Beverly Hills to Reverse Ban on Plug-In Hybrid Charging

City Traffic and Parking Commission Responds to New California Law

The City of Beverly Hills made changes to their Electric Vehicle Charging Policy on April 2, 2018 which were designed to encourage more efficient use of the city-operated 35 public charging stations. A controversial aspect of the new policy was to prohibit plug-in hybrid electric vehicles from using the charging stations.

The city also implemented EV charging fees, updated signs to reserve charging spots exclusively for battery-only electric vehicles and defined a new enforcement regulation to fine and/or tow all other vehicles including plug-in hybrids, gas-only vehicles and any all-battery EV that didn’t activate a charging session.

California State Senator Ricardo Lara, authored SB 1000 which contained a provision that barred local municipalities from restricting plug-in hybrids from using public EV charging stations funded using state or ratepayer money.

65850.9. (a) A city, county, or city and county shall not restrict which types of electric vehicles, including, but not limited to, plug-in hybrid vehicles, may access an electric vehicle charging station approved for passenger vehicles that both is publicly accessible and the construction of which was funded, at least in part, by the state or through moneys collected from ratepayers.

On November 1, 2018, the Beverly Hills Traffic & Parking Commission met to consider how to comply with SB 1000. Staff had determined that possibly some of the City’s charging stations were not subject to SB 1000 because they may not have used public or ratepayer funding. The Commissioners decided to recommend that the City Council apply the solution in a uniform manner to all the city-run charging stations in order to not cause confusion.

The Beverly Hills City Council will have to act before the end of the year to remove the ban on PHEVs charging in city-run facilities. The provisions of SB 1000 go into effect January 1, 2019.

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