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February 13, 2025

CT state fleet was supposed to be 50% electric by 2026. It’s nowhere close

Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror Electric vehicles parked in the Department of Administrative Service's Morgan Street Garage in Hartford on February 4, 2025. The Chevrolet Bolts pictures make up the majority of the state's fleet of 43 EVs.
By John Moritz, CT Mirror

As part of a frenetic rush of legislating that led advocates to dub 2022 a “banner year” in the fight against climate change, Connecticut lawmakers approved one particularly ambitious goal: to transition half the state’s fleet of roughly 2,400 cars and light-duty trucks to battery-electric engines in just over three years.

Now, with less than a year left before the deadline, state government is poised to fall far short of that goal.

According to the Department of Administrative Services, which oversees the state fleet, the current number of electric vehicles in the fleet is just 43. To meet the 50% target by the end of this year, the number needs to hit 1,200.

If past is prologue, that’s not going to happen.

While officials have yet to begin evaluating purchases for the fiscal year beginning July 1, the current fiscal year is projected to end with the purchase of 293 non-exempt vehicles and just a single new EV, according to DAS.

“Oh man,” said state Rep. Joe Gresko, D-Stratford, when told of the state’s progress on Monday. “I was hoping it was higher.”

Gresko, a former chairman of the Environment Committee, said goals set by lawmakers were based on the optimistic projections of the automotive industry as well investments in charging infrastructure being promoted by President Joe Biden’s administration.

“At the time, the message was sent to the country, the world, from the vehicle manufacturers, that EV was the way they were going,” Gresko said. “So we kind of hitched our wagon to that.”

The 2022 effort to transition the state fleet to electric was codified as part of Senate Bill 4, one of a series of bills passed by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Ned Lamont that year to set Connecticut on a path toward dramatically lowering emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

The law set an initial target of electrifying of half of the state fleet by Jan. 1, 2026. Beyond that, it calls for three-quarters of the fleet to be electric by 2028 and all-electric by 2030. 

Gov. Ned Lamont’s spokesman, Rob Blanchard, said that those targets, too, may need a second look.

Blanchard pointed to President Donald Trump’s recent decision to rescind federal rules intended to push the automobile market toward electric vehicles, combined with a lack of uniformity in state policies, which he said had “complicated the landscape for EV manufacturing.” 

 “As vehicles continue to age out of the state fleet, the Governor will work with DAS to replace them with EVs and balance the state’s procurement needs with the goals laid out in SB 4,” Blanchard said in an email. “Since both the federal regulatory and manufacturing environment have drastically changed since SB 4 was enacted, those benchmarks may need to be reevaluated next year as the initial goals were very ambitious.”

Each year, DAS purchases hundreds of vehicles for the state fleet that are then leased out to various agencies.

Leigh Appleby, a spokesperson for the agency, said that several factors are taken into account when purchasing state vehicles, including price, agency requirements and other statutory regulations. In addition, he said state mechanics are specifically equipped with tools and training needed to repair Ford, General Motors and Stellantis vehicles — giving those manufacturers additional weight.

The law also specifically exempted some specialized segments of the state fleet — including emergency vehicles, SUVs, buses and transport vans — from the electrification requirement, leaving a total of around 2,400 eligible light-duty cars and trucks, according to Appleby. (All told, the state feet numbers around 3,600 vehicles.)

Even with those limitations in place, the state’s procurement of EVs has been sporadic.

Appleby said that DAS purchased the first EVs, a pair of Ford Focuses, for the state fleet in 2015 — though he added it is possible that individual agencies may have purchased EVs before then. By the time S.B. 4 passed in 2022, that number had grown to 11.

Over the next three years the state’s procurement of EVs went from eight vehicles in 2022, to 24 in 2023, before falling back down to zero last year. 

The commissioners of DAS, along with the Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, raised concerns to lawmakers in 2022 that the targets were unrealistic. In joint testimony on the legislation that year, the commissioners cited various issues including the limited supply of EVs in the market, a lack of charging infrastructure statewide and the need to be “fiscally responsible” to the state agencies that lease the vehicles from DAS.

“DAS is fully committed to transitioning from [internal combustion engine] vehicles to electrified vehicles, including battery electric vehicles,” the testimony stated. “However, as we continue with the transition, there are market inhibitors and other external factors which ultimately prevent the obtainment of the goals outlined in,” the legislation.

Since then, large automakers such as GM and Toyota have rolled back some of their early promises regarding the production of EVs. In addition, the unhurried rollout of federally-funded charging stations resulted in just 55 stations being completed before Trump suspended the program earlier this month, according to the Washington Post.

In an email, Appleby attributed state government’s slower-than-anticipated adoption of EVs to limits on charging infrastructure. Beginning this month, he said, DAS plans to start accepting bids for equipment to complete four charging locations outside of the fleet garage in Hartford. An additional 30 charging sites around the state are currently being designed, he added.

“While meeting the 50% threshold by 2026 will be challenging, we continue to work to make as much progress as possible,” Appleby said. “We expect to make substantial progress in coming years towards the 2028 and 2030 milestones, as all of this is dependent on the build-out of charging infrastructure and supply of electric vehicles that meet our requirements.”

In addition to EVs, Appleby noted that the state’s fleet of eligible light-duty fleet includes 39 hybrids, 813 flex-fueled vehicles that can run on a gasoline-ethanol blend, and two that run on diesel.

Senate Republican Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, criticized the Lamont administration’s performance on electrification as “emblematic” of the wider battle that Democrats have pitched over EVs.

“I think it speaks to the problem of forcing consumers to purchase these much more expensive, much less efficient electric vehicles,” Harding said. “It goes to show you how difficult that mandate would be on the consumer public. They can’t even reach the milestones on something they can control directly, which is state vehicles.”

The only penalty for failing to meet the targets set by S.B. 4 is that DAS must submit a report to the legislature, explaining why it fell short and proposing an alternative timeline to meet the targets.

The state has found some success in meeting other requirements set forth by S.B. 4.

For example, the law required the Department of Transportation to stop purchasing diesel transit buses after Jan. 1, 2024. A DOT spokesman said this week that the agency has abided by that requirement.

It also expanded eligibility and increased funding for incentives that aid in the purchase of EVs, which was followed by a dramatic increase in the number of rebates delivered through the program.

Another component of the legislation directed Connecticut to adopt California-led emission standards on large trucks. However, those regulations were pulled in 2023 after members of the legislature, including some Democrats, voiced opposition to the plan.

Earlier this month, Lamont also announced that he would not resume a fight to join California and several other states in a timeline to phase out the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. That decision, in effect, left it up to the federal Environmental Protection Agency to set the rules for how many EVs automakers must offer for sale in Connecticut and most other states.

On his first day on office, Trump made clear his administration will set no such mandates.

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