10 most and least EV-friendly states in America for 2026

The U.S. is on track to add more than 40,000 public EV chargers in 2026, but where a driver lives still decides whether owning an electric car is easy or a constant hunt for a plug. The gap between the most and least EV-friendly states is now wide enough that a Louisiana resident shares each public charger with more than 10 times as many people as a Vermont resident.

That finding comes from iSeeCars’ 2026 study of EV charger access, which counted Level 2 and DC fast-charging ports listed in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center. The car-search site projected full-year 2026 totals from data through September, then divided each state’s population by its charger count. The result is a residents-per-charger ratio. A lower number means less competition for each port.

Nationally, access is improving, but the buildout is slowing. iSeeCars projects the country will finish 2026 with 299,798 chargers, up from 259,555 in 2025. That works out to 1,143 residents per charger, a 13.2% improvement from 1,317 the year before. The network itself is on track to grow 15.5% this year, down from 25.7% in 2025.

The state rankings show how unevenly that growth is spread. The top of the list is dominated by New England and the West Coast, joined by Colorado, New York and Maryland. The bottom tilts toward the South, the Great Plains and the Midwest, plus Alaska. Long distances, cold winters and fewer EV owners make public charging harder to build and harder to justify in many of those places.

Raw charger counts can mislead. California has far more ports than any other state, yet tiny Vermont edges it on density. Indiana has more chargers than Vermont or Maine but still lands near the bottom because of its larger population. The ratio is a better guide to everyday access for drivers without a home charger and for anyone planning a road trip.

Below are the 10 most EV-friendly states in America for 2026, followed by the 10 least EV-friendly, in the order iSeeCars ranked them.

Stephen Mease / Unsplash

Vermont is the most EV-friendly state in the U.S. for 2026, with 450 residents for every public charger, according to iSeeCars. That ratio puts it just ahead of California and far ahead of the national figure of 1,143.

Vermont’s lead comes from density, not scale. The state has 1,432 Level 2 and DC fast-charging ports, a small number next to the tens of thousands in California. But Vermont has fewer than 700,000 residents, making it the second-least populous state after Wyoming. A modest network goes a long way when it serves so few people.

That makes Vermont an outlier among the leaders. Most of the top states on the iSeeCars list are large and urbanized, with major metro areas or big technology economies. Vermont has neither. Burlington, its largest city, has fewer than 50,000 people, and much of the state is forested, mountainous and rural.

The chargers serve visitors as well as residents. Vermont draws skiers to resorts such as Stowe and Killington in winter and leaf-peepers in autumn, and many of them drive in from Boston, New York and Montreal. Interstate 89 and Interstate 91 carry much of that traffic, so charging along those routes matters for out-of-state EV drivers heading north.

Vermont has also used policy to push electrification. The state has run incentive programs to help residents buy electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Transportation is the largest source of Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions, which has made cars and trucks a central target of its climate plans.

Cold weather is a real factor for EV owners there. Lithium-ion batteries lose range in freezing temperatures, and Vermont winters are long. That makes dependable public charging more important for drivers who cannot plug in at home, especially in small towns far from the interstates.

Vermont did not appear among the states with the biggest or smallest gains in charger access between 2025 and 2026. Its top ranking reflects an existing advantage rather than a sudden surge. It holds first place by a margin of 30 residents per charger over California.

Sung Wang / Unsplash

California ranks No. 2 among the most EV-friendly states, with 480 residents per charger, and it has more chargers than any other state by a wide margin. iSeeCars projects California will finish 2026 with 81,932 charging ports.

That total is more than three times the 24,519 in New York, which has the second-largest state network. California alone accounts for more than a quarter of all projected U.S. chargers. Its share reflects both the state’s size and its long head start in the electric vehicle market.

California is the most populous state, with roughly 39 million people. Building enough chargers to rank second on density is a different challenge from Vermont’s. California has to serve dense urban cores, sprawling suburbs, long desert highways and mountain routes to destinations such as Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park.

The state’s metro areas dominate the city-level results in the same study. Los Angeles has the most chargers of any metro at 36,318. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose is the most EV-friendly metro, with 334 residents per charger. San Diego ranks second among metros at 432, Los Angeles third at 500 and Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto seventh at 659. Four of the 10 metros with the most chargers are in California.

Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars, credited the state’s mild weather and tech-oriented communities for fueling both EV demand and an aggressive charging buildout. Silicon Valley’s concentration of engineers and early adopters, along with Tesla $TSLA’s roots in the Bay Area, helped make the region an early center of EV ownership.

State policy has played a role too. The California Air Resources Board has long set vehicle emissions rules stricter than federal standards and pushed automakers to sell more zero-emission vehicles. The state’s plan to require all new cars sold by 2035 to be zero-emission came under federal challenge in 2025, when Congress voted to revoke the waivers behind it.

The Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto metro also showed strong momentum, improving its residents-per-charger ratio by 17.9% year over year. Even so, California as a whole sits slightly behind Vermont on density, a reminder that the largest network is not automatically the most accessible one.

Katie Chen / Unsplash

Massachusetts is the third most EV-friendly state in 2026, with 539 residents per charger, according to iSeeCars. It is also improving quickly, cutting its ratio by 16.7% from 647 residents per charger in 2025.

That gain placed Massachusetts No. 10 among the most-improved states. It is one of only three states, along with Washington state and Colorado, to rank in the top 10 for both current charger access and year-over-year improvement.

With 13,280 ports, Massachusetts also has the fifth-largest charger network in the country, behind California, New York, Florida and Texas. That is a large network for a state of about seven million people, which gives Massachusetts both scale and density.

Boston drives much of the state’s performance. The Boston-Manchester metro area, which also takes in southern New Hampshire, has 12,017 chargers and 571 residents per charger. That makes it the fifth most EV-friendly metro area in the U.S. The metro improved by 18.3% from 2025, the fourth-largest gain of any metro in the study. Brauer pointed to Boston, along with New York and Denver, as evidence of strong charging support outside California.

The Boston region’s mix of universities, hospitals, biotech firms and technology employers has helped make it one of the stronger EV markets in the Northeast. Massachusetts also offers state rebates for electric vehicles through its MOR-EV program, and the state’s utilities have funded programs to help pay for charger installations.

Housing shapes how residents charge. Older triple-deckers and apartment buildings in Boston, Cambridge, Somerville and other cities often lack driveways or garages, so many EV owners there cannot plug in at home. Public Level 2 chargers near homes, offices and transit stations fill some of that gap.

Massachusetts also sits on major travel corridors. The Massachusetts Turnpike runs east to west across the state, and Interstate 95 links Boston to Providence, Connecticut and New York. Fast chargers along those routes serve commuters, delivery drivers and tourists heading to Cape Cod or the Berkshires, which helps explain why the state’s network is used well beyond city limits.

Dennis Cortés / Unsplash

Colorado ranks No. 4 among the most EV-friendly states, with 651 residents per charger. It is the only Mountain West state in the top 10, and it is improving fast: its ratio fell 17.5% from 789 in 2025, the eighth-largest gain of any state, according to iSeeCars.

Colorado has 9,242 chargers, the seventh-largest state network. Denver accounts for much of that strength. The Denver metro area has 8,300 chargers and 569 residents per charger, making it the fourth most EV-friendly metro in the U.S. The metro improved 18.1% from 2025, the fifth-largest gain of any metro in the study.

The state has backed electric vehicles through policy. Colorado has offered a state tax credit for EV purchases, and in 2019 it adopted zero-emission vehicle rules modeled on California’s. Those steps helped turn Colorado into one of the strongest EV markets between the coasts.

Geography shapes how Coloradans use chargers. Interstate 70 climbs west from Denver into the Rockies toward ski areas such as Vail, crossing high passes and the Eisenhower Tunnel along the way. Steep grades, high altitude and cold temperatures can drain batteries faster than flat, mild driving does. Fast chargers along that corridor make weekend mountain trips more practical for EV drivers.

The Front Range urban corridor, which runs from Fort Collins through Denver to Colorado Springs, holds most of the state’s population. That concentration lets charging networks reach a large share of residents with stations clustered along a relatively narrow strip near Interstate 25.

The eastern plains and the Western Slope are a different story, with longer distances between towns and fewer residents to support charging businesses. Colorado’s statewide ratio reflects the heavy weight of the Front Range, where most drivers live.

iSeeCars flagged Colorado and Washington state as places that already rank among the most EV-friendly and are still improving faster than the national average of 13.2%. That combination separates Colorado from states that are growing quickly only because they started far behind.

