California EV Charging Reliability Rules Face Their Test

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes · Last updated: 30 October 2026

California EV charging reliability rules are now in force, and they bind anyone seeking state money to build public chargers. Under laws passed in 2022 and 2023, the California Energy Commission (CEC) enforces reliability and data-sharing standards for installers funded by state agencies or regulated utilities. Applicants for the $55 million offered through the California Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Project (CALeVIP) must pick approved hardware and software and report performance every hour. New publicly funded fast chargers must also support the OCPP 2.0.1 protocol. Charging companies disagree over whether the paperwork will help drivers. A repair firm says important gaps remain. The state is also paying for a Sacramento test lab meant to catch faults before chargers reach the street.

make sure that chargers work as they're expected, the first time that you plug them in

Orville Thomas, CEO, California Energy, Power, and Innovation Collaborative

What California Now Demands of Publicly Funded Chargers

Washington set the stage. The Biden administration attached reliability conditions to its $5 billion EV-charger program. Jeff St. John, chief reporter and policy specialist at Canary Media, argues that the Trump administration has since mangled federal leadership on the issue, leaving states to fill the gap. St. John notes that California has more EVs than any other state, giving it the strongest reason to act.

The state's legal footing came from two laws, passed in 2022 and 2023. They told the CEC to set standards for charger installers that receive money from state agencies or from regulated utilities. Turning those laws into working rules took years, but the rules are now in place.

CALeVIP is where they bite. To draw on its $55 million in incentives, applicants must choose hardware and software from an approved list and submit performance data hour by hour. The Center for Sustainable Energy, a nonprofit, manages the program on the state's behalf.

Why the Hourly Data Rules Split the Industry

Not every company welcomes the reporting load. An employee of a large charging network, who was not named, told St. John the CEC rules are "largely an onerous data-reporting exercise" that won't "move the needle on reliability." In that view, the paperwork measures problems without solving any of them.

Obrie Hostetter, director of fleet decarbonization programs at the Center for Sustainable Energy, says she understands the concern. Her reply is that a charger built with public money owes the public dependable service. Gathering performance data, she argues, is a central way to check that it delivers.

Both positions can hold at once. Data does not mend a broken charger. Without it, though, the state cannot tell which funded sites are meeting their obligations, and it has no evidence for adjusting the rules later.

How OCPP 2.0.1 Guards Against Stranded Chargers

One requirement goes beyond reporting. Every publicly funded direct-current fast charger installed on or after 28 September must support OCPP 2.0.1. The Open Charge Point Protocol is a technical standard that lets chargers and back-end management software made by different vendors talk to each other, and 2.0.1 is its newest version. Hostetter says the aim is to protect chargers, and the drivers who rely on them, if a manufacturer or network operator collapses.

That risk is not theoretical. In 2024 Enel X Way closed its North American charging business and walked away from roughly 25,000 JuiceBox commercial chargers that ran on nonstandard software.

Michael Bakunin, chief executive of software vendor Epic Charging, helped some owners of those units move them onto his company's platform so they kept working. He described the migration as difficult, as first reported by Canary Media. Certifying to the CEC's protocol rules was no easier: "They have very strict requirements." Bakunin hopes the standard will let the next wave of chargers change software providers when they need to.

What the Rules Still Miss, According to ChargerHelp

Kameale Terry, chief executive and co-founder of ChargerHelp, a company that repairs chargers nationwide, calls missing or incomplete data a major obstacle. ChargerHelp was among the companies that lobbied for the 2022 law ordering the CEC to collect more of it.

Terry says repair crews still cannot reach all the information they need to work out why a charger has failed. She also says no clear rules require hardware and software companies to manage the "handoffs" in a charging session well. Those are the transfers between charger diagnostics, communication with the vehicle, payment authorization and the other steps where a session can collapse.

Her point is about accountability. A driver sees one failed session, whichever of several companies caused it. The requirements in force today deal with vendor approval, data reporting and software portability. Terry argues that no one is yet clearly responsible for each link in that chain.

Can a Sacramento Test Lab Fix What Rules Cannot?

Terry points to a different kind of state help: a $4 million CEC grant for the Capital Charge Yard, a Sacramento testing lab that opened in August. ABB, ChargePoint, EVgo, Hubject, Rivian and Tesla are among the EV and charging companies involved.

The California Energy, Power, and Innovation Collaborative, a nonprofit that already trains EV and charger technicians, runs the yard. Orville Thomas, its chief executive, says CEC-funded testing lets the group extend that work so equipment performs properly from its first use. The goal, in his words, is that "when everything is fully adopted and out in the open, things work as they're supposed to."

St. John frames the approach as a pairing of regulation and room to experiment. In his view, government is both referee and coach. It should set standards so public dollars reach reliable operators. It can also give rival companies neutral ground to work out how their products fit together.

Will California's approach make public charging more reliable?

The bottom line

California's approach now has two parts. The stick is a set of CEC conditions on public money: approved vendors, hourly performance data and OCPP 2.0.1 on new fast chargers, all resting on the 2022 and 2023 laws. The carrot is a $4 million shared test site where rival firms can find faults together before drivers do. Neither part yet deals with the handoff problem Terry describes, and the industry has not agreed that the data rules are worth what they cost. The Enel X Way shutdown shows the cost of inaction: roughly 25,000 chargers left without the company that ran them. The real measure is whether funded sites stay working.

What to watch

• Watch for the first hourly performance figures from CALeVIP-funded sites, which will show whether the data rules reveal or reduce outages; no date has been set.
• Watch whether the CEC moves to set rules on charging-session handoffs that Kameale Terry says are missing; no proposal or date has been announced.
• Watch for results from interoperability testing at the Capital Charge Yard in Sacramento; no publication date has been given.