From the start of his campaign, President Joe Biden ambitiously outlined his vision of a green future, where half of all new cars sold would be electric in 2030. But Biden’s green dream might be cut short -- there may not be enough charging outlets to plug in all the electric cars and trucks.

“We’re going to make sure that we are able to take the federal fleet and turn it into a fleet that’s run on -- they’re electric vehicles,” Biden said during the 2020 Presidential Debate in September. “Making sure that we can do that, we’re gonna put 500,000 charging stations on all of the highways that we’re going to be building in the future.”

But there are about 110,000 public charging stations in the U.S. and if Biden wants to reach his electric car sale goal, the number of public charging stations will have to increase at least five to 10 times, energy and auto experts told The New York Times.

Charging stations are particularly important for long-distance drivers and for those who live in apartments and cannot use a personal plug-in station in their garage.

When fully charged, current electric vehicles can only travel up to a few hundred miles before needing to recharge for the typical 20 to 40 minutes.

“E.V. charging infrastructure is the single biggest barrier to E.V. adoption,” Asad Hussain, a senior analyst at the research firm PitchBook, told the Times. “You talk to anyone who’s on the fence about buying an E.V. and the No. 1 concern that comes to mind is range anxiety.”

What’s stopping more charging stations from being built? Money.

The Times noted how demand for electric cars is not strong enough to make charging stations profitable and building the necessary number of charging stations would cost billions more than the $7.5 billion in the infrastructure bill.

And of the charging stations already existent, 42% are clustered in California where demand is highest, according to the Wall Street Journal. This means that a large part of the country has little to no charging stations.

“California is not a mature market, but it’s a market that can work from a straight commercial perspective,” Cathy Zoi, chief executive of the charging provider EVgo Inc., told the Journal. “The rest of the country, it’s really early days.”

Zoi added that construction and the charging units for each parking stall costs about $110,000.

The total number of electric vehicles registered in the U.S. has increased exponentially from about 300,000 in 2016 to more than 1.1 million in 2020, according to the International Energy Agency. Even with this significant growth, IHS Markit forecasts EV sales to account for only 9.1% of total U.S. vehicle sales in 2025.

If Biden wants to reach his goal of over 500,000 charging stations on highways by 2030 to support his EV sales growth plan, more money will have to start flowing into charging infrastructure soon and fast.

An analysis published in July by the International Council on Clean Transportation estimates that the U.S. would need 2.4 million public and workplace chargers by 2030 if the Biden administration wants to reach its goal. Of the 2.4 million chargers, 1.3 million would be needed in the workplace.

Cassie Bowe, Vice President at New York-based Energy Impact Partners, told the Times that the fast growth of EV sales means the need for a charging station support network is urgent.

“There’s no more time. We need this infrastructure fast," she said.

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