California Is Keeping Apartment Dwellers From Getting World Healing EVs Or Something

Interesting. It’s apparently government causing problems, not that EVs are very expensive and unaffordably to most citizens

How California Is Keeping Electric Vehicles Out Of Reach For Apartment-Dwellers

electric vehicleBlessed with scenic Pacific coast drives and cursed with smothering smog and drought-fueled wildfires, California was primed to lead the transition away from the internal combustion engine. Nearly half of the electric vehicles sold in the United States each year are sold in the Golden State.

But if you’re among the millions of Californians who live in an apartment or condo complex, swapping a gas-powered automobile for an electric one can be a challenge.

That’s because the state requires just 10% of parking spaces in multifamily garages to include the circuitry needed to set up an electric vehicle charger. Only a fraction actually have the outlet and equipment needed to plug a car in, so a renter would need their landlord to hire an electrician to complete the setup if they actually wanted to use it.

Well, they could pay for it, right? Ask the landlord and say “I’ll pay for the equipment and installation.” Why does personal responsibility never come into play?

Now the state agency that sets building codes wants to require 40% of spaces to have at least that basic infrastructure and 5% of those to have the full suite of equipment and wiring needed to service an electric vehicle.

And now already skyhigh housing costs in California (#2 housing costs in nation, which cause apartments to go high. Only Hawaii is higher) will go higher, as the owners pass on the costs.

But electric vehicle advocates say the state’s proposal doesn’t go far enough, as it would leave the vast majority of residents in multifamily units ― the fastest-growing type of residence in a state whose population infamously outstrips available housing ― without access. And, they argue, it risks slowing the adoption of those vehicles in the next five years, which is when state and federal policymakers have said they should dominate new car sales.

Of course they say this: it’s not their money being spent to comply with the requirement. Will this be a requirement for townhomes and multifamily homes where the homeowners are essentially the landlords?

But the building codes designed today won’t come into force until 2023. Given the time it takes to build, inspect and rent new apartment buildings, it won’t affect real lives and car-buying decisions until 2025 at the earliest.

By then, the International Energy Agency projected in a landmark report this month, the world needs to be just 10 years away from ending all sales of gas-powered automobiles ― or else doom the planet to warming past 1.5 degrees Celsius, an average that spells catastrophic changes. Housing that isn’t designed for that electrified future will require costly retrofits down the road.

It’s an equity problem, too. Tenants in multifamily units are disproportionately Black and Latino, groups that struggle to buy homes in a state where single-family houses make up two-thirds of residences, real estate industry data show. And the state has required builders to equip 100% of new single-family housing with charging circuitry for the past six years.

See, it’s also a raaaaacism problem. These people are all nuts. Anyway, I’m going to stop here, it’s a long, long screed.

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2 Responses to “California Is Keeping Apartment Dwellers From Getting World Healing EVs Or Something”

  1. Dana says:

    Our esteemed host quoted:

    That’s because the state requires just 10% of parking spaces in multifamily garages to include the circuitry needed to set up an electric vehicle charger. Only a fraction actually have the outlet and equipment needed to plug a car in, so a renter would need their landlord to hire an electrician to complete the setup if they actually wanted to use it.

    Haven’t I ben saying this for a while now?

    Were I a homebuilder, I’d have directed all garages built to be wired for electric car chargers, because it’s a heck of a lot easier and cheaper to do it during rough-in, while the walls are open, and I believe that, at least in larger cities, having the place prewired for a plug in electric could be a selling point.

    But this article is talking about “multi-family,” and while it uses the word garages, how many “multi-family” units have actual garages rather than open parking spaces. That’s where it would really get expensive, requiting underground conduit, computerized codes so that the right apartment gets charged for the sparktricity used, etc. The chargers have to be weatherproof, vandalism-proof, and even then you have to have a locking system so the neighborhood miscreants can’t just unplug your car during the night.

    I’m not a big fan of having 240 volt, 30 amp systems out where eight-year-olds have access to them!

  2. Dana says:

    Our humble host quoted:

    It’s an equity problem, too. Tenants in multifamily units are disproportionately Black and Latino, groups that struggle to buy homes in a state where single-family houses make up two-thirds of residences, real estate industry data show. And the state has required builders to equip 100% of new single-family housing with charging circuitry for the past six years.

    What does this mean? If by “charging circuitry” it simply means the wiring in which to plug your electric car charger, it really isn’t that expensive. It’s a 240 volt, 50 amp circuit with a NEMA 6-50 or 14-50 receptacle. It required wire, a circuit breaker, and a receptacle, the wire being the variable cost depending upon how far from the breaker box the receptacle is located. It can be done with 8 gauge wire, but most codes would (probably) specify 6 gauge wire, especially as the receptacles get further from the breaker box.

    If it means requiring installation of the charging unit itself, it starts to become a problem, since different auto manufacturers have different charging requirements. For some idiot reason, only Tesla chargers work for Teslas! This means, among other things, that if you have one Tesla, and you want to buy another plug in electric, you need to by a second Tesla, because your at-home charger won’t work on other makes of vehicles.

    I think that it’s a good idea to install the wiring for the chargers; I don’t like the idea of the Pyrite State making them mandatory.

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