A regional mall operator recently asked a straightforward question at a state EV working-group meeting: if the federal government is putting nearly $5 billion into charging infrastructure, why can’t any of it go toward the charging stalls she’s been asked to add to her parking structure? The answer, as of this month, is “not yet, and possibly not for a while” — and understanding why requires untangling how the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program is actually structured.

For parking facility owners, garage operators, and the planners who oversee municipal lots, NEVI has been discussed mostly in the abstract since the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law created it last November. That changed this month. On June 9, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced proposed minimum standards for the program, formally published as a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register on June 22, laying out the requirements every NEVI-funded charging station will have to meet. States, meanwhile, are racing to finish the EV Infrastructure Deployment Plans they must submit to the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation by August 1. Together, these documents give the parking industry its first real look at how — and how soon — off-highway parking facilities might participate.

What Is the NEVI Formula Program, and Why Should Parking Planners Care?

NEVI is a five-year, roughly $5 billion formula program that sends federal highway funds to states specifically to build out DC fast-charging infrastructure. It’s authorized under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and jointly administered by FHWA and the Department of Energy through their newly formed Joint Office of Energy and Transportation. For fiscal year 2022, FHWA has apportioned $615 million to states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico — the first tranche of a funding stream that ramps up over the program’s five-year window.

To draw down that money, each state has to submit an EV Infrastructure Deployment Plan describing where and how it intends to build charging stations, and get that plan approved. The statutory deadline for submission is August 1, 2022, and FHWA has committed to reviewing and approving eligible plans within 60 days.

Parking professionals should care because the program’s structure — corridor-first, then community charging — determines whether a downtown garage or transit-park-and-ride lot is even eligible for funding in the near term, or whether it has to wait for a later phase.

Why Most Parking Facilities Aren’t Eligible Yet

This is the detail tripping up a lot of prospective site hosts. NEVI funds are legally required to go first toward Alternative Fuel Corridors — the network of federally designated highway corridors — until a state’s corridor network is certified “fully built out.” Under the proposed standards, that means publicly available charging every 50 miles along the corridor and within one mile of the interstate exit, with each site hosting at least four DC fast chargers using the Combined Charging System (CCS) connector, each capable of delivering 150 kW simultaneously.

Only after FHWA certifies a state’s corridors as fully built out can that state redirect NEVI formula funds toward what the program guidance calls “community” or off-corridor charging — the category that covers most municipal parking garages, downtown surface lots, and neighborhood park-and-ride facilities not sitting directly on an interstate corridor. For most states, corridor build-out is going to take a meaningful chunk of the program’s five-year timeline, which means facility owners hoping to fund garage charging through NEVI itself should plan around a multi-year horizon, not a near-term grant cycle.

That said, parking operators aren’t shut out of federal EV money entirely in the meantime. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also created a separate, competitive Charging and Fueling Infrastructure discretionary grant program that isn’t bound by the same corridor-first sequencing, and several states have opened their own site-host interest surveys to start identifying candidate properties — including parking facilities — ahead of when funding actually becomes available to them.

What Do the Proposed Minimum Standards Actually Require?

The June 22 NPRM is the document parking facility operators should read closely if they’re within a few years of becoming an eligible site host, because these standards will apply to any facility that ultimately receives NEVI dollars, not just corridor sites. Among the more consequential proposed requirements:

Reliability. Each charging port would need to maintain average annual uptime greater than 97 percent, with “up” defined as the hardware and software both being online and the port successfully dispensing power at or above its rated minimum level. That’s a materially higher bar than the reliability many existing public charging networks have historically delivered, and it puts real weight on maintenance contracts and network monitoring — something facility managers who are used to occasional pay-station downtime will need to budget for differently.

Open access and payment. Stations would be required to accept payment without requiring a proprietary membership or account, generally through contactless payment (tap-to-pay credit or debit) at a minimum, in addition to whatever network-specific app or RFID option an operator wants to offer. For parking operators already running open-payment or license-plate-based access systems in their garages, this is a familiar posture; for anyone still relying on membership-gated networks, it’s a design change.

