With the commission projecting 7.1 million plug-in cars on California\u2019s roads by decade\u2019s end, the shortage most acutely affects apartment dwellers, only about one in six of whom can currently charge at home, according to its own survey.<\/p>\n
Washington has made that harder. A 2021 federal infrastructure law set aside $7.5 billion to build a national charging network. Last year, the Trump administration froze most of the $5 billion that should have gone to the states. Early this year a federal court ordered the release of California\u2019s $379 million share<\/a> but less than two weeks later Congress permanently repurposed $500 million of the program that other states had not yet committed. The funds are aimed mostly at highway fast-chargers.<\/p>\n The financing wars have meant that at the city level, where subsidies are lacking but the need is great, success turns on whether governments can relinquish some control of a finite, monetized and jealously managed resource: parking spaces. In many places, that has not gone well.<\/p>\n The people who build the charging equipment have grown frustrated. Shannon Dulaney, who directs public affairs for It\u2019s Electric, the company that installed San Francisco\u2019s two pilot chargers, said one of the state\u2019s most eco-conscious cities has buried a workable idea under process.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve put so many layers and so many things that cities have to meet in order to get anything done that it makes it impossible to do anything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n San Francisco\u2019s DIY solution<\/p>\n Adam Gill bought a Tesla in 2018 with no easy way to plug it in at his Noe Valley home, so he kept it charged at his office in Cupertino and at a Walgreens on Castro Street, where the machine often malfunctioned. Today, half the cars Gill sees in the neighborhood are EVs, but there are still few nearby charging options. He has asked the neighbors whose children play with his whether they ever thought about going electric. \u201cThey\u2019re like, well, we park on the street,\u201d he said, \u201cso that\u2019s probably not going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Around 2019 he started emailing city departments to complain, and went to his supervisor\u2019s office hours with a packet of photographs of extension cords running across sidewalks, evidence that people were improvising their own charging arrangements. The city, he said, was not ready for the coming EV transition.<\/p>\n Quickly he found that the issue had a champion in high office. Mandelman, who has represented District 8 on the Board of Supervisors for eight years, has been pressing city agencies on curbside charging for most of that time.<\/p>\n At a hearing last December of the board\u2019s Land Use and Transportation Committee following years of work, Mandelman\u2019s exasperation showed. \u201cI don\u2019t doubt that you share the urgency around it,\u201d he told city staff. \u201cIf I think this is a problem and you think it\u2019s a problem, how do we get it done more expeditiously?\u201d<\/p>\n When staff presented a proposal to make the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency the \u201cfront door\u201d for applications, Mandelman asked the interagency team whether this would move things any faster. Kate Toran, director of the agency\u2019s Taxis, Access and Mobility Services Division, cautioned that many steps remained in the way of a charging company seeking an installation permit, because the \u201ccast of characters\u201d that signs off on each site \u2014 about half a dozen city departments whose jurisdictions overlap at the curb \u2014 \u201cwill remain.\u201d<\/p>\n Mandelman discusses the tempo of the curbside charger program with transportation agency official Kate Toran last December at a City Hall hearing. Video: SFGovTV<\/p>\n The ordinance that passed in May<\/a> made the transportation agency that single entry point, sparing companies a separate public works permit to occupy the sidewalk. The rules the city published in late August<\/a> are more detailed and in many ways more difficult for EV charging companies to navigate than the pilot phase. Much of what they describe is exacting and knowable in advance. Yet parts of the approval process are subjective, unpredictable and undefined. An applicant passes, the rules say, when it shows \u201ca high level of commitment and strong capacity\u201d in materials that are \u201cclear, well-organized, and specific.\u201d<\/p>\n The city never says how long any of it takes. In May, while the rules were still being written, a transportation agency spokesperson said the goal was to review sites within weeks, not months, with the caveat that staff capacity and the number of sites in the queue could change that. Asked this week whether the agency commits to any review period, a spokesperson said the city \u201cis committed to reviewing all applications in a timely manner and providing quick feedback,\u201d and encouraged applicants to line up power, neighborhood support and installation logistics themselves \u201cto speed up the entire process.