1. How much money was Nevada slated to get, and why wasn’t it used within the first few years?
A: Nevada was going to get $38 million beginning in FY 2022 through FY 2026. That was to award contracts to companies to design, build, operate and maintain EV chargers.
All the states in this program had a very slow start and many, including Nevada, haven’t had a single charging station open.
States had to submit plans to the federal DOT for approval, solicit bids on the work, and then award funds.
Nevada had significant obstacles to implementing its plan, particularly in rural areas where infrastructure and regulatory challenges have hindered progress, a spokesperson said.
- Many places where these would go are in remote areas with limited or no access to power and data connectivity.
- States are required to match a portion of the federal grant, and NDOT doesn’t have eligible funds to provide that, since EV charging stations don’t fall under traditional highway construction and maintenance.
So some states did sign contracts and award money to companies to build these chargers, but N DOT never got past the request for proposals phase.
2. How does Nevada’s existing EV infrastructure compare to other states?
A: Starting with the funding from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, 37 other states got more funding than Nevada did.
But by the end of FY 2024, there are 126 public EV charging ports in operation across 31 NEVI stations in nine states — less than 1% of planned.
According to the U.S. Dept of Energy, Nevada has 47,361 registered EVs as of Sept. 2024, plus another 10,600 Plug-In Hybrid Electric, so almost 58,000 — out of 2,556,100 registered vehicles of all types, so EVs make up over 2% of all light duty vehicles in the state.
There’s about 25 EVs for every one public electric charging port in the state — there’s also another 300 private charging ports.
California, New York and Florida have the most EVs and charging stations, but there are also cities outside those states that have added a lot of stations —Atlanta has 1,836 charging ports, Austin has 1,541, Boston has 1,464.
3. What does this loss of funding mean for EV drivers? Will states be able to use the funds in the future under updated guidance from the Trump administration?
A: Like many other states, Nevada’s funds were “ready to be released when the federal government paused the program, placing the process on hold.” The state DOT said they would submit a new state plan for approval once there are updated federal requirements.
This funding was part of the Biden administration encouraging drivers to buy EV cars, giving out more than $1 billion last year in tax credits as an up-front incentive — and his administration required new emission rules that require automakers to make more EVs.
Since his election, President Trump has vowed to reverse those and other pro-EV policies. So if it’s up to him, it’s not looking good that states will actually get to use all or any of these funds, even under updated guidance.
But, like other spending Trump has paused, the legality of it is an open question, since the money was approved by Congress as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.