During the recent Good Trouble Lives On demonstration in Knoxville, a friend mentioned that his car was near its last legs. Following my regular practice, I suggested he go electric. A sad expression crossed his face, and he said he was afraid electric cars were finished now with Trump in power. I replied with the following account of the rapid deployment of our state’s fast charging infrastructure by Mark Finlay from TDEC’s Office of Energy Programs. Mark gave the presentation at the Drive Electric Tennessee Momentum Summit on June 14th.
He explained how TDEC, TVA and local LPCs have been installing, owning and operating fast charging stations every 50 miles across our primary and secondary corridors. He illustrated the dramatic growth in our state’s fast charging infrastructure by showing two maps: one from 2020 and the other from 2025.
Back in 2020, it would have been difficult to drive an EV across the state, unless maybe it was a Tesla and could use the Supercharger network, not shown on these maps.
But in 2025, the picture is entirely different. Now with fast chargers on our primary corridors at least every 50 miles, even an older Nissan Leaf could make it from Memphis to Johnson City. And except for Rte 64 along the bottom of the state and Rte 52 along the top, many of our secondary corridors also have Fast Charge TN stations. In five years, this program has made it so that we EV drivers can pretty much go anywhere we want.
And people are using them. In 2024, there were over 14,996 charging sessions, pushing EVs around the state for roughly 1,614,746 miles of travel. As of the end of May, there are 59 charging sites operational with 161 total fast charger plugs. In May alone there were 6,402 charging sessions. And that’s just on the TN Fast Charge stations. Cars are also using the existing NEVI stations and the Tesla Superchargers. Finally, Mark presented the February 2025 Notice of Intent to release a second round of funding to address the remaining infrastructure “gaps” in the TN Fast Charge network. With over 53,000 EVs registered in the state, the numbers will only go up. TDEC has $2.3 million plus in funding to support the remaining locations. We’ll be building the rest of Tennessee’s fast charging network with our state’s money no matter what Trump does.
My friend’s mood improved considerably when he heard this. Who knows what he’ll do, but we both happily joined the nearby crowd in hollering out “This is what democracy looks like!”
Kent Minault
Chapter Transportation Chair