\u201d<\/p>\n After a company obtains an operator permit from the transportation agency, it applies again for each cluster of sites. Those proposals go before the fire, police and public works departments, then to the Department of Building Inspection for electrical permits, back to public works again for excavation, and to the city Public Utilities Commission or Pacific Gas & Electric Co. for power. Separate approvals are needed on land controlled by the port authority, the Recreation and Park Department or Caltrans. Each site also needs the city traffic engineer\u2019s sign-off. Staff cautioned the agency\u2019s board in April that the first permits were unlikely to receive final green lights until the spring or summer of 2027, though none of the newly published program documents sets a date.<\/p>\n The agency weighs 10 listed considerations \u201cand any other factor the Director of Transportation determines to be relevant\u201d in deciding to approve or deny a permit. And sites that would \u201ccause an imbalance in the geographical distribution\u201d of chargers can be turned down.<\/p>\n Equity goals might derail an otherwise sound application. For evaluating sites, the rules say only that the city \u201cmay consider\u201d density, socioeconomic demographics and proximity to apartment buildings. Every proposed site, the rules say, remains \u201csubject to review and approval,\u201d and officials may amend the specifications \u201cfrom time to time.\u201d<\/p>\n Achieving the ideal geographic spread can be difficult in a program that is entirely market-driven. If private companies are paying, they tend to put chargers in neighborhoods where the most EV drivers live and profit potential is high, a dynamic that could \u201ccreate gaps in a well distributed citywide network,\u201d the consulting firm Arup wrote in an April 2025 feasibility study<\/a> in collaboration with transportation and other city staff. The report said directing both public and private investment could be part of the solution. Yet earmarked subsidies for curbside chargers have not materialized.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve never had money to do this as a city, so it\u2019s all vendor led,\u201d Nicole Appenzeller, the clean transportation lead at the San Francisco Environment Department, said in an interview. So, the city\u2019s only leverage is approving or rejecting sites each company brings forward.<\/p>\n Many stakeholders<\/p>\n The transportation agency collects about $52 million a year from thousands of metered parking spaces. The feasibility study said those spots had been \u201cautomatically disqualified\u201d and not considered for the site suitability analysis \u201cto prevent the City from losing revenue or impacting commercially established zones.\u201d The August guidelines sound less categorical.<\/p>\n Broderick Paulo, a planner for the city\u2019s transportation agency, said metered parking is a better use of commercial-zone curbs requiring quick turnover than is EV charging. Standard curbside Level 2 AC power hookups can take hours to fully charge a battery.<\/p>\n Vendors need to earn \u201ccommunity support,\u201d and local resistance could block a permit. Before appearing at a public hearing on each site, a company must notify the district\u2019s supervisor, neighborhood associations, merchant groups within a quarter mile and the owner of every property fronting the site \u2014 and hand out flyers in the languages the agency indicates that the neighborhood\u2019s residents speak.<\/p>\n If a company cannot win over key constituencies, the agency \u201cmay hold the application from advancing\u201d until support emerges. The rules set no threshold for opposition, no vote and no time limit, and they advise the company to \u201cencourage stakeholders from community to attend and speak in favor\u201d at the hearing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt takes quite a bit of time to get community buy-in,\u201d Paulo said. \u201cAnd if there is significant pushback, we ask the vendor to look for a new site that is suitable and supported by the community.\u201d<\/p>\n A multistep approval process faces charging equipment companies. Officials reserve the right to deny permits for numerous reasons, including neighbors\u2019 objections. Source: San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency<\/p>\n Given the myriad procedural complexities, city staff said, their public goal of 100 chargers was intentionally conservative. In fact, it is far lower than the roughly 800 that a city-sponsored study, drafted by the International Council on Clean Transportation<\/a> at the start of this decade, said could be deployed by 2030 under a scenario in which the city built a curbside charging network for the expected flood of new EV drivers living in multifamily housing. The city\u2019s overall charger network targets come from a different scenario in the same study, the one that assumes no curbside buildout.