What Will It Take to Improve EV Infrastructure in California?

View the full episode transcript.

You may have heard some horror stories about electric vehicle charging — long lines, lengthy waits, broken units. Sometimes even finding a charging station is a challenge. When your car’s low on charge but no charger is available, it’s stressful. Maybe you’re halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles and you’re stuck waiting.

That’s one of the big things stopping Bay Curious listener Kelly Lindberg from buying an electric car right now.

“I’m hoping that by 2030, between having some years to save up and the technology getting better and cheaper, maybe that’s around the time [it] could work for our family,” she said.

In the meantime, Lindberg has an idea to help alleviate the charging congestion. She’s noticed a lot of empty former gas station sites around her neighborhood in Oakland and wondered, “Would it be a good idea to turn some of these spaces into electric car charging stations?”

In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom set a goal for the state to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by the year 2035. So even if you’ve got a gas-powered car, and this isn’t a problem you’re facing currently, it may be soon.

How to set up a charging station

To find out what goes into installing a new charging station, I met up with Jonah Eidus, who oversees real estate development for electric car charging company EVgo. The company has hundreds of charging stalls across the Bay Area and thousands across the country.

“In general, when we’re installing new chargers, we’re looking to be in high-traffic areas where the chargers will be used for about 15 to 45 minutes,” Eidus said. “And that means we also want to have amenities nearby so people have something to do during those 15 to 45 minutes.”

Since charging your car takes longer than pumping gas, stations are designed with the surroundings in mind. They aim to install stations in the parking lot of a Safeway, for example, or close to a coffee shop.

There are many other considerations too, Eidus said, including the availability of parking stalls. Is there enough space for many cars to park? The goal, after all, is to build as many charging stalls per site as possible.

Does the site integrate well into the electrical grid? The product they are ultimately selling is electricity, so they have to make sure that a site has the electricity to sell at an affordable price.

Additionally, is the charging station set up near those who need it most, including those who live in apartment complexes and don’t have the option to charge from their own garage? There are also city zoning regulations and safety considerations to take into account.

That’s not even half of what goes into establishing a charging site. In fact, EVgo has a mapping algorithm that integrates 27 different factors.

“Suffice to say, it is a fairly sophisticated process that we go through,” Eidus said. “When a site goes live, a lot of thought and a lot of data has gone into the decision to build that site.”

Improving reliability and keeping up with demand

California — particularly the Bay Area — leads the nation in electric vehicle adoption. To meet that growing demand, California has to build 1 million new chargers by the end of 2030, according to the state’s own projections (PDF). Some experts say that’s not feasible.

“I would say we’re tight on the number of chargers,” said Carleen Cullen, co-founder of the environmental nonprofit Cool the Earth and a former transportation advisor to Gov. Newsom.

Not only are they in short supply, the ones we do have are not always reliable, Cullen said. She helped conduct a study a few years ago to test the reliability of charging stations in the Bay Area and found that a quarter of them weren’t functional, meaning the screens were broken, the payment system didn’t work or the equipment was flawed.

Cullen said while the infrastructure has improved a lot since then, there’s still not enough of it — despite the fact that California is outpacing other states in both EV adoption and infrastructure. And in order to reach Newsom’s goal, we need consumers, charging companies, EV manufacturers, local governments and utility companies to work together, Cullen said.

“We need to move the adoption of EVs forward, we need to move the number of charging ports available as well, and we need to move the grid capacity as well,” she said.

A big hold-up right now, according to Cullen, lies with PG&E.

“There’s a huge lag time between when the charging station vendor requests the power and when PG&E actually delivers it,” she said.

For a charging station to operate, it needs to be hooked up to the power grid. That’s where PG&E comes in. And they won’t just let you set up a charging station anywhere. They have to be able to deliver enough power to that site.

Is the section of the grid you’re trying to connect to also connected to a big manufacturing plant, for example? Are your neighbors using a lot of electricity during certain times of the day? Then the available power is likely spoken for. Does that portion of the grid rely heavily on solar power? Then the chargers may not work when the sun goes down.

