Biden admin rejects Tesla’s $100M large equipment shipment funding request — again

Ministry of Transportation Announce On Friday, another $636 million in funding was to be awarded to 49 applicants for electric vehicle charging infrastructure — and Tesla’s request for nearly $100 million in funding for a major charging corridor was once again approved.

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

The snub comes as Tesla struggles to get its major electric program up and running. The company has delivered some Early releases From the so-called Tesla Semi to customers like Pepsi and Frito-Lay. But its larger commercial 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 unveiled in 2017.

Tesla first requested funding in 2023 from what is known as the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) program, part of the bipartisan infrastructure deal approved by President Biden. He signed the law in 2021. At the time, the company hoped to use that funding, along with $24 million of its own money, to build nine electric charging stations for semi trucks between its former headquarters in Northern California to the southern Texas border.

Each of these stations was supposed to be equipped with eight 750-kilowatt chargers for the Tesla Semi, and four more that would be open to other electric trucks — a condition of federal funding.

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

The FHWA allocated 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 charging lane idea even after it was eliminated from TechCrunch’s first round I mentioned In April 2024. Some sites along the 1,800-mile route were “a no-brainer even without funding,” former Vice President for Policy Rohan Patel said at the time.

The status of the TESSERACT project was not clear after that, although Tesla had laid off more than 10% of its workforce, and in particular, It devoured its own shipping team.

In theory, another round of CFI money could be available, as the bipartisan infrastructure bill allocated $2.5 billion to the program. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Website As for the CFI program, it currently says there is “no estimated date” for the next “Notice of Funding Opportunity,” and it is unclear what impact the incoming Trump administration’s priorities will have on programs like this.