The City Won’t Procure Anymore Stations From Its Current Provider Due to “The Emergence of New EV Charging Service Providers.”
By Zach Armstrong
As the City of Santa Monica looks to grow and upgrade its electric vehicle charging infrastructure, it is switching to a new vendor to provide future public EV charger installations and to replace outdated infrastructure.
The city owns and operates 133 stations from ChargePoint Inc. for public and fleet units, not including other station models or Big Blue Bus ChargePoint chargers. In 2018, the City entered into a five-year agreement with ChargePoint for charging equipment, software and maintenance as part of the Southern California Edison Charge Ready program. The City subsequently participated in the program at “Beach Lot 5 South” and two pending sites at Virginia Avenue Park and Clover Park.
A staff report stated that the City won’t procure anymore ChargePoint stations for new public locations because of “the emergence of new EV charging service providers that will install and maintain level 2 public chargers at no cost to the City.”
“A new vendor will install future public chargers, owned by the vendor, and replace old and faulty infrastructure on a site-by-site basis in coordination with the City.” the staff report stated. “They will pay for electricity costs and retain charging revenues.”
The staff report did not indicate that a new vendor has been chosen.
At its June 27 meeting, city council will take up an agenda item to modify its agreement with ChargePoint for $304,425 to extend software services and maintenance on existing stations for up to five years. If public ChargePoint units break, they could be replaced by the new vendors’ units instead of being repaired.