Billy Freeman / Unsplash

Connecticut is the fifth most EV-friendly state, with 677 residents per charger and 5,448 charging ports, according to iSeeCars. Its ratio is well under the national average of 1,143 and ahead of its much larger neighbor, New York.

Connecticut’s location between New York and Boston helps explain its showing. Interstate 95 runs along the shoreline through Stamford, Bridgeport and New Haven, while Interstate 84 and Interstate 91 cross through Hartford. These are some of the busiest highway corridors in the Northeast, and steady traffic gives charging operators a reason to build along them.

The Hartford and New Haven metro area has 4,351 chargers and 611 residents per charger, making it the sixth most EV-friendly metro in the study. But it was also among the 10 least-improved metros, with its ratio falling just 9.6% from 676 in 2025. That slower pace points to a lead built on earlier investment rather than rapid growth this year.

Connecticut is a small, densely populated and relatively wealthy state of about 3.7 million people. Fairfield County, in the southwestern corner, is part of the New York commuter belt, and many residents there drive to train stations or into Manhattan.

The state has supported EV purchases through its CHEAPR program, short for Connecticut Hydrogen and Electric Automobile Purchase Rebate. Connecticut also adopted California’s vehicle emissions standards years ago, aligning it with other Northeastern states that have pushed for cleaner cars.

Housing creates demand for public charging. Older cities such as Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport and Waterbury have many multifamily buildings without private garages. Suburban homeowners can often charge in their own driveways, but renters in denser neighborhoods depend more on public ports.

Connecticut ranks three spots ahead of New York on charger density even though it has less than a quarter of New York’s charger count. Its smaller population means each port serves fewer people, the same dynamic that lifts Vermont to the top of the list. It also trails Massachusetts, its neighbor to the north, by fewer than 150 residents per charger.

Jeremy Mowery / Unsplash

Washington state ranks No. 6 among the most EV-friendly states, with 763 residents per charger. It also posted the second-largest improvement of any state, cutting its ratio 22.1% from 979 in 2025 — essentially tied with New Jersey for the top spot, according to iSeeCars.

Washington has 10,489 chargers, the sixth-largest network in the country. That scale, combined with fast year-over-year growth, puts it among the few states that are both well supplied and still expanding faster than the national pace.

The Seattle-Tacoma metro area leads that growth. It has 7,820 chargers and 716 residents per charger, making it the eighth most EV-friendly metro in the study. Its ratio improved 19.7% from 892 in 2025, the second-largest gain of any metro after Minneapolis-St. Paul.

The Puget Sound region’s economy helps explain demand. Microsoft $MSFT is based in Redmond and Amazon $AMZN in Seattle, and the region’s large technology workforce includes many early adopters of electric cars. Commuters across the region drive on crowded corridors such as Interstate 5 and Interstate 405, where public fast chargers see heavy use.

Electricity is another factor. Washington gets most of its power from hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River system, including Grand Coulee Dam, and its residential electricity rates have historically been among the lowest in the U.S. That makes charging cheaper and cleaner than in states that rely on coal or natural gas.

Washington also helped pioneer highway charging. Together with Oregon, it built the West Coast Electric Highway, a network of fast-charging stations along Interstate 5 and other major routes that started in the early 2010s.

The Cascade Range splits the state in two. Most chargers cluster west of the mountains around Seattle, Tacoma, Everett and Olympia. East of the Cascades, cities such as Spokane, Yakima and the Tri-Cities sit amid farmland and long stretches of highway, where chargers are farther apart and winter cold cuts battery range. Mountain passes such as Snoqualmie on Interstate 90 add steep climbs and snow to cross-state trips.

Mercedes Mehling / Unsplash

Maine is the seventh most EV-friendly state, with 793 residents per charger and 1,784 charging ports, according to iSeeCars. It ranks ahead of New York, Oregon and Maryland on charger density.

Maine’s placement cuts against a pattern Brauer described in the study. He argued that cold temperatures and largely rural landscapes work against electric vehicles in states such as North Dakota, Wyoming and West Virginia. Maine has long, cold winters and is one of the most rural states in the country, yet it ranks in the top 10.

Population helps. Maine has about 1.4 million residents spread across the largest land area in New England. Like Vermont, it can post a strong ratio without the huge networks found in California or New York, because each charger serves a relatively small number of people.

