Home Charging Access in California

The convenience, reliability, low cost, and often low-grid impact of charging plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) at home are among the primary benefits of owning a PEV. Access to these benefits can be a key enabler for the increasing rate of PEV adoption in California. However, home charging access is not ubiquitously available, posing challenges to achieving the level of PEV adoption needed to meet the state’s transportation electrification goals and to attain equitable access to charging. To better understand home charging access in California, California Energy Commission (CEC) staff and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) conducted the “Residential Parking Facility Survey Among California Residents” in July 2020, collecting nearly 1,300 responses.

The survey results show that residents of single-family homes have greater access to home charging than residents of multifamily homes. Higher-income respondents reported greater access, and additional disparities were observed among race and ethnicity groupings, with those who identified as White having the greatest access. Access is limited in all scenarios, and if infrastructure and parking conditions remain business as usual, access does not surpass 33 percent. Even the most optimistic scenario (combining parking behavior changes and new electrical installations) results in 66 percent access for all survey respondents.

Building upon the survey results, a “PEV likely adopter” model was developed to estimate access in the future as the PEV fleet share increases. For the most optimistic access scenario, a fully PEV fleet results in about 70 percent of vehicles with home charging. This finding highlights a potential upper bound of home charging availability and emphasizes the importance of public charging infrastructure. Three key gaps that impact PEV adoption and home charging access as PEV uptake transitions from the early adopter phase and toward widely available mainstream consumers are 1) education about PEVs and charging, 2) installing electricity in homes, and 3) shifting parking behavior.