COLORADO SPRING — Governor Polis in partnership with the Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) department unveiled the first electric vehicle (EV) charging station at Colorado state parks Friday.

Launching at Cheyenne Mountain State Park, this EV charging station is one of at least 84 planned through the Recharge Where You Recharge program championed by Environment Colorado.

The electric vehicle company Rivian will install a minimum of two charging stations at each of 42 CPW locations and will pay for their installation and maintenance for up to 25 years.

Finally, Coloradans won’t have to choose between having an electric vehicle and visiting the parks they love… We need to have charging infrastructure in the same places we escape to for relief. “Environment Colorado is excited that every state park will install electric vehicle chargers and make it easy for visitors to recharge their vehicles while they recharge their souls in nature.

Rex Wilmouth, senior program director for Environment Colorado

Although Colorado is known for its great outdoors, the natural state is threatened by air pollution and climate change-fueled heat and drought.

It’s about saving you money on your cars, it’s also about cleaner air for our states. the more people are making the decision every day to switch over — the cleaner air we have in our state.we love to be able to see pike’s peak. We all love to breathe clean air so it’s all part of the bigger picture.

Governor Jared Polis

Electric cars are growing in popularity, however, consumers are still concerned about finding a place to charge.

Colorado has made a commitment to expanding the use of electric vehicles, with a goal of nearly 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030.

We are certainly not limiting this to state parks, we are also doing our scenic byways, adding electric vehicle infrastructure across the state but this partnership we wanted to make sure the state parks done early to everyone who visits.

Governor Jared Polis