State programs have pushed electrification on several fronts. Efficiency Maine, the state’s energy efficiency agency, has offered rebates for electric vehicles and funded public charging stations. Maine has also heavily promoted heat pumps for home heating, reaching a state goal of 100,000 installations ahead of schedule in 2023.

Tourism adds demand for public charging. Each summer, visitors drive north on Interstate 95 and the Maine Turnpike to Portland, coastal towns such as Kennebunkport and Camden, and Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor. Many come from Boston and New York, and drivers in EVs need places to charge on trips that can stretch for hundreds of miles.

Most of Maine’s population lives in the southern and coastal parts of the state, between Portland, Lewiston and Bangor. Northern and western Maine, including the vast North Woods, is sparsely populated, and charging options there are thin.

Winter conditions add strain. Cold weather reduces battery range and slows charging, which makes reliable access along main roads more important for Maine drivers. Maine did not appear among the states with the biggest or smallest improvements in access between 2025 and 2026, suggesting a steady rather than rapid buildout.

J Dean / Unsplash

New York ranks No. 8 among the most EV-friendly states, with 816 residents per charger. Its 24,519 chargers make it the second-largest state network in the U.S., behind only California, according to iSeeCars.

Scale sets New York apart from smaller top-10 states. With nearly 20 million residents, it needs a very large network just to keep its ratio below the national average of 1,143. It has about 7,500 more chargers than Florida, the state with the third-largest network, despite having fewer residents.

The New York metro area tells a more complicated story. It has 19,036 chargers, the third-most of any metro in the country. But it also has 1,145 residents per charger, almost exactly the national average. The metro improved 17.9% from 1,395 in 2025, one of the faster gains among large metros, though its density still trails many smaller markets.

That gap between the state and metro figures reflects New York City’s unusual car culture. Many city residents do not own cars at all, and many who do park on the street or in shared garages without a dedicated outlet. Home charging is out of reach for a large share of potential EV owners, which makes public chargers more important. New York City has piloted curbside chargers to address the problem.

State programs support the buildout. NYSERDA, New York’s energy research and development authority, offers the Drive Clean Rebate for new electric car purchases. The New York Power Authority has installed fast chargers along major highways through its EVolve NY program.

Outside the city, upstate New York includes Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany, along with long rural stretches through the Adirondacks, the Catskills and the Finger Lakes. The New York State Thruway links those regions, and chargers along it serve both residents and tourists. Lake-effect snow and cold winters in western and central New York add to the range challenges EV drivers face there.

Brauer described California and New York as states that are clearly committed to EV infrastructure.

Jimmy Hu / Unsplash

Oregon is the ninth most EV-friendly state, with 894 residents per charger and 4,781 charging ports, according to iSeeCars. It trails Washington state, its northern neighbor, by 131 residents per charger.

Portland anchors the state’s network. The Portland metro area, which also includes communities across the Columbia River in southwest Washington, has 3,951 chargers and 885 residents per charger. That makes it the ninth most EV-friendly metro in the study, one spot ahead of Austin.

Oregon has a long history of EV support. With Washington, it built the West Coast Electric Highway, an early network of fast chargers along Interstate 5 and other major routes. The state has also offered purchase incentives through its Clean Vehicle Rebate Program, which has provided rebates for new and used electric cars.

Like Washington, Oregon draws a large share of its electricity from hydropower on the Columbia River and its tributaries. Low-carbon power strengthens the environmental case for electric vehicles and has helped build support for them among residents.

Most Oregonians live in the Willamette Valley, the corridor along Interstate 5 that includes Portland, Salem, Corvallis and Eugene. That concentration helps the statewide ratio, since many chargers cluster where people actually live and drive.

The rest of the state is sparser. East of the Cascades, Oregon is largely high desert, with long distances between towns such as Bend, Burns and Ontario. Bend has grown quickly as an outdoor recreation hub, drawing skiers to Mount Bachelor and drivers from the Willamette Valley over mountain passes that can see heavy snow in winter.

The Oregon coast presents a different challenge. U.S. Route 101 runs the length of the shoreline through small towns such as Astoria, Cannon Beach, Newport and Coos Bay, with few large population centers. Coastal trips draw many visitors from Portland and beyond, and travelers depend on public chargers spread along a lightly populated stretch of highway.

Oregon did not appear among the states with the biggest or smallest improvements in charger access between 2025 and 2026.

