State plans to spend hundreds of millions on charging infrastructure face practical problems: missing cellular checks left stations offline, transformer upgrades take a year or more, copper thefts and coordination failures add delays as officials plan for millions of ports by 2035.
A contractor-installed fleet charging station lacked a required cellular-coverage check and was unusable for months.
Transformer upgrades can take 12–18 months, creating long project delays for higher-power chargers.
Coordination gaps among installers, utilities, and contractors waste labor and stall installations.
Washington's push to electrify transportation and build public charging infrastructure is running into routine, practical hurdles that are delaying deployments and reducing station uptime. The Electric Vehicle Coordinating Council heard several real-world examples at a recent meeting that illustrate where planning and execution are breaking down. Connectivity and configuration mistakes Puget Sound Solar General Manager Alisha Turpin described a project in which a state agency hired contractors to install a large fleet charging station but skipped a required cellular-coverage check during design. When the station was installed it "had no connectivity and was basically useless." Turpin said following manufacturer design guidance and configuring stations exactly as intended are critical steps that were missed in that case. Coordination failures and wasted labor Department of Commerce EV Incentives Program Manager Mara MacDonell reported projects are often undermined when one party does not do its part. She cited instances where installers were sent to sites but the utility didn't show up, burning unplanned labor hours. MacDonell described multi-month lapses in email threads and situations where tasks simply got lost, which compounds scheduling and cost problems. Transformer and equipment bottlenecks
The story also notes copper thefts have left many charging stations inoperable. Theft, vandalism, and the maintenance burden add ongoing operational risk beyond the initial installation challenges.
State officials are moving to re-appropriate existing funds to support electrification efforts, including $74 million for the state's EV Charging Program and $160 million for several Washington State Department of Transportation charging programs. The council estimates the state will need about three million charging ports by the time the ban on new gasoline vehicle sales takes effect in 2035.
Washington has seen slower EV population growth in 2026 compared with 2025. There were more than 300,000 registered EVs as of July, and that month's EV market share—17%—was the highest of the year, but sales did not meet the council's earlier 2025 forecast. The council has lowered its 2035 EV population forecast accordingly.
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