In early February, the Biden administration released guidelines for how states should distribute $5 billion of the $7.5 billion for EV charging included in the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The new Joint Office of Energy and Transportation called for states to prioritize highway travelers and fast chargers, which can refuel a car’s battery about seven times faster than standard Level 2 charging stations.

• The idea is to build EV charging stations every 50 miles along interstate highways, easing “range anxiety” by making longer trips easier for EV drivers. The highway network will be a step toward the Biden administration’s goal of building 500,000 new charging stations.

Zoom in: As rules and regulations take shape, EV charging companies are trying to best position themselves to capitalize on the once-in-a-generation push to expand the country’s charging network.

Emerging Tech Brew spoke to some of the largest EV charging companies about what steps they’re taking to get ready for this historic investment—click here to read the full piece, or read on for a quick excerpt.

Fast charging

Electrify America, which was created by a $2 billion investment from VW following its 2015 diesel-emissions scandal, is hoping to apply its expertise to this new push for charging stations

• Many of its existing projects look similar to the model laid out in the federal guidance earlier this month.
• Electrify America has the biggest, open DC fast-charging network in the US and is focused on adding ultra-fast 350kW chargers.

“What we do today is build charging stations along highway corridors. That is our primary focus,” Matt Nelson, director of government affairs at Electrify America, told Emerging Tech Brew. “Fifty-five percent of all that we’ve done to date has been along highway corridors.”

But Nelson says it’s too early to say if the state plans will align with Electrify America’s priorities for charging stations.

“What we’ve learned over the last five years is that if charging is ultra-fast, reliable, and non-proprietary, it will meet customer needs. And if it falls short on any of those three metrics, it probably won’t,” he said.

Click here to read how four top EV charging companies are trying to win federal funds.—GD

In December, Meta made its initial stab at the metaverse—Horizon Worlds—open to all Quest headset users in the US and Canada. Since then, its monthly active users have grown tenfold, to 300,000, per The Verge.

• Meta doesn’t disclose headset sales, but Qualcomm estimated that the company had sold 10+ million of its Quest 2 units as of November 2021.

But with user growth has come heightened scrutiny around an increasingly familiar thorn in the Facebook parent company’s side: content moderation. In recent months, reporting has raised questions about a number of key metaverse moderation issues, like child safety, alleged sexual harrassment, and misinformation. One example:

• Two women have alleged that their avatars were virtually groped by others in Horizon Worlds or Venues. Meta added a “personal boundary” feature earlier this month, which will be turned on by default, preventing avatars from getting into each other’s personal space. It can’t be disabled.

Looking ahead…Meta’s Horizon Worlds and Venues have seen rapid growth in recent months, but from a very small base. And as The Verge points out, it’s impossible to know if Meta can sustain that growth rate.

But as the company invests more and more resources into building a VR experience capable of captivating the masses, it will continue to face questions about how to keep that platform safe for an increasingly bigger user base.

Click here to read the full story.—DM

If you don’t understand how data and finance impact business strategies, how are you supposed to make an impact yourself?

Sign up for Morning Brew’s Quantitative 7-week career accelerator and learn the numbers of business—without hating it the whole time.

When we think of robots, the droids that live in a galaxy far, far away may come to mind. But autonomous machines have been popping up a bit closer to home—like, say, in our local grocery stores.

Those on the East Coast of the US may have seen Marty, the googly-eyed hazard-detecting machine (that caused a stir on Twitter a few years ago) roving the aisles of their neighborhood Stop & Shop, while Kroger shoppers across the country have likely spotted a scrubber cleaning the floors with no one in the driver’s seat.

As the roles of grocery workers evolve, robots have emerged as solutions for easy(ish)-to-automate tasks, be it cleaning, monitoring stock levels, or even fulfilling deliveries.

• In an April 2021 RetailWire survey, 47% of retailers said they would be involved with an in-store robotics project within the next 18 months.

But, but, but…Most robots do still need a little help from their colleagues, like charging, pressing a button to start, or loading and unloading them for deliveries. We’re still in the “early innings” in terms of full automation, Josh Baylin, Brain Corporation’s VP of product and marketing told Retail Brew—and that human element will remain for a while.

This story is from Retail Brew's short series on grocery-store automation—check out part one and part two here.—EC

Stat: Amazon has reportedly shipped “at most a few hundred” of its Astro household robots, which were unveiled last September.

Quote: “It's like being born again.“—Jimi Olaghere, one of the first seven patients to receive a gene-editing treatment for sickle cell, as part of a medical trial

Read: Pat Gelsinger first joined Intel at 18. Now, 42 years later, he’s trying to lead its comeback.

Add some flexibility to your fitness. Future is a fitness program that provides unlimited 1:1 digital fitness coaching—all through the Future app—that you can access anywhere, whether you’re at your local gym or the top of a mountain. Get your customized workout plan here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Almost exactly 25 years ago, on 2/22/1997, Dolly the sheep clone was announced to the world by The Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Dolly was the first mammal ever cloned from an adult cell, and this breakthrough sparked fierce scientific debate, religious condemnation, and even government action—especially as it related to the prospect of human cloning.

• Dolly died in February 2003, having “led a normal life with the other sheep at the Institute,” Roslin writes.
• Fun fact: Revivicor, the biotech firm that in January provided the genetically modified pig heart for the first-ever transplantation of a pig heart into a human, has ties to Dolly the sheep.

While we’re here…An update on the current state of biotech, 25 years after Dolly.

For pics of Sony’s new VR headset: The gaming giant announced VR2 last year but hadn’t yet provided pics—until now.

For renewables research: Here’s how solar got cheap.

For a high-tech listicle: MIT Tech Review identified its 10 breakthrough technologies for 2022.

+1: Crypto mystery box.

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• Starlink was the latest victim of a solar storm, but it may not be the last
• The hottest new programming language? Biology
• The creator of the viral “neural net guesses memes” Twitter account explains how it works