Unlocking Transportation Electrification in South LA
Introduction
As states look to decarbonize, transportation electrification (TE) has emerged as a core strategy to reduce emissions. (Howard et al. 2021)
Yet, the benefits of TE extend well beyond decarbonization. TE can increase a communities’ quality of life by decreasing asthma-related hospitalizations, reducing noise pollution, and making it more affordable to operate and fuel a personal vehicle. (Garcia et al. 2022)
Transforming the transportation industry will require that electric vehicles (EVs) and electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) are accessible to all consumers and communities and that a diverse group of businesses have the opportunity to participate in TE. However, not all stakeholders are equally positioned to engage in TE and reap the benefits.
To unlock the benefits of TE for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and low-income communities, policy makers and program designers must swiftly address structural and procedural inequities in TE policies and programs.
To illustrate the impact of these barriers, we share the story of KIGT - a Los Angeles-based, Black, and independently owned EVSE company.
By addressing the obstacles KIGT has encountered while serving Black and Brown communities in South Los Angeles, we illuminate the necessary actions for utilities and regulators to take to ensure a just energy transition that benefits all communities. Most importantly, we center the experience of those most impacted by the environmental harms of our energy industry.
While our recommendations are based on KIGT’s experiences within the framework of structural and procedural inequities that lead to disparities in how TE benefits are distributed, addressing these inequities will benefit other growing, BIPOC, and woman-owned firms and the communities served by their participation in TE.
EV Desert Map
EV Charging Stations in Los Angeles
Who is left out of the EV Opportunity?
Lower income neighborhoods in Los Angeles often fall into “Charging Deserts,” or areas without enough EVSEs to service EVs. These charging deserts correlate with insufficient public investment in, and upkeep of, the local electrical grid. Without electrification-ready infrastructure, EVSEs are more difficult – and costly – to install.
Access to electric vehicle chargers is highly unequal across race and income.
Charging deserts disproportionately impact Black and Brown Los Angelenos when compared to more affluent and/or white communities.
Charger access is lower in regions with below-median household incomes.
Who is KIGT?
Who is KIGT?
KIGT is a Los Angeles-based, Black, and independently owned EVSE company. KIGT’s commitment is to ensure that EV Charging is more accessible, affordable, and clean.
KIGT’s CEO, Paul Francis, invests in Black and Latinx communities nationwide to build their EV charging infrastructure, enable EV adoption, and to employ local technicians. By cultivating meaningful relationships in communities, KIGT builds trust and fosters economic empowerment.
KIGT partners with local communities
McCarty Memorial Church has a long history in South Los Angeles. Serving the community for over 90 years, McCarty Memorial is an important touchstone in the West Adams neighborhood of South Los Angeles, supporting Black and Brown residents with services, a preschool, and a food bank.
The McCarty Memorial Church has been actively involved in community service. As a part of this focus, Rev. Edward "Eddie” Anderson (known as Pastor Eddie) and his wife initiated conversations with local residents to understand and define what a just transition would look like for Black and Brown communities in South Los Angeles and the city at large.
Pastor Eddie noticed that more and more of his neighbors were driving electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) in the area, despite there being only one public charger which was often out-of-service. To address this service gap, Pastor Eddie sought to bring more EV chargers to the community.
That's where KIGT came in.
Pastor Eddie believes in supporting Black-owned and local businesses as a crucial aspect of a just transition. For KIGT, their mission is to promote the use of EVs and other green technologies in Black and Brown communities. Working together, Pastor Eddie and Paul Francis of KIGT are collaborating to install four EV chargers in the church's parking lot to expand charging access in the region.
Their team is committed to hiring an affordable local electrician, securing grants to ensure that McCarty Memorial has adequate distribution infrastructure to support chargers, and addressing the barriers previously outline. Thereby, ensuring that the West Adams community receives the same benefits of EVs as white and affluent communities throughout Los Angeles. Although the chargers have not been installed yet – a whole three years after the first conversations began - the team remains focused on their goal to provide this important amenity to their community.
Barriers to EV Deployment
Electric grid investments are made where electric demand is greatest. Without an equity-balanced investment model, the communities that “have” will continue to create demand for electrification. Communities that “have not” will be deprioritized.
KIGT has faced delays in completing projects in "charging deserts" due to long wait times for utilities to upgrade the distribution system. Installing new transformers or utility poles can take up to six months, adding both time and cost to the projects. In contrast, affluent communities that have a better maintained power grid can complete projects like these at lower cost and in less time. The result? Companies like KIGT who are invested in serving Black and Brown communities have to also make these areas EVSE-ready.
Our interviews suggest that inequities in grid maintenance also ultimately impacts service reliability. Maintenance of these systems has fallen behind – specifically in marginalized communities when compared to more affluent and white communities. A community leader described how he sees EV charging stations frequently in the whiter, more affluent neighborhoods on the West side or in Hollywood, but that “…South LA has been left behind.”
To add further complexity, the solutions that address charging deserts also have the potential to cause harm. Like many EJ and community advocates, KIGT leadership worries that TE for communities can lead to gentrification and displace residents with cultural ties to the community.
An important part of successfully addressing inequities is increasing a communities’ quality of life without displacing its residents. One strategy is to ensure that community businesses and investors are participating in TE as planners, installers, and owners of TE wealth creation opportunities. To address this concern, KIGT focuses on hiring locally and building capacity to service EVSEs in the communities where the equipment is placed.
Equal-opportunity funding processes can disproportionately exclude projects in already underserved and marginalized communities. Access to funding opportunities, like rebates, may be difficult to obtain since the number of applications often exceeds the funding available.
Distributional inequities are compounded when communities with the greatest investment need are disadvantaged in the rebate selection process. This is because these community stakeholders (i.e., prospective site hosts) likely have a higher reliance on rebates and a comparably lower rate of capital reserves to commitment to EVSE installations. Practically, this means that such potential host sites will likely not agree to a project if they are concerned that incentives will not be large enough to cover application, development, and operational costs – or not be awarded at all.
One KIGT site host told us that, when the time came to receive a rebate, the utility denied the award. The site host was confused. He felt that his community is a “cookie-cutter case” of an underserved community that can benefit from TE incentives.
In addition, the cost to “ready” his site for a charger was a significant barrier. Although he wanted to help his community by installing EV chargers, his organization could not afford to install the utility pole to get his neighborhood compatible with the system requirements to do so. After several years, the project is still unfinished. The site host is now struggling to fund the final stages of his TE installation.
Application opportunities often favor large companies over up-and-coming businesses, even when attempting to create “fair” models. This plays out in a number of ways.
First, installing EVSEs involves complex qualification processes and navigating various bureaucratic sectors, including telecom, city planning, public works, economic development services, transportation planning, and electric utilities. These processes can be opaque and require significant human resources. Furthermore, changes in rules and requirements, as well as other structural and procedural challenges, can increase project risks and threaten success. These challenges are especially difficult for new entrants or community-scale providers.
In addition, seemingly equitable solutions, like incentive lotteries, favor those who have the ability to submit a large number of jobs. Community members and small developers – who may contribute fewer jobs overall – have a much lower chance of securing much-needed incentives for their projects.
The Future of EVSE Equity
Recommendations for utilities and regulators to unlock TE benefits in charging deserts
This story map is based on the white paper Unlocking Just Transportation Electrification.