The United States General Services Administration (GSA) has begun shutting down its battery electric vehicle (BEV) chargers after the Trump administration instructed states to stop using federal funds to build public EV chargers. Tasked with managing federal government-owned buildings, the GSA has declared that EV chargers are ‘non mission critical’ and is actively closing hundreds of EV chargers across the country.
The GSA is also in charge of managing the federal government’s vehicle fleets and is currently trying to sell off the government’s newly acquired electric cars. This move doesn’t bode well for America’s nascent electric vehicle industry and will undoubtedly cripple the country’s efforts to decarbonize its transport sector. However, with President Donald Trump vowing to undo all of the previous administration’s climate action investments, the president’s ongoing anti-EV sentiment isn’t surprising.
Weeks into his second non-consecutive term, President Trump has already undone a lot of the progress America had made toward making transport emission-free. A source revealed that the GSA will provide federal workers with official guidance on how to start shutting down the chargers next week while The Verge reports that certain regional offices have already been instructed to begin the process of taking their EV chargers offline.
According to an email viewed by The Verge, the GSA was directed by the Trump administration to shut down all its public EV chargers as they aren’t ‘mission critical.’ The agency is currently working on figuring out the timeline for cancelling ongoing EV charging network contracts that operate the federal government’s EV chargers. After the GSA cancels these contracts, the email said, it will take the stations out of service and turn them off at the breaker.
Both privately and government-owned EVs will not be able to use these stations once they are shut down, the email noted. This effectively halts the federal government’s efforts to electrify its fleet, especially with the GSA looking to offload recently-purchased electric cars, and removes the federal government from EV-related issues, just like President Trump promised during his second presidential campaign.
Electrifying fleets is one of the most effective ways of cutting carbon emissions from transport. Fleet managers typically have the finances required to purchase premium electric cars and their central hub can also act as a charging station for fleet EVs. Furthermore, fleets can eliminate large swathes of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles from the road and help countries meet their emission targets sooner than if only individual drivers switched from ICE cars to electrified alternatives.
This reversal of the efforts undertaken to promote the switch to EVs in the U.S. is likely to be watched by automakers like NIO Inc. (NYSE: NIO) as it could have reverberations in other markets and depress EV demand even more.
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