Los Angeles City Council orders staff reports for EV Master Plan

The Los Angeles City Council sought reports Friday from various departments to help meet the city’s Electric Vehicle Master Plan.

The EV Master Plan, approved by the Council in April, seeks to develop an entirely electric fleet of more than 10,000 city-owned vehicles and deploy EV charging infrastructure across the city.

The Council instructed city departments to review their budgets and identify planned gas-powered vehicle purchases that could instead be electric vehicles. It also requested reports on the infrastructure needed to update and expand the city’s electric vehicle network.

Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, who chairs the Council’s Energy, Climate Change, Environmental Justice and River Committee, called the work “hard” and “complex.”

“A lot of moving parts, a lot of potential partners who are sometimes resistant or don’t understand,” O’Farrell said. “It takes a lot of work. It’s going to cost money, requires our attention. But we can do it because the plan exists.”

Over the last five years, the city has installed 350 electric vehicle chargers, 140 for the city fleet and 210 for the public and city employees at 19 facilities across the city.

The EV Master Plan will be done in coordination with the city’s LA100 initiative to be 100% carbon-free by 2035. It is expected to bring 45,000 EV charging stations to Los Angeles by 2025, according to O’Farrell’s office.

O’Farrell said that Fire Station No. 82 in Hollywood recently received the Western Hemisphere’s first all-electric fire rig, which was imported from Europe. He called for incentives for American companies to build all-electric service vehicles such as fire engines.

“We cannot do this without the private sector,” O’Farrell said.

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