“We have over 600,000 EVs in our service territory. And we’ve seen EV adoption grow at about 26% of the compound annual growth rate over the last few years. That’s a significant amount of load that we’re seeing on the system,” said David Almeida, a manager within PG&E’s clean energy transportation group.

Almeida said the utility company underestimated electricity demand, and as a result, it doesn’t have the infrastructure to support the rapidly growing EV industry right now.

But they’re working on it.

“We are building out a forecast that doesn’t look at necessarily just historical load, but it looks at where we anticipate load growth,” he said.

The goal is to make electric car charging stations faster to build and more reliable once they’re up and running.

Despite all the work needed to bolster this transportation system overhaul, Almeida said it’s ultimately worth it.

Right now, California’s transportation system is by far the largest contributor to our greenhouse gas emissions. Transitioning away from gas-powered cars is critical to mitigating the impacts of climate change, and EVs are already helping to do that.

A recent study by scientists at UC Berkeley showed EV adoption in the Bay Area has already reduced our carbon emissions by almost 2%.

“I’ve been a believer from the very beginning,” Almeida said. “And it’s just very cool to see a lot of this prove out.”

Episode Transcript

This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.

Olivia Allen-Price: I’m Olivia Allen-Price. This is Bay curious. And today we’re going on a little road trip.

Sounds of a car driving

Olivia Allen-Price: Here we go. So we are driving around San Francisco in my Volkswagen E-golf, and it’s an electric vehicle. And we’re looking for a place to charge. And I’m here with Dana Cronin.

Dana Cronin: And how do you normally find a place to charge in the city?

Olivia Allen-Price: It’s pretty rare that I have to find a place to charge because I mostly charge at home. But when I do have to find a place, I pull up an app on my phone and …

Dana Cronin: Safely, of course, pulled over by the side of the road.

Olivia Allen-Price: Exactly. Let’s actually pull over real quick up here.

(sound of car decelerating)

Olivia Allen-Price: Okay, so I pull up this app on my phone and what it does is it loads all sorts of different chargers that are nearby that are owned by all sorts of different companies. The numbers mean how many charging stations are in each of these locations. Of the one that’s nearby, it looks like one is out of service; four are currently being used … but looks like one is available.

Dana Cronin: 0.2 miles away. That’s not too bad.

Olivia Allen-Price: Yeah, let’s give it a shot. Okay, so the charger is somewhere in this enormous parking lot.

Dana Cronin: You know that there’s a spot open right now because of your app, right? Or is it possible that it’s there but someone’s using it?

Olivia Allen-Price: I would … I would say I don’t feel 100% confident based on the app.

Dana Cronin: There’s a line of Teslas.

Olivia Allen-Price: So, let’s go and see if the non-Tesla chargers are near the Tesla ones, too. Oh, and here we are to the right. … This is also Tesla charging. Just kidding.

Olivia Allen-Price: We drove around the parking lot for a while but then finally found the chargers.

Dana Cronin: So, it’s full. (laughs)

Olivia Allen-Price: There was a little dispute with another customer over who was there first. It was totally us, but we let it go. Eventually, another stall opened up.

Olivia Allen-Price: Charging port here, plug it in and it looks like this one gives me the option to pay by the EVgo app, or I can pay by credit card, which is actually great. It does not seem … Oh, there we go, there we go. Okay, let’s remove the card … (pause) authorization declined. I will try a different card payment. (pause) Authorized!

Dana Cronin: Step one: Complete! (laughing)

Olivia Allen-Price: Step 7,962: pay for the charging. (laughing)

Dana Cronin: Generally, I would say this was not super easy, and yet it’s pretty much totally full.

Olivia Allen-Price: Yeah, I mean, it’s not easy. I feel really lucky most of the time. I charge at home because it is, you know, it’s a pain and it’s a little stressful, especially if you are really low on charge. Like I’ve been in situations where I’m really sweating it out because I go to one charging station and like the screen is broken or the Wi-Fi isn’t working, or sometimes they’ll have these in paid parking garages and they don’t tell you that. And it’s like $30 just to get in the garage.

