BILL ANALYSIS Ó
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de León, Chair
SB 454 (Corbett) - Public resources: electric vehicle charging
stations.
Amended: May 7, 2013 Policy Vote: T&H 6-3, EU&C 6-4
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: May 20, 2013 Consultant: Marie Liu
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: SB 454 would establish requirements of providers
of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations regarding
notification, fees, and payment. SB 454 would also allow the Air
Resources Board (ARB) to adopt interoperability billing
standards for electric vehicle charging stations.
Fiscal Impact:
One-time costs of $400,000 (special fund) for the
development of a reporting database and related data
collection system and modification of the Driveclean.ca.gov
website.
One-time cost pressures of up to $370,000 (special fund) in
FY 2013-14 to develop billing standards.
Ongoing costs of approximately $370,000 (special fund) for
maintaining data on its website and responding to public
complaints.
On-going costs of approximately $20,000 for a contract to
maintain the data collection system.
Background: Existing law requires that 22% of the vehicles
produced and delivered for sale in California by specified
manufactures be zero emission vehicles by 2025.
Existing law requires a manufacturer of an EV Fuel dispensing
system to determine the electric charge of a system and affix a
permanent legible marking or permanently attached label that
discloses the manufacturer's name, the model number, serial
number, or other identifier of the system, and the fuel rating.
Proposed Law: This bill would prohibit the provider of an EV
charging station from requiring a subscription fee or membership
as a condition of using a publically accessible station,
SB 454 (Corbett)
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although it would be permissible to charge a fee on nonmembers
if that fee is disclosed at the point of sale
This bill would require that the provider disclose to the public
and the ARB, the station's geographic location, a schedule of
fees, accepted methods of payment, and any surcharge charged for
nonmembers. The station would be required to be labeled
according to federal regulations and with appropriate signage in
the parking area where they are located.
This bill would allow the ARB to adopt billing standards for a
member of one electric charging station network to use another
network after January 1, 2015. Stations would be given one year
to comply with those standards.
This bill would require the ARB to maintain a toll-free
telephone number and email address or web site to collect
consumer complaints regarding violations of these requirements.
A publically available summary of complaints shall be made
available by ARB annually.
Staff Comments: ARB believes that it would need $2.4 positions
at approximately $370,000 to first research and adopt
interoperability billing standards by 2015. These positions
would then be shifted towards enforcing reporting requirements
for station providers, database maintenance, and tracking and
responding to customer complaints. ARB's costs associated with
receiving and potentially responding to complaints is based on
an estimate of about 100 complaints per week. ARB notes that the
thousands of public stations is growing rapidly (10s per day)
and there are a wide range of potential complaints such as ones
for labeling issues, non-functional stations, rate issues, and
payment problems.