- The Trump administration is about to cut power to government-owned EV chargers.
- The move will affect thousands of charging spaces across the nation and is already underway.
- It’s unclear what will happen to the chargers and to the vehicles that use them.
In a sweeping policy shift, Donald Trump’s administration has just reportedly ordered the shutdown of all electric vehicle charging stations at federal buildings across the United States. This decision effectively flips the switch on hundreds of EV chargers across the country, with approximately 8,000 charging ports, managed by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA).
This directive also includes plans to offload recently acquired EVs from the federal fleet. Combined, these moves signal a sharp reversal from the sustainability initiatives championed by the previous administration.
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An internal GSA email, reportedly viewed by Colorado Public Radio, reveals that the agency now deems all GSA-owned charging stations as “not mission critical.” As a result, the agency will shut down these chargers at which point they’ll be inoperable to all users.
This includes both federal workers with a federally owned EV and federal employees who could previously charge their own personal vehicle at these same stations. Some regional offices have already begun taking chargers offline, with a formal announcement expected soon.
The GSA is responsible for managing federal assets including a fleet of approximately 650,000 vehicles. Under the Biden administration, it embarked on a plan to transition to zero-emission vehicles. That included the procurement of over 58,000 EVs and the installation of more than 25,000 charging ports. It never came anywhere close to achieving those figures though and this new directive puts that plan to a swift end.
The GSA is preparing to offload the EVs it currently has in the fleet but it’s unclear where they’ll go. Technically, it could simply take the vehicles out of the fleet and put them into storage rather than sell them. In addition, the GSA manages some chargers for separate federal agencies so those departments might need to ditch their EVs.
It’s also uncertain how the agency will replace the vehicles being phased out; possibilities include purchasing new gas-powered models or reallocating older ones from retirement.
This development follows Trump’s recent suspension of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, a $5 billion initiative aimed at expanding the nation’s EV charging network. Taken together, these decisions could slow the overall adoption rate of electric vehicles in the US as a whole. One thing is for sure, it certainly won’t speed it up.
