North Carolina has reached its goals set for electric vehicle registrations, the governor’s office said. In fact, it reached those goals two years early.
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A news release shared Thursday said Gov. Roy Cooper signed an executive order back in 2018 called Executive Order 80. It asked state agencies to set goals to decrease emissions across the economy.
One of those goals was to have 80,000 zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2025. The governor’s office said North Carolina surpassed that goal in November of last year.
Cooper’s executive order also called for a plan that would make sure the state, its policy, the infrastructure and consumers were ready for that increase in electric cars.
“The key is making EVs more affordable with the assurance that charging stations are available most places, and that’s why we are modernizing state policies and working to build out charging infrastructure in every community all across North Carolina,” Gov. Cooper said in a statement.
The number of accessible public charging ports has increased from 1,400 in 2019 to just under 4,000 today, officials said.
A new executive order that Cooper signed in 2022 set a goal of 1.25 million zero-emission vehicles by 2030.
The North Carolina departments of Environmental Quality and Transportation have funded charging ports in several cities across the state. Federal grants and tax incentives from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act will also aid them in reaching the 2030 goal.
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