The Download: Massachusetts EV charging plans continue to take hit

 

New from CommonWealth Beacon MUST READ! IT'S NOT TIME TO STEP BACK! TOGETHER WE CAN REDUCE ENERGY COSTS! CLIMATE: A major bill that would weaken the state’s 2030 climate mandates is officially on the move in the House after seven House Democrats on the energy committee voted to advance it. It’s a sign of the political muscle being exerted on Beacon Hill to soften the state’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – and is throwing Gov. Maura Healey’s energy affordability legislation into disarray. Jordan Wolman has more.  CHECKUP: Massachusetts’s long-running health care challenges are only set to grow more dire due to federal cuts and changes to Medicaid eligibility, Chris Lisinski reports.   HOSPITAL: State officials voted to approve the sale of a Leicester hospital and nursing home to an out-of-state, for-profit regional health care operator. Sam Drysdale at the State House News Service has the details.  MUST READ FOR LOTS OF FACTS & INFORMATION! OPINION: Are the state’s ambitious 2030 climate commitments already out of reach? Rick Sullivan, a former state secretary of energy and environmental affairs and CEO of the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts, raises the question that’s reverberating around the State House right now.

Massachusetts EV charging plans continue to take hit    November 13, 2025 By JORDAN WOLMAN

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Electric vehicle drivers traversing Massachusetts on the state’s major highways could find themselves facing one of EV owners’ biggest fears: a lack of chargers to ensure they can safely make it from point A to point B.

The state has made significant progress over the past decade in making it easier for motorists to afford to purchase an electric vehicle and install chargers in homes.

But Massachusetts has yet to tap funding from a key federal program to install chargers throughout the state’s network of major highways, the state’s Department of Transportation confirmed to CommonWealth Beacon.

And now, the implosion of a major contract the state awarded to redevelop 18 service plazas along the Massachusetts Turnpike is bound to push back the installation of even more EV chargers.

“All these things together make it harder to achieve our deployment goals,” said Eric Bourassa, director of transportation at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and a member of the state’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Coordinating Council.

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Those delays underscore the challenges facing the state in cutting pollution from the transportation sector, which accounts for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts at 37 percent. Widespread adoption of electric vehicles is a crucial part of those efforts, but the state remains far off its goals for the chargers needed to both increase consumer confidence in the technology and power the vehicles once they are on the road.

There were 9,413 publicly accessible charging ports in Massachusetts as of May, the fourth-highest rate per capita in the country, but the state would need to triple its annual rate of new charging deployments through 2030 to achieve its climate commitments, according to the most recent state data.

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More Context DEP delays electric vehicle sales requirements for two years (May 2025) Massachusetts postpones rule requiring truck makers to sell electric vehicles (April 2025)

More from CommonWealth Beacon CLIMATE: House members of a key legislative committee are forging ahead with a controversial bill that would defang the state’s 2030 emissions-reductions commitments. Jordan Wolman has the details.   OPINION: Ahead of the latest annual health care cost trends hearing Wednesday, Paul Hattis writes that this year feels even more dire, with a confluence of factors posing bigger challenges than ever for patients, providers, and other stakeholders.

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