Data transparency. The proposed rule would require certain data fields — location, real-time price, and real-time availability — to be made available to third-party developers at no cost, so that navigation apps and route planners can surface accurate charging information. Parking operators who already share occupancy data with municipal or third-party parking-availability platforms will recognize the logic, even though the specific data schema for EV charging isn’t identical to a parking-occupancy feed.

Installation and workforce standards. Charging equipment must be installed, maintained, and repaired by qualified technicians who meet specific certification requirements — a provision partly aimed at consistency across a federally funded network, and partly a nod to labor and workforce-development priorities in the underlying law.

It’s worth flagging that these are proposed standards as of this writing, with FHWA accepting public comment through August 22. Provisions could shift before a final rule is adopted, and parking industry associations and individual operators who want a say in how the final standards land still have a window to weigh in.

How Should Parking Facility Operators Prepare Right Now?

Given that most parking facilities are more likely to become NEVI-eligible in a later phase of the program than in year one, the practical questions for facility owners and municipal parking departments right now are less about applying for funding and more about positioning.

Start by finding out whether your state has published or opened a site-host interest survey. Several states began soliciting expressions of interest from property owners — including parking operators — well ahead of having funding available, simply to build a pipeline of viable sites for when community charging funds do open up. Getting on that list early costs little and puts a facility in the conversation before a formal grant cycle starts.

It’s also worth reviewing your state’s draft EV Infrastructure Deployment Plan once it’s public. States vary in how explicitly they discuss community and off-corridor charging within their initial submissions, and some are already signaling priority use cases — like transit hubs, multifamily housing, and municipal facilities — that a public parking garage might credibly fit into.

Finally, facility managers evaluating charging infrastructure investment with other capital or utility-incentive dollars in the near term should design toward the proposed NEVI standards even if they’re not applying for NEVI funds specifically. A station installed today that already meets a 97 percent uptime expectation, offers non-membership payment, and can report standardized availability data is a station that won’t need retrofitting if it later becomes part of a federally funded network — or if a future customer simply expects that level of reliability regardless of who paid for the equipment.

What This Means for the Broader Parking-to-Charging Transition

The NEVI rollout is a useful reminder that federal EV infrastructure money and municipal parking infrastructure are converging, but not on the timeline the initial headlines suggested. The corridor-first design reflects a reasonable federal priority — solving highway range anxiety before solving urban charging access — but it means the parking industry’s most direct opportunity in the program’s early going is less “apply for a grant” and more “get positioned, and build to the standard, before the money reaches your kind of site.”

Transportation planners and parking facility operators who track both the deployment-plan approvals expected this fall and the final minimum-standards rule expected sometime after the August comment period closes will have a much clearer picture of exactly when — and under what technical conditions — off-corridor parking facilities become real candidates for NEVI dollars.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the NEVI Formula Program?

NEVI is a roughly $5 billion, five-year federal formula program created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that funds DC fast-charging infrastructure along designated Alternative Fuel Corridors. FHWA and the Department of Energy’s Joint Office of Energy and Transportation jointly administer it, with $615 million apportioned to states for fiscal year 2022.

Can a municipal parking garage get NEVI funding right now?

Generally not yet. NEVI funds must go first to corridor charging — sites every 50 miles along designated highway corridors — until a state’s corridor network is certified fully built out. Off-corridor sites like most municipal garages become eligible for “community” charging funds only in a later program phase.

What are the proposed minimum standards for NEVI-funded chargers?

FHWA’s June 22 proposed rule would require 97 percent average annual port uptime, non-membership payment options including contactless payment, free public data feeds for location and real-time availability, and installation by qualified, certified technicians. The rule is open for public comment through August 22 and isn’t yet final.

When do states have to submit their EV Infrastructure Deployment Plans?

States must submit their plans to the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation by August 1, 2022. FHWA has committed to reviewing and approving eligible state plans within roughly 60 days of submission, putting initial approvals on track for early fall.

Is there any federal EV charging funding parking operators can pursue sooner?

Yes. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also created a separate, competitive Charging and Fueling Infrastructure discretionary grant program that isn’t bound by NEVI’s corridor-first sequencing. Some states have also opened site-host interest surveys for prospective locations, including parking facilities, ahead of formal funding cycles.

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