Electrify America Pumping $200 Million More Into California

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Another $200 million is going from Electrify America’s bank account into California in the next 30 months to expand EV charging infrastructure and EV education in the state.

“This is the next exciting phase of our mission to increase EV infrastructure and awareness in California as the state works towards its commitment to help make 100 percent of new passenger vehicles zero-emission by 2035,” said Giovanni Palazzo, president and chief executive officer of Electrify America. “This added investment will provide equitable access to expanded EV infrastructure, technology and services for communities across California, further supporting an electric mobility revolution across all regions of the state.”

Improving Equity, Cutting Heavy-Duty & Medium-Duty Pollution

This is part of a ten-year $800 million investment in the state — it’s the 3rd of 4 phases. That includes $25 million for a “Green City” initiative in the Long Beach-Wilmington community, which will focus on infrastructure for electric buses and electric trucks. “Building on Electrify America’s first successful Green City program in Sacramento, the company will work with Long Beach and Los Angeles city officials and fleet operators to implement projects focused on charging transit and heavy-duty electric vehicles, showcasing ultra-fast charging technology, energy storage and renewables and energy management for these two emerging use cases,” the company writes. “Efforts will focus on tackling medium and heavy-duty emissions in a predominantly disadvantaged and low-income community, which is classified as an extreme non-attainment area under the Clean Air Act (sixty-four percent of Long Beach/Wilmington community is classified as low-income and disadvantaged by the California Air Resources Board.)”

“Long Beach is proud to do our part in moving our country’s transportation economy in a more sustainable, and environmentally focused direction,” said Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia. “It’s a great honor to be selected as an Electrify America Green City. This investment will go a long way in supporting our efforts to improve air quality in our highly impacted communities, and to support further upgrades to our fleets with more all-electric vehicles.”

“The clean transportation revolution is not a distant dream for a far-off future — it’s a reality happening on our streets and at our ports right now,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “Our communities on the front lines of skyrocketing temperatures and rising emissions are our top priority when it comes to climate action, and this funding will bring cleaner air to these neighborhoods and speed up our transition to zero-emissions technology.”

3-Pronged Investment

The company is not very specific about this next part, but it says that it is using what it has learned from $400 million of investments over 5 years to guide this $200 million. That includes splitting up the funding across 3 main categories:

• Infrastructure (the main focus);
• Public Education, Awareness, Access & Marketing;
• Green Cities.

Additionally, 35% of the cash investment is supposed to go into low-income and disadvantaged communities, per California Air Resources Board (CARB) guidelines.

Geographic Expansion

Popular retail locations are a key focus area for the charging station investments. Additionally, there will be a focus on multi-unit dwellings (MUDs). Geographically, we are talking about:

• New metro area investments:
  • Bakersfield
  • Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura
  • Santa Maria-Santa Barbara
  • Stockton
  • Visalia
• Expansion of existing metro area investments:
  • Fresno
  • Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim
  • Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario
  • San Diego-Carlsbad
  • San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward
  • San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara

Additional areas of focus for the investments are as follows:

• Highways & Regional Routes: The new investment will expand highway network DC Fast Charging stations, featuring charging power up to 350 kilowatts for capable vehicles, adding density along major routes and investing in regionally significant routes to new destinations including Joshua Tree National Park.
• Transit and Medium-Duty/Heavy-Duty Fleet Charging: Both the transit and medium/heavy-duty sectors are poised for significant growth over the coming decade. Electrify America is investing in infrastructure to support these emerging, but transformational, technologies.
• Hardware Development and Capacity Building: Electrify America plans to invest in new tools and techniques, such as site-level energy management and energy modeling, to drive down both capital and operating costs, and ensure a fast, reliable, and customer-centric experience at all of our stations.
• Rural Investments: As part of the plan, the company will build off its more than $81 million investment to date in rural parts of the state, including the Central Valley, where Electrify America has built more stations to date than any other charging provider.
• Renewable Generation: Consistent with California’s broader air quality goals, Electrify America will invest in renewable generation for select stations as site-level energy management tools to help to reduce station operating costs and reduce the carbon consumption for EV recharging.
• Brand Neutral Education and Awareness: Electrify America plans to drive increased ZEV education and awareness through educational marketing, ride and drives and other experiential marketing, bringing messaging directly to consumers through social media and other marketing channels.
• Sponsoring and Supporting ZEV Education and Training Efforts of Others: Electrify America will continue investing to collaborate with local organizations working specifically within California’s low-income and disadvantaged communities to increase ZEV adoption, building on the more than $6 million of support for local organizations to date. Electrify America will also continue to sponsor the effective brand-neutral education, awareness, and workforce training efforts of other organizations, continuing our past support for the great work of organizations such as Veloz, EV Noire, Plug In America and the LA Cleantech Incubator.

rEVolution Rising

The company notes that 90% of Californians currently live within 15 miles of an Electrify America ultrafast charger, and 96% live within 25 miles of one. That’s not to say it would be smart to drive 15 –25 miles to charge your vehicle — it’s just a fun way of explaining the spread and growth of the ultrafast charging network.

The company adds that it has been a very inclusive process aimed at helping California society as broadly as possible. “This California ZEV Investment Plan benefited from collaboration with the California Air Resources Board and Staff and a comprehensive national outreach period, during which Electrify America evaluated more than 14 California communities and more than 160 submissions offering input on potential ZEV initiatives. The company held virtual community meetings across California focused on local government and community-based organizations, and engaged with California’s leading academics to ensure an effective, equitable and efficient plan to significantly increase broad electric vehicle adoption in the state.

“Electrify America’s 2020 annual reports to the California Air Resources Board and the Environmental Protection Agency can be viewed at https://media.electrifyamerica.com/en-us/releases/138.

“The publicly available version of the California ZEV investment plan can be viewed here.”