EV chargers at federal buildings are going dark, leaving thousands of vehicles without a place to charge.
The U.S. government is shutting down all electric vehicle charging stations at federal buildings, a move that will affect 8,000 charging ports nationwide. These stations, managed by the General Services Administration (GSA), have been used by both federally owned EVs and personal EVs of government employees, but soon, they’ll be completely out of service.
According to internal emails, the charging stations are no longer considered “mission-critical”, and the government is in the process of canceling network contracts that keep them running. Once those contracts are gone, the chargers will be turned off at the breaker, leaving many federal EVs with nowhere to plug in. Some locations, like the Denver Federal Center, have already received shutdown notices, and more offices will follow in the coming weeks.
This isn’t just about the chargers—newly purchased federal EVs are also being removed from the fleet. The government had planned to replace more than half of its 650,000 vehicles with electric models, with 58,000 zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) already ordered. However, that transition is now being halted, and those EVs will either be sold, stored, or replaced with gas-powered alternatives.
Many agencies beyond the GSA depend on these chargers, including law enforcement and other federal services. With these stations going offline, it raises big questions about what happens to EVs that rely on them. If those vehicles can’t charge, will they also be phased out? And if so, will gas-powered models take their place?
This decision comes just weeks after the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program was paused, stopping a $5 billion initiative to expand EV charging across the U.S.. Together, these moves are expected to slow down EV adoption nationwide, making it harder for both government agencies and everyday drivers to rely on electric vehicles.
For now, there’s no clear plan for what happens next. The chargers are shutting down, the fleet is changing, and the push for electrification in government buildings appears to be hitting a major roadblock. What remains to be seen is whether this shift is permanent or just another chapter in the ongoing debate over the future of EVs.
