With rolling mountains and boundless plains, Montana has magnificent scenery and vast horizons. It seems to be designed for self-driving travel. Unfortunately, you can’t drive an electric car, because there are almost no places to charge in public places.

On Montana’s 147,000 square miles of land, the state’s latest count of charging points was just 57, most of which were concentrated in towns and cities rather than along highways. Long-distance travel in an electric car is better than leaving the car at home unless you have carefully planned it.

Bozeman resident Nick Shrauger’s go-to car is his 2017 Chevrolet Bolt, one of only 1,650 electric vehicles in the state. He even drives it to the gas station to pull a can of diesel for his small tractor.

But when he hits Montana’s wide roads, Schlauger opts for the gasoline-powered Toyota Highlander.

If he drives the Bolt, he will only plan some routes around a friend’s house or an RV camp to ensure he has a place to charge.

“It’s an adventure. It’s not easy,” he said.

One charger every 50 miles

The Biden administration plans to build a nationwide network of 500,000 chargers, a potential boon for towns like Bozeman, Montana, where there are few public EV chargers

“It’s hard for me to drive 8,000 miles a year because of a lack of charging facilities,” said Schlauger, 86, a retired electrical engineering professor at Montana State University.

That’s exactly what US President Joe Biden wants to address.

Eager to get Americans to ditch gas cars, the Biden administration plans to build a nationwide network of 500,000 charging points, linking both urban and rural areas.

Last year’s infrastructure bill set aside $5 billion to build the network. The federal government wants to have one charger every 50 miles along interstates and other major roads, with at least four fast-charging ports per charger.

States, which will have a big role in deciding where those chargers are located, are required to tell the federal government how they want to use the money by Aug. 1. Each state’s share of funding is expected to be distributed starting this fall, which will be equal to their share of annual federal highway spending.

Biden’s climate goals rely heavily on electric vehicles. The Supreme Court has limited the federal government’s mandate to regulate greenhouse gases, while tax cuts to stimulate low-carbon technologies have stalled in the Senate.

In late July, leading senators said they had finally agreed on the issues, but there was no guarantee they would pass Congress.

The transition from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles is one of the biggest carbon-reduction initiatives facing the president. But it will need to convince the millions of drivers who worry about running out of power on the road, an age-old chicken-and-egg conundrum that has largely excluded rural America from the electric vehicle revolution outside.

“How do you convince people who are considering buying an electric vehicle to buy it? Infrastructure is critical,” said Jonathan Levy, chief commercial officer at EVgo Inc., a charging company.

The Biden administration’s plans are overseen by two federal agencies, the Energy and Transportation Departments, and a joint office. The infrastructure law also sets aside $2.5 billion for more community-focused charging projects that will be distributed to states on a competitive basis.

The federal government has tried to roll out charging piles before, but on a smaller scale and without much success. President Obama made electric vehicle charging part of an economic recovery plan after the Great Recession, giving San Francisco-based Ecotality $100 million in 2009 to deploy residential, commercial and public charging stations in five metropolitan areas across the country, and analyze subsequent usage.

Public fast-charging stations were supposed to be installed every 10 miles along major roads, but few people were buying electric cars at the time, and the government drastically scaled back the program. Ecotality filed for bankruptcy in 2013.

In the years since, the U.S. has lagged far behind Europe and China in building charging networks. By the end of 2021, the United States will have 112,900 public chargers, compared with 442,000 in Europe and 1.15 million in China, according to an analysis by Bloomberg NEF.

That gap is widening, with just 23,725 charging points installed in the US last year, compared with 95,000 in Europe and 337,100 in China. Europe does not have the large rural areas of the United States, and European car owners are switching to electric vehicles faster, so there is less risk of underutilization of charging piles.

Ryan Fisher, lead analyst for EV charging at Bloomberg NEF, said: “Europe is installing chargers to keep up with the market in an effort to meet the demand that already exists. The U.S. is trying to meet the current demand. A need that doesn’t exist.”

North America lags much of the world in electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

Tesla is proving that the U.S. charging network works, at least for its own cars. Some of the only fast-charging stations in Montana are Teslas, lining Interstates 90, 94 and 15.

But for now, only Tesla drivers can use them, although Tesla has been experimenting with letting non-Tesla drivers use Superchargers at select sites in Europe.

A Hilton hotel in Bozeman has four Tesla Supercharger stations, but they’re of no use to Bolt owners like Schlauger. In public, they occasionally use a plug from the local Audi dealership instead.

For other charging companies, which will be bidding for state contracts for electric vehicle chargers, there is no clear pattern to follow.

It is widely believed that fast-charging stations are needed along rural roads, and the federal government has proposed to build fast-charging stations in its $5 billion network. But some companies argue that slower, less expensive chargers can still work, especially in more populated areas and apartment areas without driveways and garages.