Modernizing Building Codes - The Next Phase of Accelerating the EV Transition

Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky said, Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been. In the transportation sector, the puck is heading to electrification.

Charging at your home, while you sleep, is the oxygen of EV adoption. There are two charging scenarios used by EV drivers; the first is destination charging and the second is transit charging. Transit charging (for road trips) is less than 10% of all charging. And yet transit charging gets an outsized amount of attention not only by the media, but also by policymakers and government budgets that allocate funding for EV charging infrastructure.

Make no mistake, transit charging is crucial to the electric vehicle experience, even if it does make up only 10% of all charging. The infrastructure that best supports transient charging (aka Direct Current Fast Charging or simply DCFC) isn’t, however, the solution to “the other 90% of the problem,” despite policy makers hoping otherwise. The current trend (pun intended) to make DCFC the solution for “the other 90%” of charging needs is applying last century’s thinking to EV charging.

The Puck Stops Here

So then, where is the puck going? Where has it been? We cannot continue to use last century’s thinking--the gas station model--to solve our 21st century needs.

Destination charging is the “other 90%” of all charging, with the most obvious destination being your own home. Without a dedicated location to charge, people who live in multi-family housing (MFH) are effectively paying a tax to own an EV -- a tax on time and dollars. Unless the rate is subsidized, charging at any 3rd party charger is going to be more expensive than charging at your own home - that’s because the 3rd party wants to make a profit. Charging at any public charger is also going to be more time consuming than charging at your own home.

Think of it this way—most people reading this probably own a smartphone and charge it overnight so it is fully charged the next day. Pretty convenient, right? But what if you had to take your phone to a special place every few days to charge it. That’s what policymakers are essentially proposing by thinking of DCFC as the gas stations of the future. The Electric Vehicle Association (EVA) understands many of its members use DCFC as their primary means of charging their EV, or have the ability to charge at work. However, we do not believe that these solutions are viable past the early adopter phase.

Today, the majority of people who can reliably charge where they sleep are those who own their own home. This is creating an inequity for EV adoption.

Skating Towards The Goal

The (EVA has partnered with the EV Charging For All Coalition (EVCAC) to focus on the seemingly simple task of creating legislation that would require any new construction of MHF to have 100% EV capable parking. In 2022 the EVCAC was instrumental in getting California SB1482 overwhelmingly passed in both legislative bodies. SB1482 would have required new construction to accommodate EV charging. But then Governor Newsom vetoed it, despite his own Executive Order requiring all new vehicle sales in the state to be electric by 2035.

Mind this was just for new construction, but the building lobby lobbied hard against it, citing added building costs. The rest is history.

After that stinging loss, the EVCAC regrouped to focus on reforming building codes in other jurisdictions, and recently scored a huge victory in the city of San Jose, CA. The San Jose City Council voted unanimously on January 30 to adopt a strong EV charging reach code for new multi-family housing. Every residential parking space will be equipped with a Low-Power Level 2 (220 V, 20 A) receptacle. In addition, each residential unit with assigned parking will have their receptacle directly wired to their panel or meter, so they can access regulated rates for charging, as well as take advantage of bidirectional charging.

While a huge win, working with individual cities to pass EV friendly building codes is not the sweeping change we would like to see. That’s why the EVA and EVCAC are now working with the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) which should provide a baseline support of EV charging for building codes in jurisdictions in most parts of the world.

Changing building codes is just one way the EVA, with its like-minded partners, is working to accelerate the EV transition.