University of California Institute of Transportation Studies

Access to electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure is critical to advancing California’s EV adoption goals. The California Energy Commission has projected the state needs “nearly 1.2 million” chargers by 2030 “to meet the fueling demands of 7.5 million passenger plug-in electric vehicles.” Currently, California has about 152,000 publicly available EV chargers. Innovative asset ownership models, like charging-as-a-service (CaaS), could help overcome some of the barriers to deploying and maintaining charging infrastructure. For example, CaaS providers could procure, install, maintain, and replace charging equipment for subscription customers.

To better understand how CaaS solutions could expand EV use and charging access, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 CaaS companies, electric utilities, and customers to identify the perceptions, challenges, and opportunities of the CaaS business model in addressing charging station needs in California.