University of California, San Diego
IN-26: Innovation C

The primary project goal is to demonstrate a sustainable, replicable business model for accessible Electric Vehicle Support Equipment (EVSE) concurrent with enabling affordable Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEVs) for fleet, workplace/commuter and public use at the ten UC campuses and LBNL. Specifically, the program will enable meeting the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) goals of having 50% of all new light duty fleet vehicle acquisition be ZEV or hybrid by 2025, 4.5% of all commuter vehicles be ZEV by 2025, and 5% of CA agencies be EV-ready at “workplace” facilities by 2020. The replicability will extend to other large and public institutions in meeting the CA Governor’s Executive Orders, Legislative policies and regulatory goals for ZEVs.

The project strategies are to maximize present and scheduled public and private incentives in a “Field of Dreams” approach (i.e., “if you build it, they will come”) to provide accessibility to economically feasible EVSE based upon the high utilization of assets that are holistically optimized for shared use and exploiting emerging revenue potential from the grid via flex charging and ancillary services. Affordable EV lease/purchases will be enabled by creating “evergreen” fleet purchase and lease prices with major EV carmakers for students, faculty, staff and retirees. Finally, the sizeable portions of college staff and students that reside within disadvantaged communities will be emphasized to prove that if accessible EVSE and affordable EVs become a reality, the underserved communities will become a significant and viable avenue for meeting CA ZEV Goals.

UCSD is the largest, most diversified university portfolio in the world of EVSE with an existing 57 Level IIs, 7 DC Fast Chargers, 8 Vehicle-to-Grid chargers and has co-funding with EVgo’s Make Ready program for an additional 184 stub outs capable of supporting 368 Level II chargers, which is comparable to Google’s and Apple’s campuses. As a replicable use case, this experience will position CA’s higher education campuses extremely well for successful bids in the next three rounds of CA ZEV Investment Plan at $200M/each (2019-2025), the $200M CEC GFO-16-603, and ratepayer funded programs at all three IOUs.
Pioneering fleet pricing to the UC San Diego community doubled the EV workplace penetration from the previous 6 years in just 6 months, and has now been extended to all UC campuses by Nissan, Daimler, BMW and Ford with the collaboration of the UC Sustainable WG and the UC Sustainable Procurement WG. Appendix 1 shows the affordability ranges from a net of $17/month (Daimler) to $140/mo (BMW i3) after all OEM and public incentives are leveraged. Nissan offers a $10,000 cash rebates on Leafs, and the UC San Diego campus fleet purchased fifty unused Daimlers for <$12,000 each

In the first 6 months of this project, over 300 UCSD students, faculty, staff and retirees have taken advantage of the lease/purchase offers by Ford, Nissan, Daimler and BMW. The direct email to all UCSD employees was the second highest read email released by the University in 2016 at 13.8%. The hit rate at the special offer website after 1 week = 3,218 (10.5%), and the hit rate after 3 weeks = 4,213 (13.8%). Visitors to the website had an impressive viewing time greater than 3 minutes. In 3rd week had jump from to 5,673 to 7,282 of total views which indicates 58% of the unique viewers returned for a second more detailed look. Thus, there is no doubt that UCSD students, faculty and staff took great interest in the opportunity. For the Disadvantaged Communities (DAC) communities, as defined by SB 350, and underserved markets, the Daimler Smart Car lease offer of $80/month will return in July 2017, and with the $2500 CA EV rebate reinstituted, the net lease cost will be almost zero. Additionally a $2000 CA Low Income Rebate is available as is $1000 "cash for clunkers" rebate. Thus, the ~2000 UCSD employees living in DACs will have the opportunity for an affordable EV and accessible workplace charging. It is believed that this combination for DAC residents is exceptionally rare and will make for a very valuable best practices case study to be shared with various public awareness programs.

See also:

http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/nuvve_and_uc_san_diego_to_demonstrate_vehicle_to_grid_technology

http://sustain.ucsd.edu/involve/offers.html