A partnership among the city, the California Energy Commission (CEC) and Flash parking technology company will lead to the installation of 244 Level 2 chargers across eight parking sites powering EV charging, clustered mostly in downtown. That will put them within easy reach of workers and residents in the area.
“These new chargers will make it easier for Oaklanders — especially those who don’t have access to at-home charging — to choose clean transportation,” Interim Oakland Mayor Kevin Jenkins said in a statement. “By investing in this infrastructure now, we’re ensuring that all our communities can benefit from the transition to electric vehicles, reducing emissions and improving air quality for everyone.”
Several of the sites are “ready to go,” said Matthew McCaffree, vice president and general manager of EV charging at Flash, noting they can be live in six to eight weeks following final regulatory approval by the city. Flash will deploy the chargers to be operated on its Flash platform.
“When we were looking at this opportunity, we looked across where we had a significant footprint already, with our parking technology, and where there was a greater opportunity for bringing Level 2 charging into an urban environment. And Oakland was really an obvious answer for us,” McCaffree said, explaining how the partnership came about.
The chargers are being installed at no cost to the city, which will receive 50 percent of the net revenue generated. Charging rates will be set at about 48 cents per kilowatt or $3 an hour, according to officials.
The new charging locations will join existing projects which went live last year. Those were part of the development of an EV charging “innovation lab,” funded with a $5.8 million grant from the California Energy Commission. Expanding electric vehicle charging is a mission for the CEC, said Commissioner Nancy Skinner.
Improving the availability and reliability of public chargers is a key part of that mission, she said during a Feb. 27 panel organized by Veloz, an EV policy and advocacy group based in Sacramento.
“We don't need that EV owner who goes and tells all their friends who don't yet have EVs, ‘Hey, every time I go to a public place to get a charge, it's broken,’ that does not advance our goals. So, [we're] improving that reliability,” Skinner said during the panel.
Car charging is becoming an expected amenity for parking garages and lots, McCaffree said, particularly in states with higher EV penetration like California, and in regions like its Bay Area.
However, when thinking about the expectations across the rest of the country, “I don’t think we’re quite there yet,” he said. “Things are changing rapidly. But it’s really dependent on where we’re talking about parking.”
California now has at least 178,549 public and shared private EV chargers in the state, which is 48 percent more charging plugs than gas nozzles, according to Veloz. The group was recently awarded a $43.5 million sponsorship from Electrify America as part of a national consumer education campaign. Some 1.3 million EVs were sold in the United States in 2024, a 7.3 percent increase from 2023.
Creating more opportunities for workplace charging and home charging for residents living in multifamily housing “is something we think a lot about at Flash,” said McCaffree. “Maybe the most interesting thing to me about this is being able to deploy that many chargers with such density.”
