The rollout of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in convenience stores will slow following the Trump administration’s pause on federal funding for EV chargers, Tom Healy, vice president of facilities development and maintenance at Nouria told CSP.
“There's not really a business model there to make a large investment without grant funding because it's a large capital investment, and the business volume is just not there right now,” he said.
Public chargers cost approximately $3,500 per connector for Level 2 chargers and $38,000 to $90,000 per connector for direct current (DC) fast chargers, with higher costs depending on power output, according to the according to the Department of Energy. That’s not including installation costs, which average around $2,500 per connector.
Healy doesn’t predict much of a decrease in EV charger customers at Nouria charging locations, though. The Worcester, Massachusetts-based convenience-store chain has 183 locations, 13 active EV chargers and 26 additional EV chargers expected to be installed by the end of 2025 that have not been affected by the pause on federal funding. There are only about five charging sessions per charger per day, which was expected, he said, but still, Nouria wants to be at the forefront of this new industry, learn from initial installations and customer expectations at both larger and small locations.
What exactly does a pause on funds mean, and how are retailers reacting?
Federal Funding
Federal incentives, such as the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program (NEVI), were designed to allocate funds to convenience-store chains for EV charging port installations. It’s also ramped up the number of charging locations for consumers—part of the Biden administration’s push for a more energy-focused automobile industry across America.
Government grants incentivize both consumers and c-store retailers to push EV growth forward.
Along with Nouria, convenience-store chains such as Kwik Trip, La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Love’s, Oklahoma City, have added charging ports with the NEVI funds. Retailers are required to add four chargers per location with the NEVI grants, whereas without, they might have tested the market with just one or decided that the budget wasn’t there for any.
On the consumer side, range anxiety is a top concern preventing consumers from purchasing EVs. If there are more charging ports, there is more incentive to hop on the EV train; with more EVs on the road, there’s more incentive for retailers to invest in chargers.
The mandate that the Biden administration put into effect in 2021 aimed for 50% of all new vehicles sold in the United States to be electric, plug-in hybrid or hydrogen-powered by 2030; stricter fuel economy standards for automakers; EV tax credits for consumers; grants to grow the EV charging network across the country; and domestic manufacturing of EV infrastructure.
In a separate but related initiative in 2021, the Biden administration also signed the NEVI program into law, which was launched by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) through its Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).
It includes $5 billion worth of grants to the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico to support the installation of EV charging infrastructure, with multiple rounds of funding from 2022 to 2026.
The DOT must approve the state requests before the grants are funded, but with two years left of the five-year plan, states are at different degrees of approval.
However, the push for EVs is facing some resistance as President Trump paused federal funding programs and revoked the electric vehicle EV mandate on Jan. 20 that former President Biden put into place.
“The NEVI program has in many states helped catalyze existing gas stations and truck stops to install fast, state-of-the-art EV charging stations,” said David Fialkov, executive vice president of government affairs for the National Association of Truck Stop Owners (NATSO), Alexandria, Virginia, and the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America (SIGMA), Washington, D.C. “In other states, NEVI has been implemented poorly, with chargers either still not built or, if they are, they're in places nobody wants to stop. We are encouraged that the Trump administration is reevaluating rather than abandoning the NEVI Program and intend to work closely with the administration to share our experience and keep what's been working, while reconsidering clearly unproductive approaches.”
Many retailers have taken the leap to integrating EV chargers because of location and existing amenities.
“The big winner [of NEVI funds] has been gas stations and convenience stores because they have real estate,” Ryan McKinnon, director of communications at Charge Ahead Partnership, a coalition based in Richmond, Virginia, said on an EV webinar he hosted. “They're already located right off the highway. They have the amenities. They have everything people want, and people have been trained through decades of driving to stop at these locations. So, they're the prime candidates to offer EV charging.”
Trump's Executive Order
In his executive order “Unleashing American Energy” on Jan. 20, Trump said under the heading “Terminating the Green New Deal” that “all agencies shall immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 … or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.”
This includes a pause on the NEVI Program and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program (CFI)—a similar program backed by a $2.5 billion investment— plus the rescindment of the electric vehicle mandate.
“America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have—the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth—and we are going to use it,” Trump said in his 2025 inaugural address.
A letter from DOT Feb. 6 stated it is pausing the current NEVI Formula Program Guidance, and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is updating it to align with current U.S. DOT policy and priorities. FHWA aims to publish the new draft in the spring.
“Nobody knows what's going to happen yet.” —Badih El-Nemr, Nouria
Instructions for the submission of new state plans for all fiscal years will be included in the updated final NEVI Formula Program Guidance. States will not face any consequences for not implementing their existing plans. Until new guidance is issued, reimbursement of existing obligations will be allowed so that financial commitments are not disrupted, the letter said.
“That executive order just put those [programs] under a 90-day hold for the review,” said Badih El-Nemr, executive vice president at Nouria. “Nobody knows what's going to happen yet.”
Moving Forward
Nouria has received NEVI funding for one location in Bridgton, Maine. The contract was set, and installation was already underway when the pause was announced, so the chain was able to move forward.
However, in August, Nouria received grant funding for EV charger installations at five New Hampshire sites through the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAG) Federal program, administered at the state level. These projects are currently on hold due to the uncertainty of the federal funding.
In addition to NEVI and other federal grants like the CMAG and CFI grant programs, Nouria has leveraged state, local and utility grants for EV chargers.
EV leaders are concerned that state-level actions could fill gaps left by federal policy and the complexity of a “patchwork” approach, with some states offering incentives while others do not, leading to uneven adoption across the country, according to an Electric Vehicles Vision Group (EVVG) discussion in January.
“Let me put it this way, I'm not losing sleep over doom and gloom if incentives dry up or change or reuse,” said Chris Normandeau, director of New York-based FirstService Energy, an energy management affiliate of real estate business FirstService Residential, at the EVVG meeting. “The industry is moving forward one way or another, and it's not something I'd bet against regardless of who's in the Oval Office or Congress.”
Retailers Left in Limbo
Many other c-store retailers are dealing with uncertainty while they wait for the FHWA to release an update on the funding pause.
Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores also continues to monitor the developing situation. The 640-store chain based in Oklahoma City is growing its network of EV charging stations, in part, through NEVI grants. The company was awarded $83 million in 2024 for the construction of chargers in 13 states. Love's has 31 existing EV charging locations and 165 chargers. The chain said it will add 80 chargers to 20 Love’s locations in 2025.
Construction is planned to start in 2025 on new fast chargers in eight states: Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
“Love’s will continue to monitor related executive orders and subsequent changes in law to determine the next steps,” said Kim Okafor, general manager of zero emissions for Love's.
Kwik Trip is also still trying to understand what the executive order means and how to move forward, Ben Leibl, public relations specialist at the La Crosse, Wisconsin-based convenience-store chain of 868 stores, told CSP regarding its Kwik Charge program.
In January, the first three Kwik Trips with fast electric chargers were up and running in Wisconsin as part of the NEVI Formula Program.
“We were awarded 24 locations as part of Wisconsin’s NEVI program,” Leibl told CSP at the time.
The c-store locations, which started operating the chargers in December, are in Ashland, Chippewa Falls and Menomonie, Wisconsin.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.