Bay Area Plans Major Expansion Of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

It wasn’t a huge year for electric-vehicle sales in the United States, but 2014 did bring some shifts in where EVs made their presence felt most, with Atlanta and Denver climbing onto a new “Top 10 EV-Friendly Metropolitan Areas” list from the big charging network company ChargePoint.

According to sales tracker InsideEVs.com, Americans bought 119,710 EVs in 2014. That was up from 2013’s total of 97,507, but the 23 percent increase was dramatically off from the sizzling 85 percent gain posted during 2013.

Still, there was enough activity in the EV selling-and-charging scene to shake up ChargePoint’s population-adjusted list – a list “based on the number of EVs on the road and the number of charging stations available on the ChargePoint network as of December 31, 2014” – in surprising ways.

The San Francisco Bay Area has long been ground zero for electric vehicle sales, and it was ChargePoint’s champion, just as it was in October 2013 when the previous list was published. The Bay Area’s south state rival LA climbed from sixth to the second spot on the new list.

Washington, D.C., and Boston fell out of the top 10, making room for Atlanta and Denver – both cities in states, as it happens, that have generous incentives for electric vehicles.

top EV charging cities

In fact, an analysis last year by the International Council on Clean Transportation [PDF] found that Colorado has the most lucrative set of incentives for battery electric vehicles, followed by, you guessed it, Georgia.

According to EV advocacy group Plug In America, Colorado provides an income tax credit totaling 75 percent of the “cost premium” for a BEV. What’s that mean? Well, adding in indirect benefits, the ICCT report said Colorado policy yields a total consumer benefit of nearly $6,000 on average. Georgia’s big inducement is a 20 percent tax credit against the purchase price of a BEV, up to $5,000, and ITCC said the total consumer benefit from state policy in the Peach State averages around $5,500.

These incentives are on top of a federal tax credit that ranges from $2,500 to $7,500, depending on battery size.

While electric vehicles remain a tiny fraction of U.S. vehicles, pretty much all the automakers are in the game, and the hope is that expanding charging networks will help encourage consumers to take the electric plunge. Of course, in a classic chicken-and-egg scenario, putting in charging stations when there are few EV vehicles can be a daunting proposition.

But one interesting change happening in the charging market is the growing interest on the part of utilities, who see stations as an opportunity to bump up flat sales while also gaining grid benefits. In a recent Greentech Media piece, San Diego Gas & Electric extolled the virtues of a “fourth-generation EV Charging system, which incorporates a solar canopy, energy storage and dynamic pricing to allow for better grid management.”

But utility moves into charging worry ChargePoint. The company says it’s open to utilities playing in the space, but is pushing for close regulation of big moves. Last month, ChargePoint raised objections to Pacific Gas & Electric’s proposal to build 25,000 public chargers at ratepayer expense – a huge increase over the current 6,000 stations in the state. “Allowing one monopoly utility to define the EV charging hardware, network, pricing, features and everything in between, will reduce competition and innovation,” ChargePoint CEO Pasquale Romano said in a statement.

ChargePoint is the acknowledged leader in US charging infrastructure, claiming 20,779 public “places to charge” in North America as of March 2. A directory maintained by the Department of Energy put the total number of U.S. public “charging outlets” at 23,091.