Trump Is Turning Off All 8,000 EV Chargers at All Federal Government Buildings

Electric vehicles are “not mission critical,” said the Trump administration, which has ordered all EV chargers located at federal buildings to be shut down nationwide and newly purchased EVs to be offloaded. This comes on the heels of pausing already-promised EV infrastructure funding.

The U.S. General Services Administration, or GSA, is the federal agency responsible for contracts and procurement as they relate to the government’s real estate, IT, products, and equipment, which includes vehicles. According to The Verge, there are several hundred charging stations managed by the GSA, which amounts to roughly 8,000 charging ports across the country. And they now they’re going to be turned off.

“As GSA has worked to align with the current administration, we have received direction that all GSA owned charging stations are not mission critical,” said an agency email viewed by The Verge. “Neither Government Owned Vehicles nor Privately Owned Vehicles will be able to charge at these charging stations once they’re out of service.”

These EV chargers were available for government-issued EVs as well as those personally owned by federal employees. An internal announcement is scheduled to be made next week. However, some federal offices have already been instructed to take their chargers offline.

Also offline is the GSA’s Electrify the Fleet page, though you can view an archived version via the Wayback Machine. The agency’s electrification-related blogs are still up and searchable (for now), including one referencing the benefits of EVs. 

The Verge reports that under the Biden administration, gas-powered vehicles were being phased out in favor of electrification. The GSA currently manages a fleet of approximately 650,000 vehicles—more than half of which were slated to be replaced by EVs. 

In a March 2024 press release, the GSA announced that more than 58,000 zero-emission vehicles had been ordered and that more than 25,000 new charging ports had begun installation. Actually, how many ZEVs were received and chargers installed between then and now is unclear. 

What happens to the disconnected EV chargers isn’t known. What happens to the recently purchased EVs is also one big shrug emoji. They will be offloaded from the fleet, yes, but whether they are sold or simply put into storage is anyone’s guess at the moment. And will they be replaced with gas-powered vehicles? If so, will the gas cars be resurrected older vehicles or new ones that require additional agency spending? Can they at least be hybrids because gas is expensive again?

Another question mark is whether other federal agencies will follow suit. The Verge says that many of them use the GSA-managed EV chargers. If those are out of service, where’s a federal, law enforcement, or military EV supposed to go?

The first thing you see on the GSA website is its motto: “Delivering effective and efficient government services for the American people.” However, given that there’ll be 8,000 fewer chargers for thousands of existing government-issued EVs that could now be stranded or see increased costs, the GSA seems to be doing the opposite. 

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