Efforts to build more electric vehicle charging stations in Nevada sputtering

At the 2016 dedication of the first state-sponsored electric vehicle charging station in Beatty, former Gov. Brian Sandoval demonstrated how easy it was to charge an electric Ford Focus.

“This is the first electric highway in the United States,” the Republican then-governor said during the ceremony at the new charging station outside of Eddie World on U.S. Highway 95. “It’s significant steps like this that show the rest of the country that we are tech savvy, especially when it comes to electric cars and autonomous vehicles.”

What those attending the ceremony didn’t see was that the vehicle Sandoval was charging had to be shuttled to Beatty for the event. Nevada lacked frequent, reliable charging stations and with a range of just 76 miles, the car wouldn’t make it on Highway 95 from Las Vegas to the small city more than 100 miles away on a single charge.

It’s been nearly a decade since Sandoval announced the somewhat futuristic idea of turning Highway 95 into an “Electric Highway,” building out charging stations to eliminate “range anxiety” and make Nevada’s highways accessible to electric vehicle (EV) drivers.

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During that time, electric vehicles have gained in popularity, their driving range has drastically increased, and hundreds of thousands of charging ports and charging stations have popped up along the nation’s interstates and highways. Nationally, there are more than 210,000 publicly accessible charging ports at nearly 78,000 charging stations.

But in Nevada, construction is lagging.

Only around 2,155 of the nation’s charging ports are in Nevada, spread out over approximately 600 stations. There is only one charging station for every 73 EVs registered in Nevada. In the West, only Wyoming, Idaho and New Mexico have fewer charging ports than Nevada.

That shortage, in part, is due to the shifting plan for who is responsible for building charging stations in Nevada — a hodgepodge of NV Energy, the state, federal and private entities. NV Energy’s much-heralded initative to build 120 charging stations in a three-year period has fallen well short of expectations, while the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) is hoping to build its first charging station using federal funds later this year.

While state-led efforts now appear to be headed in the right direction, the lack of a cohesive plan during the last eight years has resulted in “sort of a mishmash of state, local, federal, utilities and obviously private enterprises,” said Paul Bordenkircher, secretary of the Nevada Electric Vehicle Association. “It is certainly one of our greater frustrations.”

As a result, driving an EV across Nevada can still be daunting and confusing — and in some places, impossible.

‘A lot more buildout’

When the Nevada Electric Highway initiative kicked off nine years ago, there were only about 1,000 EVs registered in Nevada.

By 2022, there were 32,900 EVs registered in the state, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center — nearly four times greater than the number of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (just 8,800) but still small compared to the state’s 2.6 million gasoline-powered and 85,000 diesel-powered vehicles.

By 2023, there were nearly 54,000 electric vehicles, about 1.3 percent of all vehicles registered in the state.

Bordenkircher is one of those Nevada EV owners. He purchased his first EV roughly five years ago and says switching to an electric commuter car is one of the “best choices” he’s ever made.

But he and his wife still own a gas-powered vehicle for long-distance trips. Driving across Nevada with an EV “wouldn’t be my first choice,” he said. “We need a lot more infrastructure and a lot more buildout. Especially for a state as wide open as we are.”

Per federal guidelines, charging stations need to be sited a maximum of 50 miles apart along interstates to be considered fully built out. That requirement is not possible in parts of Nevada, Kandee Worley, division chief of sustainability and emerging transportation at NDOT, said.

“Nevada has a ton of rural areas,” Worley said. “We have areas where we aren’t going to be able to meet that 50 mile (requirement.)”

On U.S. Highway 93 between Ely and Las Vegas, Worley pointed out, there is a 250-mile-long stretch of road with no electricity, and it would cost millions of dollars to get infrastructure out there, let alone build charging stations.

Knowing that the majority of the state’s charging stations are still in urban areas rather than along the state’s rural highway corridors can make driving across the state in an EV daunting, Bordenkircher said.

“We still have issues with charging stations with the cables being cut. Or gas vehicles parking in the EV charging station spots,” he said.

And while existing statewide charging stations have broadly been mapped — most are in urban corridors — there is no official master list of Nevada-based EV charging stations drivers can access, since most existing charging stations were built by private businesses or equipment manufacturers, who are not required to map their locations. This can leave drivers potentially stuck if they are in an area with poor cell service and a non-functioning charging station.

“We are still in a pain point when it comes to EV charging stations,” Bordenkircher said.

NV Energy’s electrification plan

In 2021, lawmakers passed SB448, an omnibus bill that, in part, required NV Energy to create a plan to accelerate development of electric infrastructure in the state. The bill required that the utility invest 40 percent of total program expenditures in projects that benefit historically underserved communities. The utility responded by proposing the “Economic Recovery Transportation Electrification Plan.”

