In a good news/bad news announcement, we were successfully able to get AB 2565 (Muratsuchi; D-Torrance) amended to remove the mandate that EV Chargers be installed in all parking lots with 50 or more spaces. However, the bill now takes a policy that was meant to protect residential property owners from a homeowner’s association preventing them from installing charging stations and applies those protections to commercial and residential leasees to trump the property owner.
Although we are happy to work with the author in to advance his goal of trying to increase installations of EV Charging stations, we think this bill has enough “unintended consequences” that it needs to be amended.
We continue to think the only efficacious way to significantly increase installations is to incentivize charging stations by reducing ROI – either through subsidies, matches, grants, and/or tax credits, actual consumer demand (those pesky “market forces”), or as a tenant amenity. Many of these strategies have been used to induce people to purchase plug-in electric cars, and we think they can work to induce infrastructure outside of the primary charging facility (one’s residential parking space). The other way is for some entrepreneurial companies willing to lease parking spaces and put in chargers as a for-profit venture. The former would help the latter and we’d embrace both.
Click here to see the current version of the bill and see how it could impact lease negotiations.
