Governor J.B. Pritzker and members from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources were in East St. Louis on Friday to announce a donation of multiple electric vehicle chargers by EVBox. One of those chargers is coming to a West Central Illinois state park.
Visitors to certain parks throughout the state will now be able to charge their electric vehicles while camping overnight or stopping for an afternoon thanks to Libertyville-based EVBox’s donation of 40 Level 2 chargers placed at Illinois state parks, historic sites, museums, beaches, and other widely used public areas.
Three of the chargers have been installed in state parks that are within 60 miles driving distance of St. Louis. A fourth has been installed at Jim Edgar Panther Creek State Fish and Wildlife Area in Cass County.
IDNR Director Natalie Phelps Finnie says the addition of EV chargers at state parks reinforces the goal of reducing Illinois’ carbon emission to zero by 2050: “Our hope is that visitors and tourists will stop at an Illinois state park, have a picnic or hike a trail while their car charges for a couple of hours before they head to their next destination. And hopefully their experience is delightful enough that they’ll tell their friends about it, and so on and on they too will visit our beautiful parks.”
These are the first EV chargers made available for public use by the State of Illinois. The state will not charge a fee for drivers to use the chargers. Additional EVBox chargers will be installed at IDNR sites around the state in the coming months.
Illinois joins other states, including Michigan, Minnesota, and Tennessee in offering EV chargers at state parks.