<\/p>\n Asked in April where the 100-charger goal came from, Mandelman said he presumed it originated in that study. That number appears nowhere in it.<\/p>\n Appenzeller said it emerged from staff discussions as a \u201creasonable goal to start out with\u201d given the city\u2019s simultaneous focus on building hundreds of chargers in parking lots. She emphasized that the number is \u201ca floor, not a ceiling,\u201d to be revisited as data from the new program comes in.<\/p>\n Mandelman said he understood the need for balance in parking policy.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a pitched battle going on in neighborhood commercial corridors across San Francisco right now over curb space,\u201d he said. \u201cI think I agree that not adding another competitor into the very fraught neighborhood commercial fight is probably the correct move.\u201d<\/p>\n City officials were doing the best they could while balancing many interests, Mandelman added. \u201cI\u2019m cautiously optimistic that the pace will pick up,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I remain concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n Crowded streets, tough choices<\/p>\n The curb is hardly empty space waiting to be claimed. It already abuts bus and bike lanes, loading zones, shopping areas and accommodations for people with disabilities. A poorly positioned charger can set a mistake into the concrete where a mass-transit route or wheelchair ramp should someday\u00a0 go. That geospatial complexity is the city\u2019s top reason for reserving veto power even for parking spots that initially seem OK.<\/p>\n San Francisco\u2019s answer to this tension is a block-by-block siting tool sorting the city into three colors: red for off-limits curbs, yellow for sites that \u201cmight warrant a little bit more discussion\u201d and green for those that \u201cshould kind of be good to go,\u201d as Appenzeller described it.<\/p>\n The online map, published in August, shows the geographic limitations facing curbside charging. Feasible curb runs almost unbroken through the Richmond, the Sunset, Parkside, the Excelsior and Visitacion Valley, neighborhoods of single-family homes and driveways. It thins to almost nothing in South of Market, the Tenderloin, Chinatown and North Beach. Those are many of the same blocks that hold the highest concentrations of people living in apartments with nowhere else to plug in \u2014 precisely those where curbside chargers would be most useful. The map is where the program\u2019s two promises, serving the renter and protecting the curb, collide in plain color.<\/p>\n Yet by the city\u2019s own account the tool is merely a guide. A disclaimer says it \u201cdoes not determine whether a charger can ultimately be installed at a specific location.\u201d A site that looks good on the map would go to a standing interagency meeting, where departments that control the curb decide whether to advance it, Paulo said before the rules were published.<\/p>\n In planning lingo, approvals are either discretionary or ministerial, another word for a determination relying on clear rules. For chargers on private property, state law makes approvals ministerial. San Francisco aims for curbside approvals to be \u201cas ministerial as possible,\u201d Appenzeller said, \u201cwhile still maintaining some discretion for ourselves,\u201d in particular, to steer applicants away from over-served neighborhoods.<\/p>\n Asked whether the city should move to an algorithmic, by-right approval, Mandelman said, \u201cFrom my perspective, that would be ideal.\u201d His hope was that \u201cas they get experience, they\u2019re able to make this more of a kind of checklist process, with less discretion and less need to think through a bunch of things.\u201d<\/p>\n When San Francisco invited charging companies to stake a claim at the curb and offered no subsidies, it relinquished ownership and revenue, leaving the siting decisions to entrepreneurs. Researchers studying how to spread electric driving beyond homeowners with garages caution that under such conditions, officials must ahead of time decide exactly where the equipment is preapproved, so firms preparing to build hardware are not forced to spin their wheels for months or years waiting. But San Francisco is trying to have it both ways. The city puts up no money, takes no share of what the chargers earn,\u00a0and still wants final say on every placement.<\/p>\n Focusing on San Francisco in a 2025 paper<\/a> in the Journal of Transport Geography, University of Illinois transportation engineers Ruolin Zhang and Eleftheria Kontou found that an advance, criteria-based map lets a city plan an equitable network up front, instead of rejecting applications one by one. They also found using the curb the cheapest way to add capacity.