Verona resident Libby Belden and her husband chose to buy an electric vehicle almost a year ago. But as Green Bay Packers season ticket holders, they’ve run into hurdles trying to attend games at Lambeau Field.
Belden has tickets to two regular season games each season and a preseason game. Since buying an electric SUV, she has had to stop in Appleton for a charging station compatible with her vehicle before heading home to the Madison area.
While the charger isn’t one that requires the vehicle to be plugged in overnight, it still takes about an hour of waiting because it’s not a high-speed charger.
“We actually decided, after having done that for a few games, to skip a game we were planning to go to with a bunch of family this year, which was really heartbreaking,” Belden said. “It was a night game. We knew we were going to have to drive home, it was already going to be really late, and then it was probably going to be about a four-hour drive home with having to sit at that charger for an hour.”
Belden is not the only EV owner who has to meticulously plan trips throughout Wisconsin. That’s because the Badger State has fewer publicly accessible charging stations than most of its neighbors, according to data provided by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, or DOT.
Citing the Alternative Fuels Data Center Station Locator and state EV infrastructure plans, a DOT spokesperson said Wisconsin has 578 publicly accessible stations with 1,373 total ports, with 90 of those stations having high-speed chargers. Among surrounding states, only Iowa had fewer stations at 363 with 820 total ports.