The transportation sector is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions in California. To address this issue, Governor Jerry Brown signed an executive order calling for 1.5 million zero emission vehicles on California’s roads by 2025. In order to achieve this ambitious goal, significant barriers must be overcome to expand and accelerate plug-in electric vehicle adoption including the need to build out the necessary refueling infrastructure. Currently, residents of multi-unit dwellings such as apartments and condominiums are unlikely to have access to home charging.
The purpose of this report is to explore barriers to plug-in electric vehicle adoption for residents of multi-unit dwellings within the Westside Cities subregion of Los Angeles County, and then identify multi-unit dwellings within the study region that may exhibit high latent plug-in electric vehicle demand and subsequent demand for low-cost electric vehicle supply equipment installation. These multi-unit dwellings should be a priority for targeted outreach for programs that assist with electric vehicle supply equipment installation, since they are most likely to host plug-in electric vehicle drivers in the near future. We find that the multi-unit dwellings with greatest demand for plug-in electric vehicles and charging infrastructure within the study region are located in West Los Angeles, followed in descending order by Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Culver City, and unincorporated portions of Los Angeles County.
This report also reviews the various costs associated with electric vehicle supply equipment installation at multi-unit dwelling sites, which are highly variable. To keep charging installation costs as low as possible, property owners should consider Level 1 charging opportunities and group investments for electric vehicle supply equipment installations. The report closes with a discussion of policy tools for scaling up charging infrastructure at multi-unit dwelling sites across the Westside cities subregion, concluding that targeted outreach to promote the plug-in electric vehicle, plug-in electric vehicle rebates, and plug-in electric vehicle ready new construction codes are likely required to ease the multi-unit dwelling related barriers to plug-in electric vehicle adoption.
