750 To 800 New EV Chargers To Be Installed In San Diego

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If you follow electric vehicles in the US, you know the federal EV tax incentives were eliminated. So, naturally, there will be a dip in EV sales.

EV adoption is also supported by the availability of public EV chargers. Fortunately, new public chargers are still being installed.

The city of San Diego is working to install a great number of new public EV chargers. “City officials are completing permitting and working out logistical details with San Diego Gas & Electric to install between 750 and 800 charging portals at 59 locations — 20 library branches and 39 pools or recreation centers.”

They will also be located at some public beach parking lots. The new chargers will be installed by Everged.

While some people assume wrongly they need an EV with 800 miles of range, this notion is false. They only need enough range to get to the next available EV charger when their battery is low. When there are enough public chargers that are operational and have a reasonable charging speed, the public may start to understand that even today there are EVs with plenty of range. The state of California already has over 200,000 public and shared EV charging ports. This number does not include the hundreds of thousands of home EV chargers.

The average driving distance in San Diego is less than 25 miles a day. “The average San Diego resident drives 23.7 miles a day, also among the most of any large city.” Obviously, it is not necessary to have an EV with huge range to drive such a short daily distance. Plus, there is the fact that about 80 percent of EV charging happens at home for EV owners who have their own home chargers. Some workplaces also have EV chargers.

“We needed to think about the transition to clean transportation through the lens of what the city can and can’t do. We can’t help with the cost of buying an EV, but we can help with charging an EV. Access to EV chargers should never be the constraint,” said Anna Lowe, a city program manager focused on EVs. 

It should be noted the state of California still has some EV purchasing incentives.

According to PlugShare, San Diego has about 2,500 public EV chargers. When the new ones are all installed, that total will increase to well over 3,000.

Lately, there has been a steady stream of news about the installation of new EV chargers. See more here:

Add this San Diego news story to the list.