The plan was designed to stimulate the state’s economy with a $100 million investment to rapidly expand EV charging stations across the utility’s service territory between 2022 and 2024. The plan included everything from expansion of interstate and urban charging depots to workforce development.

Approved by utility regulators, the plan outlined steps to deploy nearly 2,000 chargers at 120 stations along interstate corridors, urban areas, with public agencies, regional transit commissions and school districts, and in recreation and tourism destinations.

While portions of the plan have had measurable success — 287 apprentices and journeymen have been trained through it — other portions have languished, most notably the charging station buildout.

The nearly $100 million plan outlined spending $9.4 million for development along interstate corridors and $26.3 million for urban charging stations, but during the 2023 calendar year, the program’s second year, NV Energy spent less than $3.8 million on EV charging infrastructure programs, according to May filings with state energy regulators.

No chargers were installed that year.

Through mid-2024, the utility had spent just $4.75 million on the plan. Total expenditures will increase after all sites have been built out after 2024, according to an NV Energy spokesperson. As with other programs approved by utility regulators, NV Energy has the ability to recover costs from ratepayers later based on actual expenditures of the program.

But with just three months remaining in the three-year program, the spokesperson told The Nevada Independent that just three charging stations have been completed, with another 14 under design or construction — well short of the planned 120 stations.

“Every time we give NV Energy the ability to run a program, it falls short,” Christi Cabrera-Georgeson, deputy director of the Nevada Nevada Conservation League, said in an email. “The company has yet to explain why the vast majority of EV charging stations authorized in SB448 haven’t been built and are not ready to use.”

NV Energy is continuing to work through its electrification plan and is actively seeking partners and organizations to meet the requirements laid out in the plan and by state legislation, the utility’s spokesperson said. And, the spokesperson added, building new infrastructure such as charging stations “takes time.”

Nevada’s EV charger beginnings

The Nevada Electric Highway Program kicked off in 2015 when the Governor’s Office of Energy, NV Energy and a rural electric co-op earmarked sites along U.S. 95 in Fallon, Hawthorne, Tonopah, Beatty and Panaca for charging stations.

In 2018, after an influx of federal funds acquired through a settlement by Volkswagen brought on by allegations the company cheated on emissions tests, GOE expanded the project and sought partners to build additional charging stations along Nevada’s highways and interstates.

Less than four dozen charging stations were installed through the Nevada Electric Highway program and Sandoval’s vision of an electric highway only partially came to fruition.

Charging stations now pepper U.S. Highway 95.

Just not every 50 miles.

“If you have a car that runs about 200 miles, it makes the trip,” Worley said. “But to hit that every 50-mile plan has not been done.”

The Nevada Electric Highway initiative wrapped up in June 2023, according to a spokesperson for the Governor’s Office of Energy. The office has since transitioned future EV infrastructure projects to NDOT and is not directly overseeing any EV station installations.

Building charging stations with federal funds

Around 2016, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) launched a program allowing states to nominate alternative fuel corridors. But there was no funding tied to the nominations.

“It was more states saying ‘Hey, we want to be good stewards … and we would love to see alternative fuels,’” said Worley.

A few years later, the FHWA shifted gears and, in 2022, announced its National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, allocating funds to states to construct EV charging stations and to facilitate data collection along alternative fuel corridors.

Nevada was awarded $38 million through 2027.

Similar to NV Energy’s slow buildout, NDOT has yet to build a charging station with the federal funds it received — plans are to start construction later this year or early next year — but in total, anywhere between 38 and 45 stations will be built through the life of the grant with a focus on interstates and U.S. highways, Worley said.

Federal requirements limit NDOT’s contribution to each charging station to 80 percent; the agency must find private partners, such as businesses, to fund the other 20 percent. Finding partners to front that portion is a challenge, as that fraction of the total cost can range from the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Federal funding also requires that states monitor and report how much the new stations are used, something currently tracked only by the equipment manufacturer that owns each charging station. That information is not publicly shared.

“Within three to five years, a lot of information will come in for the state,” Worley said. “It will be the ‘aha’ moment of how many people are using the charging stations.”

With the federal funding, Interstate 15 and Interstate 80 will be fully built out and the state’s highways will — mostly — have charging stations roughly every 75 to 100 miles.

Some highways, such as U.S. 93, will remain a challenge.

But with millions in federal funding and NV Energy’s plan still outstanding, Nevada’s electric highways could look different in just a few years.

“The onus is now on NV Energy and NDOT to use this money and historic opportunity to serve the public in a timely manner that’s well-planned and transparent,” said Cabrera-Georgeson.

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This story was originally published by The Nevada Independent and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.