Brendan Beale / Unsplash

Maryland ranks No. 10 among the most EV-friendly states, with 981 residents per charger and 6,389 charging ports, according to iSeeCars. It is the only top-10 state that also landed among the 10 least-improved states, with its ratio falling just 7.9% from 1,065 in 2025.

That slow improvement shows up in the state’s largest metros. Baltimore has 923 residents per charger, but its ratio improved only 6.8% from 991 in 2025, the third-smallest gain of any metro in the study. The Washington, D.C., metro area, which includes Hagerstown, Maryland, as well as suburbs in Maryland and Virginia, has 7,667 chargers and 952 residents per charger. It improved just 7.3% from 1,027, the fourth-smallest metro gain.

Both metros remain better than the national average of 1,143. What sets Maryland apart is momentum. Several states outside the top 10, including New Jersey, Minnesota and Illinois, are expanding access at more than twice Maryland’s rate.

Maryland has about 6.3 million residents, many of them in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, and in the Baltimore region. The Interstate 95 and Baltimore-Washington Parkway corridors between the two cities are among the busiest in the country, and steady commuter traffic supports charging stations along them.

The state has backed EV adoption in several ways. Maryland has offered an excise tax credit for electric vehicle purchases, and its utilities have run programs to install public chargers. Maryland is also a member of the group of states that adopted California’s vehicle emissions standards.

Geography gives Maryland some variety. Western Maryland, including Hagerstown and the Appalachian mountain counties, is more rural and less densely served. The Eastern Shore, across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, draws heavy summer traffic heading to Ocean City and Delaware beaches, and EV drivers on those trips rely on chargers along U.S. Route 50.

Maryland’s ranking shows that a solid network can still fall behind on pace. It sits just below Oregon on the list, and its ratio of 981 is only 162 residents per charger better than the national average, a narrow cushion for the last state in the top 10.

Rosie Kerr / Unsplash

Louisiana is the least EV-friendly state in America for 2026, with 4,717 residents for every public charger, according to iSeeCars. That ratio is more than four times the national average and more than 10 times Vermont’s.

Louisiana has 979 charging ports. That is fewer than Vermont’s 1,432, even though Louisiana has roughly seven times as many residents. Brauer pointed to the gap between the two states as a clear sign of how uneven EV infrastructure remains across the U.S.

Louisiana’s economy is deeply tied to fossil fuels. The state is a major producer of oil and natural gas, and refineries and petrochemical plants line the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Jobs in those industries have shaped the state’s politics and its energy priorities for decades.

Many of Louisiana’s roughly 4.6 million residents live in small towns and rural parishes, where distances between charging stations are long and demand for public chargers is low. Even the larger cities, including New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport and Lafayette, have relatively sparse networks compared with major metros elsewhere.

Hurricanes add a practical concern. Storms regularly knock out power across large parts of the state, sometimes for days or weeks. Hurricane Ida in 2021 left all of New Orleans without electricity. For drivers who depend on the grid to fuel their cars, long outages are a real consideration.

Interstate 10 crosses Louisiana from the Texas border to Mississippi, linking Houston with Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Chargers along that corridor serve both residents and long-distance travelers. The Houston metro, just over the state line, is itself the sixth least EV-friendly metro in the study, with 2,453 residents per charger.

Louisiana did not appear among the states with the smallest year-over-year improvements in access, but its starting point is so far behind that steady growth leaves it well short of the national average. Reaching the national average would require roughly four times as many chargers as Louisiana has today.

Pieter van de Sande / Unsplash

Mississippi ranks No. 2 among the least EV-friendly states, with 3,541 residents per charger, according to iSeeCars. It has just 834 chargers, the seventh-smallest network in the country.

Mississippi is also improving slowly. Its ratio fell just 6.7% from 3,797 in 2025, one of the 10 smallest improvements of any state and roughly half the national rate of 13.2%. At that pace, the state is falling further behind leaders such as Washington state and New Jersey, which each improved by more than 22%.

Mississippi has about 2.9 million residents and is among the most rural states in the country. Its largest city, Jackson, has fewer than 200,000 people, and much of the population lives in small towns spread across farmland and pine forests. Low population density makes public chargers harder to fill and harder to justify for private operators.

Income is another factor. Mississippi has the lowest median household income of any state, and new electric vehicles have generally cost more upfront than comparable gas-powered models. Fewer EV owners means less demand for public charging, which in turn makes EVs less practical for potential buyers.

