More than $130M was allocated for EV charger buildout in Nevada. Few were built.

Nevada’s Electric Vehicle Charging Network Lags Despite Ambitious Plans and Funding

Scott Allison, a Las Vegas resident who drives an electric Kia, faces a common dilemma for Nevada’s EV owners. With a range of about 280 miles, he and his husband hesitate to drive to the Reno-Tahoe area despite having flown there for visits. The reason? Nevada’s unreliable rural charging infrastructure.

“When you’ve got so few that work, there’s no redundancy,” Allison explained. “We need dependable chargers that we know are going to work. You can’t just jump in the car and hope for the best.”

This frustration is shared by many of Nevada’s 65,000 EV drivers who find traveling through rural stretches of the state—such as Highway 50 between Tonopah and Las Vegas or U.S. Route 93 between Las Vegas and Wells—remains a risky proposition. With no official state or federal tracking system for operational charging stations, drivers must rely on unofficial sources to plan routes.

In 2021, state lawmakers attempted to address this infrastructure gap by passing legislation that authorized NV Energy to build out more than $100 million worth of EV charging stations over several years, with special focus on underserved communities. Combined with tens of millions in federal grant money from the bipartisan infrastructure law, the outlook for Nevada’s EV charging network appeared promising.

However, more than a year after NV Energy’s project was scheduled to be completed, the utility has spent just $12.4 million on the initiative. NV Energy cited high infrastructure costs and lower-than-expected interest from customers to develop charging stations on their properties as reasons for not utilizing the full $100 million allocation.

To date, only 16 charging sites have been built with two additional sites under construction. Together, these 18 sites will add nearly 350 charging ports across Nevada—far short of the 120 EV charging stations with 1,800 ports promised in the 2021 omnibus energy bill SB448, which was promoted as a way to boost post-pandemic job production while electrifying the state’s highways.

“I’ve heard people lift (SB448) up as a model of policy to accelerate and help with the adoption of electric vehicles. It’s frustrating to see that the reality didn’t play out that way,” said Assemblyman Howard Watts, a Las Vegas Democrat who supported the bill. “It set very clear metrics of ‘we want to spend $100 million over the next three years.’ It was a clear direction that this was something important.”

Compounding the problem, the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) failed to spend $38 million in federal funds awarded in 2022 under the bipartisan infrastructure law. Those funds were recently reduced to about $25 million in Congress’s latest spending bill. Meanwhile, other states have moved much more quickly, allowing them to access all or most of their allocated funds.

“I can’t state strongly enough how disappointing this is,” Allison said. “We need chargers in rural areas, and due to NDOT’s desert tortoise pace, (we have) lost a significant portion of these funds.”

Nevada’s struggles with EV infrastructure aren’t new. More than a decade ago, under former Republican Governor Brian Sandoval, the Nevada Electric Highway initiative was launched with support from NV Energy and NDOT to electrify the state’s highways. The goal was to double public charging stations and expand them to all major Nevada highways by 2020.

That program went defunct in 2023, and progress stalled across all fronts. As of 2024, only about 630 of the nation’s nearly 77,600 EV charging stations are located in Nevada.

Of the $12.4 million NV Energy has spent on its current program, more than half—$6.8 million—went toward outreach, education, technical advisory services, operations, maintenance, and workforce development rather than actual charger installation. The utility did not track job creation directly, though it reported that 319 journeymen and apprentices received training through electrical training centers in northern and southern Nevada.

Chris Brooks, the 2021 bill sponsor and himself an EV driver who has faced charging challenges when driving across Nevada, admitted he hasn’t tracked the bill’s implementation closely. “I don’t know where we should be looking for more progress. As a state, we are just not doing a really great job on charging infrastructure,” he said.

Meanwhile, NDOT has been similarly slow to utilize federal funding. According to the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Awards Dashboard, which tracks federally funded charging sites, 10 states are fully built out and 18 states have at least one operational station. Nevada has none.

NDOT spokesperson Meg Ragonese said in an email that despite funding cuts, “We in Nevada will continue advancing toward future construction of EV charging improvements using available authorized funding and following priorities outlined in the state’s NEVI plan.” The department estimates its first charging stations will be operational later this year.

For drivers like Allison, however, the delays mean continued uncertainty about traveling across the state. “It’s crazy I can’t go safely drive around Nevada in an EV,” he said. “It’s really disappointing.”