Dana Cronin: Like it feels like you do have to have an at-home charger right now for this to be convenient and conducive to your lifestyle. Like, I can’t imagine, like fully relying on this, you know. I, for one, will probably just stick with my Subaru for now. My gas-powered Subaru, for now.

Olivia Allen-Price: On today’s episode of Bay Curious, we dive into the world of electric vehicles. I love driving mine, but as you saw, it’s not perfect. California currently dominates the EV market, and the state has a lofty goal of banning the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. So if you’re not driving an EV yet, you may be soon. Is your community set up for it? Is the Bay area’s current infrastructure matching up with the demand? We’ll get into all that just after a quick break.

SPONSOR

Olivia Allen-Price: For this episode, I’m tossing to my co-pilot … reporter Dana Cronin … to explain what’s going on with the Bay Area’s EV infrastructure.

Dana Cronin: Like a lot of Bay Area residents … maybe you included … I want my next car to be electric. But if my 2012 Subaru Outback died tomorrow … I’m not sure I’d be ready to make the switch. Especially after that drive with Olivia.

Bay Curious listener Kelly Lindberg … feels the same way.

Kelly Lindberg: You hear those stories in the news sometimes about, like, the drive between, like, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. You know, people going in their Teslas and having a super long line at the charging station.

Dana Cronin: Kelly works for a climate startup accelerator, and she’s thought, “There’s gotta be a solution to this problem.”

One came to her… as she was driving through her neighborhood in Oakland. She’s noticed a lot of abandoned gas stations around.

Kelly Lindberg: Would it be a good idea to maybe turn some of these spaces into electric car charging stations?

Dana Cronin: I mean … sounds like a good idea to me. I, too, live in Oakland and have noticed quite a few empty lots. Whether they’re former gas stations, convenience stores, or storefronts … it seems like there’s plenty of empty space for charging stations to set up shop.

But, to do that, you first need a charging company. So, I met with one.

(sounds of loud road noise)

Dana Cronin: Jonah Eidus is wearing a navy-logoed polo and is parked at an EVgo charging station. He oversees EVgo’s real estate department.

EVgo has hundreds of charging stalls in the Bay Area … the one we’re meeting at is in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood … right off of 580 on Fruitvale Avenue. It’s set up at a Shell gas station.

Jonah Eidus: So this site is an eight-stall, fast-charging site, capable of delivering up to 350 kW to each car. And it is definitely one of the more popular stations in Oakland.

Dana Cronin: That’s enough to charge most modern EVs in less than 20 minutes. And it is popular! Over the course of our interview … all eight stalls were full almost the whole time.

Without wasting any time, I posed Kelly’s question. Could empty lots and gas stations near her house get setups like this one?

Jonah Eidus: In general, when we’re installing new chargers, we’re looking to be in high-traffic areas where the chargers will be used for about 15 to 45 minutes. And that means we also want to have amenities nearby so people have something to do during those 15 to 45 minutes.

Dana Cronin: It takes longer to charge your car’s battery than it does to pump gas. So this charging station, for example, is right next to a Peet’s Coffee and a Farmer Joe’s grocery store. A perfect place to run some errands while you wait.

As we’re talking, Dave Robinson drives up in his brand new 2023 KIA EV6, backs into a stall, and plugs in.

Dana Cronin: What do you plan to do while you wait?

Dave Robinson: Just hang out. You know, if it’s going to be a while, there’s coffee shops and everything else around. So it’s easy.

Dana Cronin: Convenience! It’s a big factor in selecting a charging site, Jonah says. But there are lots of other factors, too.

Jonah Eidus: Availability of parking stalls, grid interconnection, forecasted charging demand, electricity rates and importantly, multifamily housing density nearby the charging station.

Dana Cronin: OK … let’s take those one at a time.

