Los Gatos Restricts Electric Car Charge Stations' Parking Stalls to EV Only

The Los Gatos Town Council unanimously voted this week to restrict access to the municipality's electric vehicle charging stations exclusively to electric vehicles owners.

The move was applauded by Los Gatos EV expert Mike Calise, who praised town government leadership, including Mayor Barbara Spector, for a comprehensive review of their charging stations program.

The access points are located at:

• South parking lot across the street from the Toll House Hotel
• Parking lot 5, between Elm and Main streets
• Parking lot 3, between Royce Street and Grays Lane (two behind the former Domus building)

There are also two EV charging stations at the Los Gatos Motor Inn, which were installed in early 2012.

"This is a good day for the Bay Area community," exclaimed Calise in a written statement Monday evening after the vote was taken.

Calise said the town had followed through its long-term EV charging stations plan by assessing usage of the access points, particularly after staff received numerous concerns through emails and telephone calls from EV drivers expressing their frustration that the parking stalls adjacent to the charging stations were available to all vehicles and were often occupied by conventional vehicles, limiting the charging opportunities for EVs.

"After measuring a significant increase in demand, it was good to see the town move to exclusive use of those parking stalls to pure battery electric EVs or Plug-In Hybrid Electric vehicles," Calise said.

In addition, those electric vehicle owners must initiate a paid-for charging session and will not have a special privilege of parking in an open charging station stall just because they drive an EV, he added.

Everyone gets treated equally as the respective parking lot allotted timeouts govern the max length of all vehicles parking there including gas and electric powered vehicle with no special time extensions for EVs, he said.

In time, it may be that the max EV charging sessions may be shorter than the parking lot allotted time maximums if the town feels that the EV demand will continue to outstrip supply and even faster turnover is required, he noted.

The town's four EV charging stations became operational in June 2012. Since that time, staff has been monitoring the usage activity for each station.

Charging activity started out at a moderate rate, but has continued to steadily increase, according to a staff report. Initially, usage of the four stations was averaging one to two charging sessions per day per station; however; current usage is averaging nearly three charging sessions per station per day.

The Council's direction when the chargers were intalled was to keep them public spaces not specifically restricted to electric vehicles, given the existing high parking demands downtown and elsewhere in Los Gatos, Los Gatos Town Manager Greg Larson said.

According to town officials, the four downtown stations generated 458 kilowatt hours of usage in June 2012, climbing to 1,148 kilowatt hours in October, 1,136 kilowatt hours in November and 1,138 kilowatt hours in December.

It costs $2.50 per 24 hours to charge your vehicle in Los Gatos. It's free in Mountain View, Palo Alto, Redwood City, Campbell and Portola Valley.

Other South Bay communities charge the following:

• $0.50 per hour – Los Altos Hills
• $1 per hour – Saratoga, San Jose
• $1.50 per hour – Cupertino
• $2 per hour – Stanford University

ALSO ON LOS GATOS PATCH:

• Resident Upset Los Gatos Electric Car Charge Stations Occupied by Non-EV
• Los Gatos to Add Five Electric Vehicles to Municipal Fleet