The state does have a strong auto manufacturing base. Nissan builds vehicles at a large plant in Canton, near Jackson, and Toyota $TM assembles cars in Blue Springs in northeast Mississippi. Those plants have made the state part of the Southern auto industry even as EV adoption there has lagged.

Interstate 55 runs north to south through Jackson, linking Memphis and New Orleans, while Interstate 20 crosses the state from Vicksburg to Meridian. Interstate 10 runs along the Gulf Coast through Gulfport and Biloxi, where casinos and beaches draw visitors from across the region.

Mississippi sits in a regional cluster of weak access. Louisiana, its western neighbor, ranks last. Alabama and Tennessee both appear among the 10 least-improved states, and the Birmingham metro ranks eighth among the least EV-friendly metros.

Chris Marlin / Unsplash

Kentucky is the third least EV-friendly state, with 3,270 residents per charger and 1,409 charging ports, according to iSeeCars. Its largest city fares even worse in the study’s metro rankings.

Louisville is the least EV-friendly metro area among the 50 largest in the U.S., with 2,904 residents per charger. That is nearly nine times San Francisco’s ratio. Louisville also has the fewest chargers of any large metro, with just 621. Los Angeles, the top metro by charger count, has more than 58 times as many.

Northern Kentucky shows a similar pattern. It is part of the Cincinnati metro area, which also spans southwest Ohio and southeast Indiana and has 1,165 chargers, the 10th-lowest total among large metros.

Kentucky’s weak access stands in contrast to its role in the auto industry. The state is one of the country’s biggest vehicle producers. Toyota $TM’s plant in Georgetown is one of the company’s largest factories anywhere. Ford $F builds trucks and SUVs at its Kentucky Truck Plant and Louisville Assembly Plant, and General Motors $GM builds the Corvette in Bowling Green. In 2025, Ford announced that its Louisville Assembly Plant would produce a new midsize electric pickup.

Kentucky has about 4.6 million residents, many of them in small towns and rural counties. Eastern Kentucky is mountainous coal country, and coal long supplied most of the state’s electricity, though its share has declined. The state’s rural geography and long distances between towns make it harder to build a dense public network.

Kentucky sits at a crossroads of interstate travel. Interstate 65 runs north to south through Louisville and Bowling Green toward Nashville, while Interstate 64 and Interstate 75 carry traffic through Lexington. EV drivers passing through on long trips depend on fast chargers along those routes.

Brauer advised anyone seriously considering an EV to make local charging access and competition for chargers a primary factor in the decision, especially as the national buildout slows. Few places illustrate that advice as clearly as Louisville, where each charger serves nearly 3,000 people.

Joris Beugels / Unsplash

Alaska has the fewest EV chargers of any state, with just 227 ports, according to iSeeCars. Its 3,254 residents per charger make it the fourth least EV-friendly state in America.

Alaska is also improving slowly. Its ratio fell just 4.2% from 3,398 in 2025, the fourth-smallest improvement of any state. Only North Dakota, Wyoming and West Virginia posted smaller gains.

Alaska’s small population keeps its ratio from being even worse. With roughly 740,000 residents, it can post a better ratio than Louisiana despite having less than a quarter as many chargers. About two in five Alaskans live in Anchorage, where most of the state’s charging stations are concentrated.

Geography is Alaska’s biggest obstacle. It is the largest state by area, more than twice the size of Texas, and much of it is not connected to the road system. Juneau, the state capital, cannot be reached by road from the rest of the state or the lower 48. Many rural communities rely on planes, boats or snowmachines rather than highways.

Even on the road system, distances are long. The drive from Anchorage to Fairbanks along the Parks Highway is roughly 360 miles, with few towns in between. A single highway corridor with sparse services makes it hard to build out a network that EV drivers can rely on for long trips.

Cold weather is a major factor. Winter temperatures in Fairbanks and the Interior regularly fall far below zero, which reduces battery range and slows charging. Short winter days and icy roads add to the challenges of driving long distances in any vehicle.

Electricity costs also vary sharply. Communities on the Railbelt grid, which runs from the Kenai Peninsula through Anchorage to Fairbanks, have access to a connected power system. Many remote villages generate electricity with diesel, which makes power expensive and limits the appeal of electric vehicles there.

Brauer argued that cold climates and rural landscapes run counter to an EV’s best use case. Alaska has both in extreme form.

