Novato plans to discontinue unlimited free electric vehicle recharging at city-owned stations beginning July 1.
The city will still allow one hour of free charging, but each additional hour will cost $1.50. The city will also charge a $4 per hour idling fee beginning 30 minutes after the vehicle is fully charged — about four hours maximum — as a penalty for blocking others from using the station.
The arrangement slightly alters a plan adopted earlier this year by the City Council. The earlier plan was based on the amount of energy dispensed in kilowatt-hours, similar to an electric bill.
However, the city’s charging station vendor, ChargePoint, said its platform would only be able to provide the free hour of charging the city requested under a time-based rate, according to city sustainability coordinator Gretchen Schubeck.
On Tuesday, the City Council voted 3-2 to move to the time-based rates for now. Mayor Pat Eklund and Councilwoman Denise Athas dissented because they did not agree the city should be providing any free charging given the city’s budget issues.
“I have a problem with giving something for free,” Athas said at the meeting.
“People are going to say ‘Well, jeez, the city is so rich they can give some people who can afford an electric car a free hour,'” Eklund said.
Mayor Pro Tem Eric Lucan challenged the assumption that electric vehicles were limited only to wealthy people with single-family homes.
“For individuals who live in multi-family residences where they do have to charge at public charging stations, these are very critical in larger EV adoption, and that’s why I think it’s appropriate to do the first hour free,” Lucan said at the meeting.
The city has allowed drivers to recharge their electric vehicles for free since installing its first stations in 2013. The city has 12 stations but eventually will need to replace eight of its older models with “level 2” stations that can charge a car in about four hours, as opposed to about eight hours with the existing models.
The yearly upkeep of these stations is expected to cost the city about $38,000, with the new rates covering about $35,000, according to city staff. The city will assume the remaining costs.
Most vendors of electric vehicle recharging stations will be required to transition away from time-based rates under state laws, according to Schubeck. To begin standardizing recharging rates, the California Office of Administrative Law adopted new rules in December 2019 that ban time-based fees for any new level 2 stations after Jan. 1, 2021, and any new DC fast-charging stations, which can charge a vehicle in under an hour, after Jan. 1, 2023.
Cities are exempt from these rules, but Schubeck said the city should consider the change eventually and could reassess the rates in about 12 months.
“We could transition, give people a bit for free, charge a bit, and when the market moves, that’s when we would transition to the per-kilowatt-hour charge,” she said.
Novato to curtail free electric vehicle charging - Marin Independent Journal
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