San Francisco’s building code is targeting electric energy: new buildings will allow for the upstream integration of recharging systems for electric vehicles. The San Francisco City Hall announcement merely reinforces an urban policy that has already favoured electric mobility for several years now.
City Hall aims to encourage people to obtain recharging stations, by financing their initiatives. Gavin Newsom, Mayor of the City thus declared: "if you want to fit a recharging station at home, you can do so, thanks to our subsidies for financing green projects."
Leading by example, Mayor Gavin Newsom drives an electric car himself and the City has already installed a recharging station in front of City Hall.
Electric market: satisfying infrastructural requirements
In addition, since November 2008, California has been rolling out a huge electric mobility plan in three of its towns, San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, aiming to create the infrastructures required to accommodate the electric vehicle market.
With a cost of up to $1bn, California’s objective is to become the United States’ future ‘electric’ state.
Particular evidence of this is found in the project started in 2008 with the company SolarCity, which enabled five recharging stations (including one which runs off solar energy) for electric cars to be installed along Route 101, which runs between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The company Better Place will be in charge of the roll out of the recharging systems. Its founder Shai Agassi had already announced that he would enter the American market through this corner of California.
The study carried out by the consultant CE Delft, commissioned by Greenpeace, Transport & Environment (T&E), Friends of the Earth Europe and WWF Germany, concludes that the electric vehicle could be an opportunity to reduce CO2 emissions in Europe if its commercial development is accompanied by real energy policy in favour of renewable energy.
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