Sean Foster / Unsplash

West Virginia ranks fifth among the least EV-friendly states, with 2,942 residents per charger and 600 charging ports, according to iSeeCars. Its network is the sixth-smallest in the country.

West Virginia also posted one of the slowest improvements in the study. Its ratio fell just 3.9% from 3,061 in 2025, the third-smallest gain of any state. iSeeCars grouped West Virginia with North Dakota as states that remain among the least EV-friendly while also making some of the smallest year-over-year progress.

Brauer addressed the state’s outlook directly. He said it was hard to picture West Virginia, North Dakota or Wyoming making a major push for electric vehicles, citing cold temperatures and largely rural landscapes as poor fits for how EVs are best used and charged.

Terrain is a defining challenge. West Virginia is the only state located entirely within the Appalachian region, and its roads wind through steep hills and narrow valleys. Long climbs drain batteries faster, and mountainous terrain makes it costly to run high-capacity power lines to new charging sites.

The state’s energy economy points in a different direction from electrification. West Virginia is one of the largest coal producers in the U.S., and coal generates the vast majority of the state’s electricity. Coal mining has shaped West Virginia’s communities, politics and identity for more than a century.

West Virginia has about 1.8 million residents, and its largest cities, including Charleston, Huntington and Morgantown, are small by national standards. Many residents live in rural communities far from the main highways, where demand for public chargers is limited.

Interstates 64, 77 and 79 carry most long-distance traffic through the state, linking it with Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Tourism is growing around New River Gorge National Park, which received national park status in 2020, and around ski areas such as Snowshoe. Visitors driving EVs to those destinations face long gaps between fast chargers.

At its 2026 rate of improvement, West Virginia would need many years to reach the national average of 1,143 residents per charger.

Rich Martello / Unsplash

North Dakota is the sixth least EV-friendly state, with 2,776 residents per charger, according to iSeeCars. It is the only state that showed no improvement at all between 2025 and 2026, with its ratio unchanged at 2,776.

Because iSeeCars used the same population figure for both years at the state level, an unchanged ratio means North Dakota’s charger count was essentially flat. Every other state added enough chargers to improve, though some, such as Wyoming at 2.8%, improved only slightly.

North Dakota has just 288 charging ports, the second-smallest network in the country after Alaska. With about 800,000 residents spread across a large, mostly agricultural state, it has one of the thinnest charging networks in the U.S.

The state’s economy leans heavily on fossil fuels and agriculture. North Dakota is a major oil producer, with the Bakken shale formation in the western part of the state driving a boom that began in the late 2000s. Coal-fired power plants also generate much of the state’s electricity, and the state is a large producer of wheat, soybeans and other crops.

Climate is a serious obstacle. North Dakota winters are among the coldest in the lower 48, with long stretches below zero. Cold temperatures reduce battery range and slow charging, which makes public stations more important for EV drivers but also less comfortable to use.

Distances add to the challenge. Fargo, the state’s largest city, sits on the eastern border with Minnesota, while Bismarck, the capital, is about 200 miles west on Interstate 94. Western towns such as Williston and Dickinson are farther still, and many rural roads have few services of any kind.

Brauer named North Dakota as one of the states he found it hardest to imagine embracing EVs, pointing to its cold temperatures and rural landscape. Its neighbor Minnesota offers a contrast: it posted the third-largest improvement of any state, at 21.7%, and the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro had the largest improvement of any metro in the study.

Jon Sailer / Unsplash

South Dakota ranks seventh among the least EV-friendly states, with 2,710 residents per charger and just 345 charging ports, according to iSeeCars. Its network is the third-smallest of any state, ahead of only Alaska and North Dakota.

South Dakota has about 930,000 residents, and much of the state is open prairie and ranch land. Low population density makes it difficult for charging operators to find enough customers to support stations outside the larger towns.

The state’s population is concentrated at its edges. Sioux Falls, the largest city, sits in the southeast corner near the Minnesota and Iowa borders. Rapid City, the second-largest, sits on the western side near the Black Hills. Pierre, the capital, is one of the smallest state capitals in the country.

Interstate 90 links Sioux Falls and Rapid City, a drive of roughly 350 miles across the state. That corridor is the main route for tourists heading west to Mount Rushmore, Badlands National Park, Custer State Park and the Black Hills. It also carries traffic to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally each August. EV drivers making that trip depend on a limited number of chargers spaced along long, rural stretches.

