National Parks are among America’s most cherished travel destinations. They draw visitors from every state, culture and political spectrum. Driving electric vehicles through these protected landscapes makes perfect sense: quieter rides, cleaner air and no harmful gases belching into the scenery.
Yet EV drivers visiting these parks still face painfully limited charging options. While more chargers are appearing in and around the parks, they remain far short of what’s needed to welcome the growing number of Americans going electric, Bloomberg reported Friday.
Last year, America’s national parks saw 332 million visitors, a 2% increase from the year before. But across the 63 national parks, there were only about 100 EV charging stations in total—the majority of them the slower Level 2 chargers. The outlet aptly called it the “final EV frontier” for the country’s charging network.
Outside the parks, along highways and major corridors, charging infrastructure is expanding rapidly. Even with EV sales growing slower than expected this year, charging companies are building ahead of demand, laying the groundwork now for future adoption. The second quarter of this year saw record deployment of public fast chargers, InsideEVs reported this month citing charging data analytics firm Paren.
Still, building stations in pristine, often remote national parks is a far tougher task than installing them along highways. Park visits are highly seasonal. Most visitors flock to Yellowstone or Yosemite in the summer. For EV chargers to make business sense, they need high utilization year-round. Many parks are also far from existing grid infrastructure, making connections costly and complex.
Progress is still happening, but not nearly at the required rates. Yellowstone, for example, now has some type of EV charging at all five entrances, including a Tesla Supercharger station. And Rivian has also invested in the parks. Roughly 20% of its nearly 800 DC fast chargers, spread across 124 locations as of writing, are in or near national parks.
Yet there’s still a long way to go. Only 12 of the 20 largest national parks currently offer any EV charging, Bloomberg noted. Better days may be on the horizon, but for now, anyone planning a national park getaway in an EV will still need to map out their charging stops carefully.
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