Under the Biden Administration, tens of millions of government dollars were invested on EV charging stations on isolated tribal grounds.
However, a large number of them are damaged, dark, or hardly used.
EV chargers placed throughout Native American reservations as part of a Biden-era green spending frenzy are being seen as an expensive policy failure, according to a Daily Mail investigation.
The chargers were marketed as a moral initiative that supports equitable access to clean technology for underprivileged populations and climate justice.
However, detractors claim that the projects have produced unstable power, idle machinery, and little actual help for those who are struggling to meet much more fundamental requirements.
There is mounting evidence that the charging networks were hurried out with little consideration for economics, geography, or local reality, according to researchers, experts, and federal watchdogs.
According to data by EV analytics company Paren, public chargers in rural and tribal communities are frequently utilized less than 5% of the time. Critics claim that the numbers are the first step.
A new EV typically costs between $55,000 and $58,000, which is significantly more than Native Americans’ average household income of $44,000. These communities have disproportionately high rates of poverty.
In order to pay for running expenses such as electricity, maintenance, and land lease agreements, EV charging stations must exceed 20% usage.
According to CleanTechnica, EV drivers prefer faster, more dependable chargers elsewhere, therefore chargers close to Navajo tribal grounds in Holbrook, Arizona, are rarely utilized. Monument Valley, Arizona is depicted in the file image.
The installation of EV chargers on Native American reservations during the Biden administration’s green spending frenzy is becoming seen as an expensive policy failure.
Although EV chargers on tribal grounds sound like a nice idea, they are rarely in use.
Furthermore, reservation-based charging stations frequently don’t function at all.
According to experts, chargers on tribal grounds are more likely to be down because of hardware malfunctions, a shortage of replacement parts, problems with the payment system, or inconsistent electricity. Power shortages have left some inoperable for weeks.
According to a 2025 US Department of Transportation assessment, even when the equipment itself was undamaged, a malfunctioning power source frequently caused rural and tribal charges to go offline.
One in five EV drivers going through rural regions, including tribal territories, were unable to charge owing to faults, outages, or payment difficulties, according to another JD Power survey.
All EV chargers were rendered unusable for days in July 2023 due to a widespread power outage throughout the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.
Several EV financing streams were introduced simultaneously under former President Joe Biden’s 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
These included the $2.5 billion Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Grant Program, the $5 billion Clean School Bus Program, and the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program.
The Cherokee Nation received $10.7 million in 2025 to install 112 charging points at about twelve locations.
In 2024, the biggest non-Tesla charging station in Oregon was opened by a locally owned casino resort.
The charging stations at the Seven Feathers Casino Resort and Seven Feathers Truck & Travel Center were introduced by the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indians.
In 2024, the Fort Independence Indian Community in California received a $15.1 million grant to construct a solar-powered microgrid and charging station along US Route 395.
In 2024, the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, which is located in both North and South Dakota, received $3.9 million for electric vehicle chargers on property that was formerly associated with demonstrations against an oil pipeline.
The projects were presented by supporters as representations of advancement and opposition to fossil fuels.
However, utilization data presents a much more depressing image.
Last year, Loren McDonald, the principal analyst at Paren at the time, issued a warning that chargers in impoverished rural regions were not being used for more than an hour a day, which is insufficient to cover the expenses of construction and upkeep.
Paren discovered that states with sizable Native American populations—North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana—have among of the lowest rates of EV charger use in the US.
According to UCLA scholar Qiao Yu, who has researched EV deployment on tribal territories, the infrastructure was frequently ill-conceived from the beginning.
He pointed out that some villages still don’t have clean water or dependable energy.
Gas guzzlers are commonly used by tribespeople in remote places for transportation and small business operations.
“If you don’t have electricity, how can you have EV charging?” Yu asked the Daily Mail. “The EV projects have delivered idle machines, unreliable power, and little real benefit for people struggling with far more basic needs,” according to critics.
According to Yu’s 2025 study, chargers in rural and tribal areas had slower charging speeds and worse hardware failure rates. Many times, no one in the area is qualified to fix them. Replacement parts are costly and take a long time to arrive.
According to a 2024 Harvard University study, EV charging programs were already being discontinued in dozens of rural US counties due to underutilization and high maintenance costs.
As a result, drivers are unable to consistently plug in at all in areas known as “charging deserts.”
Federal officials themselves acknowledge that it is difficult to gauge progress. Many federally sponsored EV initiatives on tribal territory lacked explicit performance goals, according to a 2025 Government Accountability Office analysis.
Utilization and uptime were not adequately monitored in certain instances. This implies that billions could be spent without knowing for sure if the charges are beneficial to anyone.
The flaws are evident on the ground. According to CleanTechnica, EV drivers prefer faster, more dependable chargers elsewhere, therefore chargers close to Navajo tribal grounds in Holbrook, Arizona, are rarely utilized.
Critics counter that the Biden administration put symbolism ahead of pragmatism.
For as low as $300, a residence may purchase an EV charging kit. However, before maintenance, the powerful DC fast chargers that are usually placed alongside highways can cost more than $300,000 each.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, supports EVs but is against subsidies, arguing that charging networks ought to be determined by the market.
According to Standing Rock EV activist Joseph McNeil, chargers are an issue of equal access.
Participating in a Standing Rock renewable energy project, Joseph McNeil has supported the chargers on the grounds of equal access.
“Our access to sustainability shouldn’t be determined by our economic circumstances,” he stated.
Initiatives like Electric Nation, a tribal-led project that aims to install electric trucks and more than 100 chargers on 23 reservations in five states in the Upper Midwest, contend that electrification is a long-term environmental and health strategy.
Red Lake Ojibwe Nation member and Electric Nation founder Bob Blake has characterized the initiative as “resistance” to fossil fuel infrastructure and a reaction to health issues on tribal territories.
President Donald Trump’s administration has taken steps to reduce infrastructure spending and EV subsidies since taking office in 2025, referring to some projects as “incredible waste of taxpayer dollars.”
Although a federal judge said in January that freezing the $5 billion program was illegal, new financing under NEVI has been suspended; nevertheless, this ruling is still appealable.
The Hopi Tribe in northeastern Arizona and other recipients of green energy payments were cut after a $7 billion federal solar funding initiative was abandoned in August 2025.
Concerns over insufficient monitoring, sluggish rollouts, and poor management of EV charging initiatives have been voiced by Republican leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Even Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and a strong proponent of electric vehicles but a critic of subsidies, has stated that charging networks ought to be driven by the market, even if it means fewer outlets in rural regions.
Numerous social justice initiatives have been linked to EV charging on tribal territories.
EV chargers are a type of “resistance” to fossil fuels, according to Electric Nation member and creator Bob Blake.
Legislation to reroute $879 million that was previously authorized for EV charging to other infrastructure priorities is currently being considered by the US Senate.
Such actions, according to Yu, are misguided. “They only look at the price tag right now, not the benefits in ten or 20 years,” he said, describing a future in which reservations are connected by EV buses, pollution decreases, and economic opportunities improve—but only with consistent, deliberate investment.