<\/p>\n \u201cUnlike traditional public chargers that require land acquisition and parking development,\u201d they wrote, \u201ccurbside stations utilize the public right-of-way and existing electrical infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n LA far ahead<\/p>\n Los Angeles has been doing exactly that for years. Its Bureau of Street Lighting owns the poles and the power and has hung its chargers on streetlights<\/a> by tapping the 9,000 miles of conduit and 27,000 miles of copper wire already beneath the street. Miguel Sangalang, the bureau\u2019s executive director, calls it \u201cone of the largest municipal deployments in the nation for EV chargers\u201d and envisions a pace San Francisco\u2019s rules never contemplate. \u201cWhat if we could install an EV charger on a pole within a day near you?\u201d he asked an interviewer last year.<\/p>\n The city took advantage of the conversion of streetlights to energy-efficient light-emitting diodes, freeing up excess power for electric cars. Flo, a charging company, said it worked with the city to design a special mounting bracket and swappable parts to recover quickly from vandalism. After a 2018 pilot, the city\u2019s first order of 75 units was up and running in about 90 days, the company said.<\/p>\n The city did not solve this by having fewer agencies. In 2018 Los Angeles exempted<\/a> public chargers from the need for a permit that governs other above-ground equipment in its right-of-way, and in 2022 it let transportation staff designate a charging stall without a City Council vote. Chargers there sit at metered spaces, and the department told the council the program costs it no meter revenue.<\/p>\n Sangalang said in a statement that aside from owning the poles, the city had intangible advantages: \u201cleadership to give clarity and purpose to the goal\u201d and \u201ca management structure and culture that encourages innovative thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n Los Angeles is not relying exclusively on city-owned infrastructure. Last year its transportation department announced 90 more curbside ports in partnership with It\u2019s Electric, replacing chargers left behind by a retired carshare network. It is the same company that installed San Francisco\u2019s two.<\/p>\n New York is testing the centralized planning approach at scale. Last month, its transportation department said it would expand<\/a> its public curbside network from 88 chargers to nearly 700 across the five boroughs within three years. The pilot project was a collaboration with local utility Consolidated Edison. In this phase transportation officials will control pricing, providing access to \u201clow- and moderate-income communities where private charging companies have made few investments.\u201d<\/p>\n In the spring, Philadelphia selected It\u2019s Electric to install up to 1,000 curbside chargers across the city, including along commercial corridors. Small curbside charging programs are also operating in Boston, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Kansas City, Portland, Seattle, Yonkers, N.Y., and the Northern California cities of Sacramento and Alameda. To accommodate EV drivers, some cities have simply legalized do-it-yourself solutions as a stopgap. Early last year Oakland began letting residents run covered charging cords across the sidewalk to their cars, one of the first cities in the country to do so.<\/p>\n Outside the United States on-street charging is ordinary street furniture. More than 20,000 of London\u2019s charge points<\/a> are slow or low-power, many on lampposts and along curbs, and plugs are common on residential streets in Paris, Amsterdam and other European cities.<\/p>\n Ted Lamm, a researcher at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment at the University of California, Berkeley, published a 2024 study<\/a> comparing nine cities\u2019 curbside programs. He said in an interview that if California cities want to get polluting gas cars off the road, they will have to demonstrate to drivers interested in switching to EVs that a robust charging network is under construction.<\/p>\n \u201cMore important than speed actually is predictability and assurance,\u201d said Lamm, who lives in San Francisco and has advised staff building its program. He said the city is, \u201cI think it\u2019s fair to say, a little bit behind where it ought to be. Doesn\u2019t mean it can\u2019t catch up pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n Cities resisted California reform<\/p>\n Public charging has a few vocal advocates at the state level, too, including Kevin McCarty, who represented Sacramento in the Assembly before his election as mayor in 2024. He authored several bills aimed at making it easier and quicker to deploy charging equipment. McCarty said promoting infrastructure in the public right-of-way can help accelerate urban EV adoption.<\/p>\n \u201cBig picture,\u201d he said in an interview, \u201cI think this is needed if we want to conquer the next wave as far as electrification of our transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n McCarty said many drivers who lack garages are ready to switch to electric but need a reliable way to keep their car batteries topped up by charging at night close to home.