The real-world barriers to electric vehicle infrastructure

The federal government is providing billions of dollars to build out electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure, with a focus on investing in underserved communities. States — California in particular — have budgeted billions more. The money is in the system, so dramatic change is on the way, right?

Not so fast. The challenges are immense and underestimated.

California alone is home to 482 cities and 58 counties, each with different political structures, permitting requirements, staffing shortages and expertise gaps — not to mention different political and economic priorities and agendas. 

My center at UC Berkeley, the Center for Law, Energy & Environment, is working with a small number of cities and communities to identify, understand and overcome the barriers to implementing EV infrastructure in underserved communities and share what we learn with other cities, state and federal governments, local communities and organizations working on these issues.

When I worked as an adviser to former California Gov Jerry Brown (D), as difficult as it was to fund initiatives, as difficult as it was to pass legislation, the biggest challenge was almost always the actual implementation of the program. With the Transformative Climate Communities program, which “empowers the communities most impacted by pollution to choose their own goals, strategies, and projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution,” for example, it took months, sometimes even years, to work through the myriad of community and governmental challenges and implement the projects on the ground.

Here’s a small taste of some of the issues just for EV infrastructure. Residents of underserved communities often live in multi-family buildings rather than single-family homes. For buildings with parking lots, should chargers be added to parking spaces? How many? What are the access rules? Who can park in those spaces? What is the fee structure? How is the electricity provided? What are the rates? If buildings lack dedicated parking and chargers are located at the curb for curbside parking, what are the permitting rules? What are the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements? Who is responsible for the upkeep of the chargers? How do cities limit vandalism? What is the mix of fast chargers and slow?

Most importantly, how do cities ensure that communities have a say and benefit from the changes that new infrastructure will bring? Should chargers be located near homes, parks, commercial strips? What are times of operation? Should the focus be on car ownership? What about other transportation options, like shared use, or vanpools, or e-bikes, or scooters?

Almost certainly, there are solutions to all these issues.

One initial step is to work with communities to build maps that identify the locations of parking lots, churches and businesses where chargers might be located; electricity usage, demand and constraint information; transportation routes and high usage corridors; public transit routes and nodes; building type and location; existing sources of pollution; as well as community amenities like parks and walking routes. Cities that map these criteria and work with communities to identify priorities to inform EV infrastructure design and locations will be the ones that get the most utilization and community benefit. 

But solutions take time and money. The scope and extent of barriers, and the comparative lack of resources allocated to overcoming those barriers, constitutes perhaps the biggest hurdle not just for EV infrastructure, but for virtually every aspect of the energy and transportation transitions needed in the face of climate change. 

So far, of the billions of dollars allocated by government, only a very small portion is dedicated to increasing the capacity of cities to do the planning and implementation essential to success, or of community-based organizations working on the nitty gritty, less-than-exciting elements of actual success. 

Philanthropy could help bridge this enormously important gap, but that would take a change in perspective and priorities. Most philanthropic funding is project-focused, supporting organizations’ work on particular initiatives or on achieving policy wins, rarely on the nuts and bolts of how governments or communities implement action and work through local power dynamics, leadership vacuums, permitting disputes, mapping exercises, jurisdictional dilemmas, community disagreements, ADA requirements, energy rate setting, facility access, as well as myriad other issues that stand between billions of dollars of funding and community transformation. 

Local governments and community-based organizations need help with this. It can start with recognition of the challenge and the need. The federal funding for infrastructure is dramatic and potentially community, city, state and country changing, but it will be for naught if we do not improve and expand our ability to implement solutions in the face of the many barriers to implementation. 

Ken Alex is the director of Project Climate at the UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy, & Environment and was a senior policy adviser to former California Gov. Jerry Brown. Follow the center on Twitter: @BerkeleyLawCLEE.