A federal report released by the U.S. government on Wednesday said the country aims to acquire 9,500 electric vehicles by 2023, but the fleet faces supply issues and rising costs. This target is almost three times the amount purchased in the previous budget year.
The GAO said the 26 agencies that have approved electric vehicle procurement plans estimate that more than $470 million will be needed to purchase the vehicles, nearly $300 million to design and install the necessary infrastructure and other costs.
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The vehicles will cost nearly $200 million more to acquire than the lowest-priced comparable gasoline vehicles. These agencies account for more than 99 percent of the federal fleet, excluding the United States Postal Service (USPS), which is a separate federal entity.
U.S. government agencies face hurdles in scaling up EV purchases and uncertainty about whether electric vehicles will meet all demand.
The U.S. Department of Transportation told the U.S. Government Accountability Office that the department initially wanted to order 430 electric vehicles in 2022, but the order was scaled back to 292 due in part to manufacturers canceling orders.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials told the U.S. Government Accountability Office that they did not believe electric vehicles could support law enforcement equipment or perform law enforcement missions in extreme environments, the report said.
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The President of the United States issued an executive order in December 2021 directing the government to stop buying gasoline trucks by 2035. The presidential order also directs that by 2027, light vehicles purchased by federal agencies must be streetcars or hybrids. The order involves 380,000 federal vehicles, and the agencies involved purchase about 45,000 vehicles a year, but the order does not apply to the USPS.
In the 12 months ended September 30, 2022, federal agency purchases of battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles quadrupled, from 1 percent of vehicle purchases in 2021 to 12 percent of light-duty vehicle purchases in 2022, totaling 3,567 vehicles.
In May, the USPS said it expected to receive its next-generation delivery vehicles in June 2024, nine months later than originally planned.