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s easy for a lot of people, but other people, it\u2019s super-complicated,\u201d he said. \u201cThey live in apartments, they live in condos. And so, I think if we\u2019re going to continue \u2014 we lament that we\u2019re not doing enough and going fast enough on climate change \u2014 you need to keep making it easier.\u201d<\/p>\n Twice McCarty proposed curbside fixes in the Legislature and each time they were narrowed, priced out or silently left to die. The proposed fixes that could have accelerated curbside charging included:<\/p>\n A deadline: McCarty in 2023 brought Assembly Bill 1504, which would have written curbside chargers into the definition the state already used everywhere else, and with it the 20-business-day permitting clock and automatic approvals. The League of California Cities objected that fast-tracking chargers would let electrification leapfrog other local priorities, among them disability access and affordable housing. McCarty deleted the provision before the bill\u2019s first hearing.<\/p>\n A plan: What remained in AB 1504 asked cities for something far smaller: to decide in advance where curbside chargers should go by adopting a plan. Republicans still voted no in committee hearings. One Assembly committee estimated the plans and permitting would cost local governments \u201cmillions of dollars statewide,\u201d McCarty\u2019s office said. Legislators set the bill aside in a suspense file and quietly let it die in January 2024 without a floor vote.<\/p>\n A map: California has never asked any agency to determine where curbside chargers are most needed. Legislation McCarty introduced in 2024, Assembly Bill 2427, initially would have directed the California Energy Commission to sort locations \u201cby income level, population density, multifamily housing density, renter density, and geographical area,\u201d and to locate utility and light poles that could carry chargers. That language cleared four committees and an Assembly floor vote, but on June 17, 2024, the author struck it. The commission had priced the work at about $190,000 a year plus a one-time $250,000, at a time that the state faced a budget deficit in the tens of billions. \u201cLikely, the high cost was the main reason that the provision was amended out,\u201d McCarty\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n A playbook: The bill ultimately passed with the support of 19 organizations, including such diverse interests as Rivian, ChargePoint, car dealers and the Union of Concerned Scientists. It assigned the Governor\u2019s Office of Business and Economic Development to produce a sample permitting checklist, model zoning ordinances and best practices on permit costs and review timelines. But the Legislature set no deadline for any of that to happen. The office got no money for the job. \u201cThe work is being done with existing resources and staff,\u201d a spokesperson said. The most recent edition of the office\u2019s permitting guidebook appeared in January 2023, before the law passed. The office said the model materials should publish this fall. Cities of 250,000 or more must, by the start of 2027, \u201cconsider\u201d the state guidebook and any updates to it, and publish a list of everything a complete application must include, a menu of fees and siting criteria. Cities may also declare that they have no appropriate curbside locations.<\/p>\n The Energy Commission said related planning continues and last month announced it intended to spend $95 million to support diverse charging programs statewide. None of it is earmarked for the curb, though a commission spokesperson said the agency \u201ccontinues to assess all opportunities for expanding EV charging for passenger vehicles, including curbside charging,\u201d and noted that some existing programs, among them block grants for community charging, can pay for curbside projects serving apartment buildings. Commissioner Nancy Skinner told an Assembly committee last November that the agency was working to \u201cmore specifically identify EV charging deserts and optimal public access locations.\u201d The commission is also putting some research money into technology, awarding It\u2019s Electric $1.1 million from a ratepayer-funded innovation grant to develop a curbside charger that can feed power back to the grid.<\/p>\n The economic development office said it had not received requests from cities for technical assistance, \u201calthough local jurisdictions have expressed an interest in learning from one another in these areas.\u201d Without state guidance, municipalities must make do with peer networking.