While consumer concerns surrounding electric vehicles’ viability on long road trips may remain, Colorado officials are doing their best to assuage them.

Gov. Jared Polis, alongside the Colorado Energy Office’s Will Toor, CDOT’s Shoshana Lew and ChargePoint’s Justin Wilson, on Monday unveiled a new station in a Wheat Ridge Target shopping center parking lot that marks more than 1,100 fast chargers for EVs throughout the state. 

This station was also one of 33 installed by the Colorado Energy Office and ChargePoint in the state’s “EV Fast Charging Corridors program” which was started with $10 million in state funding and another $2 million in private and local government investment. The project built 12 fast charging stations on the Western Slope, 14 in the Front Range, five on the Eastern Plains and two elsewhere. 

Early on in the program, ChargePoint looked at building stations in “strategic sites to support traveling across the state, to support long distance travel and travel within urban corridors,” Wilson said.

CDOT Executive Director Lew noted that now 80% of Colorado interstates are within 30 minutes of a fast charger. Colorado’s nearly 6,000 total charging stations ranks eighth nationally. 

Under the Polis administration’s six years in office, electric vehicles’ share of new car sales in the state has gone from around 2% to 25.3% in 2024’s third quarter, a NESCAUM study cited by the Governor showed. 

The new rate in last quarter surpasses California’s rate of 24.3% to become first in the nation. 

“It’s always fun to beat California,” Polis joked.