The General Services Administration (GSA) has announced plans to shut down all electric vehicle chargers nationwide, describing them as “not mission critical.” The agency manages buildings owned by the federal government and operates several hundred EV chargers across the country. According to an internal email, the decision was made in alignment with the current administration’s direction.
The GSA currently offers 8,000 plugs for government-owned EVs and federal employees’ personally owned vehicles. However, the agency will be canceling network contracts that keep the EV chargers operational, and the stations will be taken out of service. The shutdown is expected to start next week, with some regional offices already being told to take their chargers offline.
The decision comes despite efforts made under the Biden administration to phase out gas-powered vehicles in favor of EVs. In 2021, President Joe Biden signed a plan to replace half of the federal government’s fleet with electric vehicles by 2030. The GSA had ordered over 58,000 EVs and installed more than 25,000 charging ports as part of this initiative.
The Trump administration, however, reversed many of these efforts, including halting a $5 billion program to install new public EV chargers and rescinding directives to purchase new EVs for the federal government’s vehicle fleet. The GSA’s decision to shut down its EV chargers has raised concerns among environmental groups and experts, who point out that reliable charging infrastructure is crucial for widespread adoption of electric vehicles.
The agency will also begin offloading the newly purchased EVs it had ordered under the Biden administration. It is unclear whether these vehicles will be sold or simply put away in storage.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/news/617235/the-gsa-is-shutting-down-its-ev-chargers-calling-them-not-mission-critical