Federal, State Sluggishness Throttles EV Charging Stations

High-speed electric vehicle (EV) charging stations funded by the federal government have been slow to open due to sluggishness on the part of two presidential administrations — and states which have been slow to allocate the funding, a new report finds.

At the end of 2025, only 96 stations funded by the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program have opened. Hundreds more remain in various states of planning or construction. These are some of the findings from a new report by the Sierra Club, Faster but Not Fast Enough: Evaluating States’ Progress on Implementing Federal EV Charging Programs.

The NEVI program was a $5 billion initiative approved by Congress as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, with the aim of building a nationwide network of 500,000 public, high-speed chargers along key travel corridors. Some states like Ohio and Pennsylvania moved quickly to develop their EV charging plans and get the money allocated, with stations opening as early as 2023.

When the second Trump administration took office in early 2025, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) suspended NEVI funding until federal officials issued new guidance for the program, which the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) released in August 2025. This action followed a court order in June 2025 stating the federal government was required to release the funding. The Sierra Club, other partners and a coalition of more than 20 states had sued to restore the funding.

(Officials with the U.S. Department of Transportation did not return a request to comment.)

The infrastructure package also included $2.5 billion in funding for the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Grant Program, a collection of numerous discretionary grant programs to help develop “community charging” infrastructure in neighborhoods and other locations.

However, only about $215 million of the CFI funds were obligated by the FHWA prior to President Donald Trump taking office in January 2025, according to a December 2025 legal challenge filed in federal court by the Sierra Club and other plaintiffs, leaving most of the funding still in Washington, D.C. Due to the nature of the program, money not allocated within three years of the fiscal year it was appropriated will expire.

The pause, Josh Stebbins, Sierra Club managing attorney and lead author of the charging report, said, serves as a move by the administration to let the funding simply expire, rather than be awarded.

“That is the clear implication of the Trump administration’s unlawful actions to date,” Stebbins said in an email.

(USDOT officials did not return a request for comment regarding when the CFI funding would be released.)

However, if dozens of projects eligible for CFI funding are still waiting for the check to arrive, the slow-walking can’t entirely be blamed on Trump, Sierra Club officials said. The Biden administration should have acted more quickly to get the federal money out the door.

“More could have been done under the Biden administration to speed up planning, awarding and obligation,” Stebbins said. “For example, the Biden FHWA didn’t announce the first awards for the CFI program until January 2024, more than two years after the program was created.”

It’s not just federal officials that could have moved faster. States — an integral partner in the NEVI program — did not all move at the same pace, with some lagging in their ability to deliver EV infrastructure, according to the Sierra Club report.

Other states, like Connecticut and New Jersey, which would seem to have transportation goals and climate policies aligned with the Biden administration, “were slow ... to obligate funds and deliver charging stations to their constituents,” according to the study.

Officials in New Jersey pointed to “notable changes” the NEVI program has undergone as a source of the slow pace of EV charging station development, owing to the finding that no NEVI-funded charging station has yet opened in New Jersey, which was awarded $104 million in NEVI funding. Part of the state’s problems stemmed from FHWA clawing back about $22 million earlier this year, Steve Schapiro, press manager for the New Jersey Department of Transportation, said.

“The 19 NEVI-funded locations, each with eight charging ports, are expected to be operational in 2027 and early 2028,” Schapiro said in an email.

Large states like California and Texas have also been slow to open NEVI-funded charging operations. Even though California was quicker to obligate NEVI funding, it has not yet opened a NEVI charging location, according to the EV States Clearinghouse database dashboard, maintained by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the National Association of State Energy Officials.

However, California has been more aggressive than other states with its programs to advance EV infrastructure. On Thursday, the California Energy Commission (CEC) announced the release of $55.2 million in new funding through the California Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Project (CALeVIP) to advance EV charging across the state, as part of the Fast Charge California Project.

“Expanding access to reliable and convenient fast charging is essential to support California’s growing number of EV drivers and keep the state on track toward its clean transportation goals,” Spencer Reeder, director of CEC’s Fuels and Transportation Division, said in a statement. “CALeVIP has been pivotal in bringing chargers to communities and travel corridors that need them most, while making it easier for businesses and site hosts to get their chargers installed and operational.”

The Texas Transportation Commission recently signed off on Phase II of the state’s plan for NEVI funds, allocating some $250 million to build 147 EV charging stations serving light-duty EVs. At least 13 NEVI-funded sites are open in Texas according to a Texas Department of Transportation report from January.

“Executive leadership, agency capacity and the willingness to prioritize implementation are key to accelerating the delivery of the public’s charging infrastructure,” Stebbins said. “To overcome these barriers, we recommend that governors prioritize the delivery of their [constituents] charging infrastructure, and that agencies set targets and use timeline-based criteria.”