The state of California achieved its goal of installing 10,000 electric vehicle DC fast chargers almost two years ahead of schedule, celebrating the milestone at the latest EVgo location in Union City.
The majority of fast chargers have been deployed by Tesla, with 6,029 ports out of the 10,122 total being Superchargers, as per the US Department of Energy (DOE) Alternative Fuels Data Center.
According to an executive order issued in 2018 by former Governor Jerry Brown, California set on a course to install 250,000 EV chargers across the state, including 10,000 fast chargers by 2025. Since then, the number of public and “shared private” fast chargers (installed at business or apartment buildings) has nearly quadrupled, from around 2,600 to a little over 10,000, helped by state funding.
With this being said, California still has a bit of catching up to do to reach its total goal of 250,000 chargers (including AC chargers), seeing how today it has less than half of its proposed goal, and only about 41,000 of those are fully public.
A report from the California Energy Commission shows the state will need more than one million public and shared private chargers by 2030 to support the steep increase in EV registrations, which are expected to reach the seven million mark by the end of the decade.
Currently, there are more than 1.6 million battery-powered vehicles registered in California and 25 percent of all new cars registered in the first quarter were electric vehicles. To support the growing demand for EVs, the state passed a $2.9 billion investment plan last year, most of which will go toward improving the charging infrastructure.
"We're seeing automakers really step up and provide the vehicles, and now what we need to do is make sure there's charging infrastructure available to be able to meet that need," said Patty Monahan with the California Energy Commission, quoted by NBC Bay Area.
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