Jonah Eidus: Availability of parking stalls …

Dana Cronin: Meaning … is there enough space for cars to park here? The goal is to build as many charging stalls as possible per site.

Jonah Eidus: … grid interconnection …

Dana Cronin: This one is super important. Because after all, the product they are ultimately selling … is electricity. And they need to make sure that a specific site HAS the electricity to sell

Jonah Eidus: … forecasted charging demand … electricity rates …

Dana Cronin: How many customers do they expect, and how much will those customers have to pay to charge? The cost of electricity can literally vary block to block.

Dana Cronin: And … EVGo is a for-profit company after all … so it needs to pencil out.

Jonah Eidus: … and importantly, multifamily housing density nearby the charging station.

Dana Cronin: Is the charging station set up near those who need it the most? Those who live in apartment complexes, for example, don’t have the option to charge from their own garage.

That’s not even half the considerations that go into establishing a charging site. There’s also things like a city’s zoning regulations … and safety considerations.

In fact, EVgo has a mapping algorithm that integrates 27 different factors.

Jonah Eidus: Suffice to say, it is a fairly sophisticated process that we go through. And when a site goes live, a lot of thought and a lot of data has gone into the decision to build that site.

Dana Cronin: Jonah couldn’t say exactly whether the specific abandoned gas stations in Kelly’s neighborhood could be converted to charging sites … I guess that’s a question for the algorithm.

(music)

 So that’s how companies choose specific charging sites … and avoid others.

But at the heart of Kelly’s question … is a bigger question. Clearly, we need MORE charging stations … whether at abandoned gas stations … or near coffee shops and grocery stores. So … why hasn’t the electric vehicle charging infrastructure kept up with demand?

To answer that question, I met up with Carleen Cullen. She’s the co-founder of the environmental nonprofit Cool the Earth and a former transportation advisor to Governor Newsom.

(sounds of a busy parking lot)

Dana Cronin: We meet up at another charging station … this one in the parking lot of a Safeway in Mill Valley. We’re chatting next to Carleen’s Chevy Bolt … which is parked in a stall, ready to charge … when, all of a sudden, another EV driver pulls up behind us and asks how long we plan to be.

Dana Cronin: I guess that’s part of the challenge is that there’s so few chargers that we have someone waiting on us here waiting for a charge, somewhat impatiently. So we’re going to go ahead and get charging.

Carleen Cullen: Let’s get started.

Dana Cronin: Carleen swipes her credit card, pulls the charger around to her car, plugs in, and it starts charging.

(sound of the high-pitched hum from the charger)

Carleen Cullen: So when you hear that great hum, you know that that’s happening.

Dana Cronin: Carleen is somewhat of an electric vehicle evangelist … an E-V-vangelist … if you will. Half the time we spent together I felt like I was in an EV infomercial. But she’s not naive. She knows the current infrastructure is flawed. In fact, she did a study a few years ago where she tested the reliability of charging stations in the Bay Area.

Carleen Cullen: And we found that about a quarter of the stations in the Bay area weren’t functional.

Dana Cronin: Meaning the screens were broken or the payment system didn’t work or the equipment was flawed. She says the infrastructure has improved a lot since then, but there’s still not enough of it.

Carleen Cullen: I would say we’re tight on the number of chargers. Yeah, we’re definitely tight.

Dana Cronin: And that’s in part because … what we’re talking about here … is a MAJOR overhaul of an entire transportation system. In 2020, Governor Newsom set a goal to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles in California by the year 2035. And California is outpacing other states in both EV adoption and infrastructure by a long shot. We have more chargers than any other state. But in order to reach that lofty goal … Carleen says we need three things:

Carleen Cullen: We need to move the adoption of EVs forward. We need to move the number of charging ports available as well, and we need to move the grid capacity as well.

Dana Cronin: These things all have to happen simultaneously. Consumers, charging companies, EV manufacturers, utility companies, local governments … everyone has to work in concert for this to work. Carleen says, right now, the utility companies aren’t necessarily pulling their weight.

