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On December 16, 2019, California’s Office of Administrative Law approved amendments to its Electric Vehicle Fueling Systems Specifications. Effective January 1, 2020, these new rules ban operators of electric vehicle charging stations from billing by the minute. This is a huge blow to Electrify America and EVgo. Both firms bill by the minute for EV … //
The Department acknowledges this group of comments and disagrees with the interpretation of the primary commodity being traded. As defined in BPC § 13400(a)(4) and (p), electricity is considered a type of motor vehicle fuel. NIST Handbook 44 makes clear what the unit of measure of electricity as motor vehicle fuel dispensed from EVSE shall be measured by — either the kWh or the megajoule (MJ). The Department concludes that the primary commodity delivered by EVSE is electricity, not parking space accessibility, parking space rental time, or accessibility to the EVSE itself. The Department considers those as “other services” of the transaction. The Department clarifies that time is not an acceptable unit of measure for dispensing and billing electricity as motor vehicle fuel. //
Electrek e-mailed Schnepp about operators’ ability to charge separate fees, who confirmed, “Electric vehicle service providers are allowed to charge ancillary fees such as: a connection fee; waiting fee for staying connected after reaching full state of charge; parking fee where such charges are normally applied; and a non-network access fee where applicable, provided that these fees are disclosed to the consumer prior to initiating a charging session (there may be other allowed fees not identified in this example).” //
In DMS’ survey of existing EVSEs, they found stations with equipment that DMS felt could not accurately convey energy delivered. These regulations will enable effective auditing of for-profit EVSEs and ensure the public isn’t getting ripped off. We hope other jurisdictions follow suit, and if private operators don’t like the rules, they’re free to step aside and let our utilities take over.
