California’s extensive electric vehicle charging network got a large boost this weekend as Tesla will allow non-Tesla cars to charge at their stations.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) made the announcement by driving a Ford Mustang Mach-E SUV into a Tesla charging port.
“This is all in an effort to build out the infrastructure in the state of California that currently totals 105,000 electric vehicle chargers for public use and about 10,000 of these supercharging stations,” Newsom said.
The news comes as many EV manufacturers are transitioning their charging ports from CCS to NACS, a Tesla-developed charging port.
“I believe that Tesla can do very well in being a charging provider company, not just a car company,” said Gil Tal, the director of the University of California, Davis’s Electric Vehicle Research Center. “They are ahead of the game, they already have good technology, and they can build it.”
The California Energy Commission estimates the state needs 2 million chargers by 2035 in order to keep up with a 2020 mandate by Newsom that all new car sales will need to be electric by 2035. California has 105,000 charging stations across the state. There are also an estimated 500,000 charging stations people have installed in their homes.
In San Francisco County, there are 2,416 electric vehicle charging stations. Of those, 1,045 are public, and 1,371 are “shared private,” meaning they are only available to cars of a certain make. It is unclear how many “shared private” charging stations are operated by Tesla.
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Last year, 25% of car sales in California were EVs. California alone represents 34% of America’s new EV sales, putting the state fourth in EV sales globally behind China, the United States, and Germany.
“California dominates in this space,” Newsom said. “We want to maintain that leadership, maintain that dominance as we transition from dirty tailpipes to a low-carbon, green-growth future.”