Carleen Cullen: There’s a huge lag time between when the station, the charging station vendor requests the power and when PG&E actually delivers it.

Dana Cronin: For a charging station to operate, it needs to be hooked up to our power grid. That’s where PG&E comes in. And they won’t just let you set up a charging station ANYWHERE. They have to be able to deliver enough power to that site.

Is the section of the grid you’re trying to connect to also connected to a big manufacturing plant … for example? Are your neighbors using a lot of electricity during certain times of the day? Then the available power is likely spoken for. Does that portion of the grid rely heavily on solar power? Then the chargers may not work when the sun goes down.

These are critical considerations, says David Almeida … a manager within PG&E’s clean energy transportation group. And he says Carleen’s critique is fair. He says, yes, the utility is definitely still playing catch-up.

David Almeida: So we have over 600,000 EVs in our service territory. And we’ve seen EV adoption grow at about 26% of the compound annual growth rate over the last few years. That’s a significant amount of load that we’re seeing on the system.

Dana Cronin: He also says … they didn’t plan for that increased demand for electricity. In fact, they UNDERestimated it … and, as a result, they don’t have the infrastructure to support it right now.

But, he says, they’re working on it.

David Almeida: We are building out a forecast that doesn’t look at necessarily just historical load, but it looks at where we anticipate load growth.

Dana Cronin: He says their goal is to make electric car charging stations faster to build and more reliable once they’re up and running.

Music

Dana Cronin: This all sounds like a lot of work. Overhauling our entire state’s transportation system … building thousands and thousands of new charging stations … getting utility companies on board … I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

But it’s important to remember WHY we’re doing this. Right now, California’s transportation system is BY FAR the largest contributor to our greenhouse gas emissions. Transitioning away from gas-powered cars is critical to mitigating the impacts of climate change.

And Evs are already helping to do that.

A recent study by scientists at UC Berkeley showed EV adoption in the Bay Area has already reduced our carbon emissions by almost 2 percent.

Now, obviously, to keep up that progress … the system has to work for EVERYONE. And I’m not sure we’re there yet.

Music sneaks in

Dana Cronin: What do you think, Olivia? Any more sympathy for the cause?

Olivia Allen-Price: You know, yeah. I didn’t realize there were so many hurdles to getting new charging stations online. I feel really lucky that I am able to charge my car at home and so this isn’t an issue I have to deal with very often. But for folks who can’t charge overnight where they live — that’s a huge hurdle. And I’m sure it’s a non-starter for some people! It’s got to get better.

Dana Cronin: Yeah … 2035 is not THAT far away … and if we’re gonna reach that goal, we’re going to need more charging stations.

I’m kind of hoping my Subaru lasts just a couple more years …

Olivia Allen-Price: Dana Cronin — thank you!

Dana Cronin: Thank you.

Music

Olivia Allen-Price: That was KQED’s Dana Cronin.

This story would not have been possible without our question-asker, Kelly Lindberg. That’s because you, our dear audience, decide what we cover by submitting questions — and then voting on which ones we should answer.

We have a new voting round-up at BayCurious.org with three enticing questions.

Voice 1: Why did Oakland International Airport become San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport, giving us two very confusingly similar-sounding airports?

Voice 2: I remember going to the Berkeley dump, now Cesar Chavez Park, with my dad in the 1970s. It was pretty wild. It’d be really interesting to learn more about its evolution from dump to park.

Voice 3: I was walking my dog on Thornton Beach on the Daly City/SF border and found a really long tunnel coming out of the hillside around some abandoned piers. Any idea what it is?

Olivia Allen-Price: Voting is so easy! Just grab your phone, pull up BayCurious.org, scroll to our voting round and click on your favorite question! No registering or emails or phone numbers or anything complicated. We try to make it easy on you.

Bay Curious is made by Ana De Almeida Amaral, Amanda Font, Olivia Allen-Price, Christopher Beale. Special thanks to Laura Klivans, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.

Olivia Allen-Price: I’m Olivia Allen-Price.