Florida has pulled in $53.7 million in federal electric-vehicle grants over the past 90 days, up 135% from $22.8 million in the same window last year, more than any other state by a wide margin. Ohio, the next closest, logged $3.4 million. The surge is almost entirely the work of a single award: a $53.4 million U.S. Department of Transportation Port Infrastructure Development Program grant given to Broward County's Port Everglades on May 13, 2026, covering hybrid and electric cargo equipment, charging infrastructure, and workforce training through 2031.
The irony in that number is hard to miss. Florida is cementing itself as a dominant recipient of federal EV infrastructure money at the exact moment its state transportation agency is engineering what may be the most dramatic diversion of EV charging funds in the country.
According to a Miami Herald investigation published July 29, 2026, the Florida Department of Transportation intends to spend its entire $197–198 million National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure formula allocation, federal dollars from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law specifically designated to build highway charging stations, on 32 eVTOL vertiport pads at roughly $5.6 million each. FDOT is calling it an "Aerial Highway Network." No eVTOL aircraft has entered commercial service anywhere in the United States.
The two forces driving this moment are distinct but reinforcing. On the port side, South Florida is executing a coordinated decarbonization push: Port Everglades and PortMiami together secured more than $78 million in USDOT grants in recent months, according to the Southeast Florida Climate Compact. Miami-Dade County holds a separate active $25.6 million INFRA grant for electric and hybrid cargo-handling equipment at PortMiami. That money is flowing into cranes, yard trucks, and shore power systems, infrastructure a longshoreman or freight broker can point to today.
The NEVI redirect operates on a different logic. The Trump administration froze NEVI funds in February 2025, then restored them in August 2025 under updated Federal Highway Administration guidance that gave states considerably more latitude in how they deploy the money. Florida is treating that flexibility as a mandate. FDOT's rationale for the redirect holds that the private sector has already adequately built out Florida's highway charging network, a position the FHWA has agreed with by declaring Florida's designated corridor fully built out. FHWA approval of the vertiport plan is expected. Florida was also selected as one of eight state pilot agencies under a Trump executive order on flying-car programs, and FDOT has already signed on Archer, Joby, BETA, and Electra as program partners.
Critics of the plan note that NEVI was designed with a specific constituency in mind: rural communities, lower-income areas, and drivers without access to home charging who were supposed to benefit from a national network of publicly accessible highway chargers. Florida has not implemented any previously obligated NEVI funds as of its FY26 plan submission, meaning the proposed redirect would arrive before a single NEVI-funded charger has been built in the state. Inside EVs and other outlets covering the proposal have highlighted that the communities NEVI was meant to serve would receive nothing under the current plan. North Carolina, by contrast, is using its post-corridor NEVI flexibility to fund chargers at apartment complexes for residents who cannot charge at home.
Florida's broader active EV grant portfolio is real and substantial regardless of the NEVI controversy. The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority holds a $27.8 million award for electric and hybrid buses. The City of Tallahassee is drawing on $20.4 million to build out an electric bus fleet. Duval County schools and Miami-Dade schools hold a combined $14.9 million in electric school bus grants. Those programs are moving. The port grants are moving. The question the NEVI redirect raises is whether the most visible and politically legible piece of Florida's EV infrastructure story, the public highway charging network that would serve the state's roughly 300,000 registered EV drivers and the tourists who rent them, will materialize at all, or whether it will land somewhere between the clouds.
The FHWA decision on the redirect is the next concrete signal to watch. If the agency signs off, Florida will have effectively swapped the ground-level charging buildout its EV market was expecting for a network of landing pads serving aircraft that do not yet carry passengers commercially. If the approval stalls or draws a legal challenge, the $198 million reverts to its original purpose, and FDOT will need a new plan for a state that added more registered EVs last year than all but two others in the country.
