At O’Farrell’s Direction, City of Los Angeles Moves Closer to Vehicle Fleet Free of Fossil Fuels

Key Council committee advances major components of L.A.’s Electric Vehicle Master Plan

LOS ANGELES — Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell, the chair of the Los Angeles City Council’s Energy, Climate Change, Environmental Justice, and River (ECCEJR) committee, today led a major update to the City’s Electric Vehicle (EV) Master Plan, a first-of-its-kind program to electrify the entire fleet of City vehicles, while building out a network of EV charging infrastructure that will bring this technology to every corner of Los Angeles.

“Angelenos deserve to breathe clean air and live healthy, productive lives,” said Councilmember O’Farrell, chair of the Council’s Energy, Climate Change, Environmental Justice, and River Committee. “Our work to electrify the City vehicle fleet and equitably distribute charging infrastructure across Los Angeles is well underway, taking fossil fuel-powered vehicles off our roads and cleaning our air for future generations.”

 

In April 2022 Councilmember O’Farrell, in partnership with Councilmember Paul Krekorian, led the City Council’s approval of the EV Master Plan, and directed relevant departments to provide biannual progress reports to ensure the City remains on track to meet its goals.  At today’s committee meeting, presentations were given by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the General Services Department, the Department of Recreation and Parks, StreetsLA, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and LA Sanitation and Environment. The departmental reports summarized existing electric vehicle counts; ongoing efforts to further electrify their fleets; and challenges to electrification.

 

By 2025, Los Angeles is expected to meet its targets of installing 45,000 EV charging stations and 300 new “Blue LA” stations in an equitable fashion across the city. In the near term, more than 100 EV chargers are on track to be installed at 14 City facilities across the City, bringing the number of EV charging stations at City-owned facilities to a total of nearly 400. Additionally, O’Farrell instructed City departments to review vehicle purchases in this current fiscal year’s budget, and to identify and replace fossil fuel-powered vehicles with electric ones.

 

Under the leadership of O’Farrell and the ECCEJR committee, more broadly the City of Los Angeles remains on track to be powered by 100% carbon-free, renewable energy by 2035 – a target of the “LA100” plan that is the most ambitious of any municipality in the nation.