Electric vehicle (EV) ridership and demand for more charging stations are growing, both in Monterey County and the state. The California Energy Commission estimates that current figures of EVs on the road — 10,694 in Monterey County, as of 2024, and two million in the state — will need to quadruple by 2030 to satisfy statewide legislation calling for drastic emissions reductions in the coming years.
“The [charging] infrastructure that is currently in place really is only 20 to 25% of the infrastructure that we need,” says Amaury Berteaud, the Director of Sustainability Programs of the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments.
The Association, which is responsible for long-term regional transportation planning, is trying to scale up charging infrastructure to meet the growing demand, and do so in a way that acknowledges threats from extreme weather events and community concerns. Area residents are encouraged to propose locations for charging stations and give their feedback on existing proposals using the Association’s interactive map (https://bit.ly/4ayQwGQ) now through the end of the year.
The Monterey Bay Area Electric Vehicle Climate Adaptation and Resiliency Framework will guide the installation of new charging stations in Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Benito Counties with two main goals: meeting the transportation needs of Monterey Bay area communities and enabling climate resilient infrastructure.
“We see electric vehicles as playing a pretty important role in terms of reducing emissions,” says Berteaud.
The interactive map and a survey the Association distributed earlier this year are attempts to enfranchise communities whose perspectives have been missing from EV infrastructure conversations. The communities in the area that already have high ridership of EVs engage in related transportation planning frequently, whereas the communities lacking available charging stations and ridership don’t, Berteaud says.
The Association and their partners are, “making sure that communities have the opportunities to learn about EVs, learn about the rebates, learn about the benefits, and then they’re able to form their own opinions,” he says.
Regarding concerns of climate resilience, Berteaud says, “The big one that we see, I think that folks are concerned about is the loss of power.” Residents in the area demonstrated on the survey, whose data has not yet been published, that their experiences with wildfires and flooding events inform their concerns about powering their vehicles in an electricity outage.
“Both a potential hazard, but also a potential resiliency feature of an electric vehicle [is that it] can’t charge when the power is out, but could, with the energy that’s stored in that battery, potentially power appliances,” Berteaud says.
Monterey Bay area residents can propose locations for charging stations or like/dislike-react to existing proposals on the Association’s interactive map through Dec. 31.
