The California legislature has passed a bill designed to make it easier for property renters to install EV charging stations. Assembly Bill 2565 will give tenants the right to install charging stations at their homes or businesses if the tenant is willing to pay installation costs. Under current law, lease restrictions may add financial burdens or even stop tenants from installing charging stations at all. The bill passed both houses of the State Legislature with bipartisan support. Governor Jerry Brown has until September 30 to sign it into law.

Richard Lowenthal, CTO of California-based charging network ChargePoint, wrote an op-ed piece in support of the new law, which ran in Capitol Weekly. “There are over 220,000 EVs on America’s roads today…and about a third of those are in California,” wrote Lowenthal. “While there are already thousands of charging locations across the state, there remains a need to continue to build a network of EV charging stations to support this massive EV growth, especially to meet Governor Brown’s goal of 1.5 million zero emission vehicles by 2025. The deployment of EV charging infrastructure is increasing but not keeping up with today’s EV adoption rates. In 2012, the ratio of EVs to charging ports was about 7 to 1. As EV sales skyrocketed, the gap widened. In 2013, the ratio grew to about 8 to 1.”

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California is the largest market for EVs in the US, representing over a third of national sales. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that the state will require at least one million public, workplace and residential charging stations by 2020.

Sources: ChargePoint, Capitol Weekly

Image: Jurvetson/Flickr