President Joe Biden has included electric vehicles (EVs) as a central pillar of his plan to rebuild America. His proposed $2.6 trillion infrastructure bill would spend $174 billion to build a clean, domestically-powered transport network built to support EVs. The president correctly sees this transformation as essential to the country’s future prosperity and security.

The shift to EVs, alongside other components of the bill, promises to be the country’s most significant public works investment in generations, if not ever. The EV proposal includes benefits for manufacturers, incentives for consumers and, crucially for city and county governments, funding to build a nationwide network of 500,000 EV charging stations, roughly 10 times as many as the country has now. Local governments have an important role in building the electric future and early adopters stand to benefit from the process.