California Invites Power Utilities Into the Car-Charging Market

In California, more than 200,000 electric cars are on the road. But Governor Jerry Brown wants to raise that number to 1.5 million by 2025. Getting there requires figuring out something oil companies had to deal with a century ago: how to keep cars juiced up. “Nobody’s going to buy an electric car unless they see charging equipment where they commonly drive or park,” says Pasquale Romano, chief executive officer of ChargePoint, based in Campbell, Calif., which sells charging equipment.

Independent companies such as ChargePoint are pushing back against a solution put forward by Pacific Gas & Electric: Let utilities run the show. In response to a request from regulators, PG&E submitted plans to spend $160 million raised from ratepayers to roll out more than 7,500 electric filling stations in its service area, which spans the northern two-thirds of the state. “It’s a market that needs a bit of a jump-start,” says Aaron Johnson, PG&E’s vice president for customer energy solutions. “We want to see people using electricity as a transportation fuel. We think that’s great for our business.”