Last week at President Joe Biden's climate summit, China and India remained silent about new climate targets. Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to cut emissions significantly. And Joe Biden proposed a $15 billion plan to dot U.S. roadways with 500,000 new electric vehicle charging stations.

The proposal comes as U.S. leadership in the electric vehicle space wanes. A lack of standardization and government support has left the U.S. with a charging network vastly inferior to that in the E.U.

The U.S. electric vehicle market currently faces a classic chicken and egg conundrum. If there isn't a charging infrastructure, consumers won't buy EV's, but if consumers don't buy EV's private companies have no incentive to build the infrastructure. EV's have nearly reached a competitive price point, as the price of batteries has gone down significantly over the past decade or so.

So, the only thing standing in the way of mass EV adoption in the U.S. seems to be the lack of a suitable charging infrastructure.

AlixPartners estimates the U.S. will have to invest $50 billion in its charging network to meet demand by 2030. Obviously, Biden's $15 billion proposal falls well short of that target.

But the issue goes beyond simply building more charging stations- they need to be the right kind of charging stations. According to surveys, the ideal charging time, from zero to full charge, is 31 minutes or less. Achieving that charging time requires what's known as DC fast chargers. Unfortunately, out of the 41,400 charging stations currently in the U.S., only 5,000 are considered "fast-charging stations," according to CNBC.

And even within that network of fast-charging stations, there simply aren't enough of them. The average American is 4 minutes away from the nearest gas station. But, they are 31 minutes away from their nearest Tesla (TSLA  ) supercharging station. For Tesla to build out a network to match the convenience of gas stations, it'd have to build 31,251 new charging stations at the cost of $7.8 billion, roughly ten times the companies profits in 2020.

Then there are issues of compatibility. Stakeholders in the EV space continue to jockey for dominance by building charging stations with incompatible plugs. For example, you can't charge your Chevy Volt at a nearby Tesla charging station.

All these issues point to the need for federal leadership to build a charging infrastructure for the 2030s.

Biden's proposal is a good start in that direction.

"We need a whole lot more support," Chris Nelder, a researcher at clean energy advocacy firm RMI, told the Wall Street Journal. "It's going to take money, it's going to take authority, it's going to take leadership at the federal government to step in."

Federal leadership and government coordination are needed to ensure that every electric vehicle can use every available charging station. Government funding is necessary due to the high cost of DC fast-charging stations, and an evident lack of economic incentive on the part of automakers.

As it stands, Biden's infrastructure bill remains an open question before Congress. But its passage will be critical if America hopes to put down the pump.