Could California’s Goal of One Million EV Chargers Be Unrealistic, Unattainable?

California’s goal of installing one million public electric vehicle charging stations by the end of the decade to support mass EV adoption may be unrealistic and unattainable, some experts say. As the state with the highest number of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in the country, California is already home to a large portion of North America’s public EV charging infrastructure. However, the state will need at least a million charging stations by 2030 to support its growing EV market, giving California only seven years to achieve this goal.

A growing number of experts say California will have to install public EV chargers at an unprecedented rate to meet its public-charging infrastructure goals by 2030, let alone doubling it to two million stations by 2035. While the goals are admirable and necessary to help California support the seven million electric vehicles expected to be on its roads by the end of the decade, some experts say the goals are unrealistic.

Limited charging infrastructure is already a major problem across the continental United States and is one of the main reasons why many drivers aren’t willing to go electric. Even California struggles to adequately serve its electric vehicle drivers as the charging infrastructure tends to be concentrated in certain urbanized regions. The state now has to increase its charging stations from around 100,000 to a million in the next seven years, a feat that will require 129,000 new charging stations every year to achieve.

Furthermore, California has to ramp up this pace once 2030 hits to allow it to build another million chargers in only five years, bringing the total to 2.1 million public-electric-vehicle chargers by 2035. This should leave the state with a robust network of public chargers that can alleviate customer fears of range anxiety and comfortably support more than seven million battery electric cars. Stanford University professor Bruce Cain argues that it is “very unlikely” California will achieve this goal and even states that California’s electrification goals are “noble but unrealistic.”

Cain called on state leaders to deal with potential policy and institutional obstacles before “blindly” committing to ambitious goals. Many lawmakers and industry experts are also worried that California won’t be able to carry out such a large-scale project in a decade and may be unable to support its growing electric-vehicle market.

One of the key factors that will likely hinder the achievement of these ambitious goals is cost; one fast charger costs an estimated $120,000 or even more to install. Installing up to two million chargers will be a massive financial undertaking that will require major funding from the state government as well as private investors.

The project will also require major upgrades to California’s power grid, streamlined permitting processes from counties to cities, and increased efforts to connect public EV chargers to the state grid. Ensuring that even less affluent and rural areas have equitable access to the public charging network by encouraging private companies to invest in these regions will also prove to be a challenge.

While local, state and the federal governments can play a crucial role in ensuring that sufficient charging facilities are created, individual companies such as Rivian Automotive Inc. (NASDAQ: RIVN) also have a responsibility to contribute to this effort since buyers will scrutinize which companies have reliable charging infrastructure before making a buying decision. This is partly why Tesla has been dominant in the industry, due to its supercharger network.

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