The Biden administration’s newly unveiled U.S. infrastructure spending bill includes $174 billion worth of incentives to buy electric vehicles (EVs) and support the installation of at least 500,000 EV charging stations across the country by 2030.
The plan also calls for replacing 50,000 diesel-powered transit vehicles and electrifying 20% of the U.S. school bus fleet. Transit and school buses are already electrifying fast. Transit agencies and school districts can save money on fuel and maintenance costs while reducing air pollution for riders. The new infrastructure bill will only accelerate those plans.
The Biden administration also plans to electrify all 600,000 vehicles in the federal motor pool. Currently, only 3,000 of those are EVs, so we could see a jump of nearly 20,000% in federal EVs during Biden’s presidency.
And to be very clear, that’s just Uncle Sam. Many of the forecasts I’ve seen suggest private-sector usage could absolutely dwarf even those impressive figures.
According to industry analyst EVAdoption, EV sales should grow every year between now and 2030, to the point where EV sales would make up nearly 30% of all new U.S. car sales, up from around 3.4% of the total today. Ultimately, EVAdoption forecasts more than 25 million operational EVs by 2030, which would be a 14-fold increase from where we are today.
All of those EVs will need a place to park and plug in, a place to charge.
And that gets us to the stock I want to recommend today – an investment that could leave electric carmakers like Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) in the dust…
Wanted: Power… and Plenty of It
The growth of electric vehicles means the growth of charging facilities – just one of the “ancillary” investment opportunities EVs represent, many of which, like batteries, minerals, and components, are going to prove to be more lucrative than the vehicles themselves.
Now, there’s a lot that goes into charging stations. There are permits galore, of course, depending on where the charger is going, and they must be tied into the electrical grid. To give you an idea, in New York City, it takes approximately 24 months to complete a grid-tied charger installation; in California, it takes about 18 months.
That’s way too long! Customers who want their charging demands met have to sit on their hands instead of being instantly provided power to the ever-expanding fleet of EVs.
Beam Global (NASDAQ: BEEM) is the perfect example – perfectly positioned, too – to meet that urgent need.
Founded in 2006 and headquartered in San Diego, Calif., Beam designs, develops, engineers, manufactures, and sells patent-protected, renewably energized products for EV charging infrastructure.
Its products include the electric vehicle autonomous renewable charger (EV ARC), the world’s only transportable, solar-powered, permanent EV charging station.
Each EV ARC generates its own power by way of a solar array, which means there’s no need to tie in local grids. They don’t require local permitting and, once they’re on site, can be fully operational within five minutes – which is a fraction of the time of a traditional, grid-tied charging solution.
Each EV ARC unit can charge as many as 12 cars – and they’re compact, fitting into the existing footprint of a single parking space. Wherever you have a parking space, you can deploy an EV ARC charging station, and it can be done without any construction whatsoever.
The company also produces Solar Tree DCFC, a solar-powered, renewably energized, single-column-mounted smart generator and energy storage system that provides a 50kW DC fast charge for larger vehicles, like buses.
This is a perfect charging solution for municipalities and school districts.
Additionally, the company is developing the EV-Standard, a streetlight replacement project that uses existing grid connections and solar, light, and wind generators with onboard power storage. Each unit will provide meaningful curbside charging without the need for construction or electrical work.
Beam’s Client List Is Big and Getting Bigger
Beam’s customers already include a range of municipalities, fleet operations, state agencies, and businesses to provide charging stations to the federal government, military, and the public. The cities of San Francisco, Calif., and Pittsburgh, Pa., federal government agencies like the Department of Energy, and private-sector companies like Dell, Google, General Motors, and Johnson & Johnson are just a few examples.
And I see this range of customers expanding, to put it mildly.
EV ARC units are really attractive to large-scale, multi-unit residential complexes or shopping centers with large outdoor parking lots. Property managers can easily make their properties more attractive to potential tenants by simply deploying as many EV ARC units as they feel are warranted. As demand from tenants increases, management could buy more and more units and expand its charging footprint, all within the existing infrastructure of the parking lot – no construction needed.
Now we’re getting to one of my very favorite things about this stock…
Full story on MoneyMorning.com
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