<\/p>\n McCarty was philosophical about ushering ambitious new ideas through the statehouse. \u201cYou start bigger and you have to compromise along the way in order to get your bill signed,\u201d he said. \u201cThe law as far as the charging with the curbside has been, I think, yet to be achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n When told this reporting had surfaced gaps in his law\u2019s follow-through, McCarty invited ideas for policy solutions. \u201cYou give me some good material,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll find an author for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n Two years and counting<\/p>\n A hundred chargers, whenever they arrive, will not be enough for the hundreds of thousands of San Franciscans living in apartment buildings that lack off-street parking. It\u2019s Electric co-founder Tiya Gordon said the two charging posts were in use 70% of the time, a rate the company considers too high for people who need to plug in regularly. She said 325 drivers remain on the wait list for the invitation-only pilot phase, proving the demand is there.<\/p>\n Ashkan Javaherian is one of the few already plugging in. A scientist who researches therapies for Parkinson\u2019s and Alzheimer\u2019s diseases, he bought his first electric car in 2021, when the employer he commuted to in Menlo Park had chargers. Then his work moved back to the city, where his Lower Haight condominium has no garage and no plug. A space in a parking garage ran $20 a day, he said, and the nearest fast chargers sat in a Whole Foods lot, where a two-hour stop was hard on the battery and on his schedule. Almost every EV driver he knows has a private spot to park.<\/p>\n \u201cThose that are renting or don\u2019t have a garage, they just don\u2019t have EVs, because of this issue that they don\u2019t know where to charge,\u201d he said. Then the two posts appeared.<\/p>\n \u201cI was actually thinking about getting rid of my EV until I saw those,\u201d he said. \u201cJust having them one block away made it possible for me to keep charging in a practical way.\u201d<\/p>\n The curbside pilot, which opened to proposals in June 2024, invited three vendors with a diversity of technologies and business models. It\u2019s Electric draws power from adjacent buildings and shares the revenues with the owners, and asks drivers to carry compatible cables with them, a method popular in Europe. Voltpost attaches pull-down plugs to existing utility poles. UrbanEV uses off-the-shelf charging equipment.<\/p>\n The companies scouted and proposed sites by the dozen, and staff reviewed more than 80 of them by their own count. The city allowed each company one. Two years later, only It\u2019s Electric has anything built.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_3338.jpeg\")
Noe Valley resident Adam Gill pressed City Hall for years to install curbside charging, and was on hand for the demonstration site\u2019s opening ceremony. He said the city needs to move faster toward making clean transportation convenient. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting to get an actual permit pathway now, but I still have very real concerns about the things that are still slowing this down,\u201d he said. \u201cI think their goal of 100 by 2030 is pathetic, actually.\u201d Credit: Courtesy of Adam Gill<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/SF-curbside-charging-program-flow-chart.png\")
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Interactive: City data shows that dense neighborhoods and commercial corridors are where curbside chargers tend to be prohibited (red). Chargers are mostly allowed (green) in lower-density areas. Move the slider arrows to view two versions of the map. The city\u2019s zoomable mapping tool<\/a> shows block-level detail, and where approval depends on further review (yellow, not shown here).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Angelica-Frias-Smart-City-Strategist-LA-Bur-of-Street-Lighting-credit-Flo.png\")
Angelica Frias, smart city strategist for the LA Bureau of Street Lighting, demonstrates pole-mounted chargers in a promotional video. Credit: Flo<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_9039-scaled-e1788321964566-1024x952.jpeg\")
New York\u2019s PlugNYC program is being expanded citywide after the first chargers saw high use in dense residential neighborhoods. Credit: Michael Stoll \/ San Francisco Public Press<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_1926.jpg\")
Curbside chargers are ubiquitous in many European cities, including Paris. Credit: Lila LaHood \/ San Francisco Public Press<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-03-10-at-10.08.06-AM-scaled-e1788296708409-1024x575.png\")
\u201cIn practice, owning an EV in San Francisco is just realistic mostly for people who own their own home and have a garage,\u201d said pilot participant Ashkan Javaherian. \u201cIn a city where so many residents are renters, that\u2019s just not an equitable solution.\u201d Credit: SFGovTV<\/p>\n
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While they wait for official curbside charging equipment in their neighborhoods, many EV drivers without garages have rigged unregulated and potentially unsafe solutions, like stringing cables across sidewalks. Credit: Courtesy of Adam Gill<\/p>\n