Tesla remains committed to the plan to build the Semi charging corridor, despite the Biden administration not selecting the project for funding. The corridor will stretch from Texas to California.
Tesla will not receive the government funding it sought under Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. The company was seeking approximately $100 million from the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Discretionary Grant program under the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Tesla planned to fund about $24 million for nine electric charging stations between Laredo, Texas, and Fremont, California. TechCrunch has learned that the refusal did not stop the project, but its scope may change.
The corridor will be a first-of-its-kind charging network that can support both intercity and regional electric freight transportation. This in turn will also help clean up a large part of the transport freight sector.
The project submitted to FHWA was called TESSERACT. It stands for “Transport Electrification Supporting Semis Operating in Arizona, California, and Texas,” according to a slide in the 964-page document filed with the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
However, Tesla was not among the 47 recipients announced by the Biden administration in January. Collectively, these winners received $623 million to build electric vehicle charging and fueling stations across the country. Rohan Patel said to TechCrunch that Tesla may turn to government funding opportunities or future rounds of the CFI program.
The 1,800-mile corridor could theoretically connect two Tesla car factories in North America. Initially, each station was planned to be equipped with eight 750 kW chargers for Tesla Semi and four chargers for other electric trucks.
