. There are a whole bunch of companies that will be sharing hundreds of millions in funding from the department, but Tesla, the giant in the EV world, has been passed over for the second time.<\/p>\n

Biden snubs Musk’s $100 million funding request for a 2nd time<\/h2>\n

On Friday, January 13, 2025, the United States Department of Transportation announced that it would be distributing $636 million in funding specifically for the installation and extension of electric vehicle charging infrastructure<\/strong>. Tesla is nowhere to be found among the 49 applicants whose requests were successful<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What Tesla asked for was just under $100 million to set up a charging corridor for long-distance, freight-hauling vehicles. This is the EV powerhouse’s second unsuccessful application to the department after a similar request in 2023.<\/p>\n

Tesla’s partner on the planned project, California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District, confirmed that they had applied but didn’t appear on the list of recipients that the department found worthy.<\/p>\n

Tesla hasn’t even delivered its promised semi-truck yet<\/h3>\n

In 2017, Tesla revealed a semi-truck model that’s been referred to as the Tesla Semi. Other than a couple of early versions of the electric big-rig that were delivered to customers such as Frito-Lay and Pepsi, no commercial program has materialized<\/strong>. Tesla is still in the process of building a facility in Nevada where the electric semi-trucks are supposedly going to be built.<\/p>\n

What does Tesla want funding from the Transportation Department for?<\/h2>\n

In 2023, Tesla approached the Department of Transportation and requested funding under the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) program<\/strong>, a bipartisan infrastructure agenda that President Joe Biden signed into law in 2021. It was turned down.<\/p>\n

Tesla aimed to use the funding together with $24 million from company coffers to install nine semi-truck charging stations from northern California and across Arizona to Laredo on Texas’s southern border. Each charging station was envisioned to offer facilities to charge eight Tesla Semis via 750 kW chargers and four more ports for other truck brands, which is a requirement for federal funding.<\/p>\n

Tesla’s project was named Transport Electrification Supporting Semis Operating in Arizona, California, and Texas (TESSERACT) and wasn’t on the list<\/strong> when the Transport Department’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) revealed the awardees for the first round of the CFI program.<\/p>\n

$623 million was distributed to 47 applicants in the first round and another $521 million to 51 applicants in a second round in 2024, which were chosen from the same pool. A new round of applications opened in 2024 as well.<\/p>\n

What’s the next step for Tesla now that funding is not forthcoming?<\/h2>\n

At the time that Tesla applied for the first round of funding, former policy VP Rohan Patel said that some of the planned charging station sites along the 1,800-mile route were “no-brainers even without funding.”<\/p>\n

After that, though, the status of TESSERACT became unclear<\/strong>. Tesla laid off more than 10% of its workforce, including most of its Supercharging team.<\/p>\n

In theory, another round of CFI funds should become available<\/strong> as the funds have not been exhausted yet. The original figure set aside for the program was $2.5 billion. However, the FHWA’s website page for the CFI program currently says there is “no estimated date” for the next phase of applications.<\/p>\n

Another factor that could affect the program and Tesla’s plans is what Donald Trump will decide to do<\/strong> when his administration is back at the reins. For now, his priorities aren’t clear and his policies could swing any number of ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elon Musk has been shut down by Joe Biden \u2014 again. Tesla approached the Department of Transportation for $100 million towards setting up a big-rig electric charging network stretching from California to Texas and the answer was no. There are a whole bunch of companies that will be sharing hundreds of millions in funding from … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_focus_keyword":"Elon Musk","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"Elon Musk applied to the U.S. Department of Transportation for funding to build a charging network from California to Texas, but it was turned down again.","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}