Weather adds to the difficulty. South Dakota winters bring extreme cold and strong winds across the plains, conditions that reduce battery range and make long drives riskier in any car.

South Dakota is part of a Northern Plains and Mountain West cluster at the bottom of the charger count rankings. North Dakota has 288 chargers, Wyoming 349 and Montana 502, all among the five smallest state networks in the study. Neighboring Nebraska also ranks among the 10 least EV-friendly states.

South Dakota did not appear among the states with the biggest or smallest improvements in charger access between 2025 and 2026, which suggests modest, steady growth rather than either a push or a stall.

For travelers, that means trips across the state still require planning. The national ratio of 1,143 residents per charger is less than half of South Dakota’s, so drivers here have far fewer options than the typical American.

Corbin Mathias / Unsplash

Indiana ranks eighth among the least EV-friendly states, with 2,623 residents per charger, according to iSeeCars. It has 2,659 charging ports — the largest network of any state in the bottom 10 — but its population of roughly seven million spreads that network thin.

That makes Indiana a different case from the sparsely populated states near it in the rankings. Indiana has more chargers than Vermont or Maine, both top-10 states, yet its ratio is several times worse because so many more people share each port.

Indianapolis drives much of the problem. The Indianapolis metro area has 2,758 residents per charger, making it the second least EV-friendly metro among the 50 largest in the U.S., behind only Louisville. It also has just 1,142 chargers, the eighth-smallest total of any large metro.

Indiana’s state motto is “The Crossroads of America,” and several major interstates converge in Indianapolis, including Interstate 65, Interstate 70 and Interstate 74. Those highways carry heavy long-distance and freight traffic between Chicago, Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus and St. Louis. EV drivers passing through depend on fast chargers along those routes.

Manufacturing is central to Indiana’s economy, and the auto industry is a big part of it. Toyota $TM builds vehicles in Princeton, Subaru in Lafayette and Honda $HMC in Greensburg. Stellantis $STLA and General Motors $GM also operate major plants in the state. That industrial base has not yet translated into strong public charging access for residents.

Southeast Indiana is part of the Cincinnati metro area, which has the 10th-fewest chargers among large metros. Northwest Indiana is part of the Chicago metro, which improved 17.9% from 2025 to 2026, and neighboring Illinois was the fourth most-improved state at 19.3%. Indiana itself did not appear on either improvement list.

The contrast with Illinois shows how quickly a neighboring state can change its trajectory. For now, Indiana’s combination of a large population and a modest network leaves it well behind the national average of 1,143 residents per charger.

Derek Livingston / Unsplash

Arkansas is the ninth least EV-friendly state, with 2,572 residents per charger and 1,211 charging ports, according to iSeeCars. Its ratio is more than double the national average of 1,143.

Arkansas has about 3.1 million residents, and much of the state is rural, with farmland in the Mississippi River Delta to the east and the Ozark and Ouachita mountains to the north and west. Small towns and long distances between them make it harder to build a dense public network.

Northwest Arkansas is the state’s fastest-growing region. Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale and Fayetteville have expanded rapidly, fueled by Walmart $WMT’s headquarters in Bentonville, along with Tyson Foods in Springdale and J.B. Hunt $JBHT in Lowell. Walmart announced in 2023 that it planned to build its own branded EV fast-charging network at stores across the country, a plan from a company based in a state where public charging remains thin.

Little Rock, the capital and largest city, sits in the center of the state. Interstate 40 runs east to west through it, linking Memphis with Oklahoma City, and Interstate 30 heads southwest toward Dallas. Both corridors carry heavy truck and passenger traffic, and EV drivers crossing the state depend on chargers along them.

Tourism draws drivers to rural areas. Hot Springs National Park, the Buffalo National River and the lakes and trails of the Ozarks attract visitors from across the region. Reaching those places in an EV can require careful planning because chargers are scarce outside the main highways and cities.

Arkansas sits in a region where access is weak on several sides. Louisiana and Mississippi, to the south and east, rank as the two least EV-friendly states. Oklahoma City ranks ninth among the least EV-friendly metros, though it improved 17.6% from 2025. Kansas City, to the north, was among the 10 least-improved metros.

Arkansas did not appear among the states with the biggest or smallest improvements in charger access between 2025 and 2026.