People who don’t have garages can have a hell of a time finding a place to charge their electric vehicle, but hundreds of new SF curbside charging stations are in the works, and the first few will be in Dogpatch and Duboce Triangle.

San Francisco homes are notoriously garage-less, as the Chronicle points out in a report today that 70% of SF residents do not have a garage at their home. And if you don’t have a garage, then it’s a challenge to charge an electric or hybrid vehicle if you have one. There are about 1,000 public charging stations around town (most of which are not free), generally found in stand-alone lots, at a few Safeway or Whole Foods locations, or various gas stations and service shops.  

Mayor London Breed announced in June her intention to add new 700 public electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, many of them on-street, curbside charging stations at public parking spots. Then one could simply charge their electric car while parked, possibly even overnight.

And the Chronicle reports that this week, Breed’s office announced that the first of these stations will be in Duboce Triangle and Dogpatch. According to the official announcement from Breed’s office, these stations are expected to be installed and running “in the coming months.”

“This pilot exemplifies the city’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector and meet our climate goals,” SF Municipal Transportation Agency director Jeff Tumlin said in that Monday announcement (though as of Wednesday, Tumlin is no longer SF Municipal Transportation Agency director). “We can help improve access to a cleaner commute by supporting multiple modes of low carbon transportation.”

For the time being, this effort is still in the permitting and vendor selection process. Breed’s announcement notes the city has chosen three EV charging vendors: SF-based Urban EV, Brooklyn’s it’s electric, and another company Voltpost, which retrofits existing street lamp posts into charging stations.  Breed’s announcement says those companies are “working to advance their proposals,” so it’s unclear whether all three will actually get the contracts.

As mentioned in the Jeffrey Tumlin quote, this is a pilot program, and the contracts will only last for two years. But the city is keen to have these charging stations available around town permanently, and the pilot is designed to make sure the stations are in the right locations, and functioning well for users.

Though Breed’s announcement does not say anything about these being free charging stations. So it may cost money to use them. And parenthetically, the average cost at a California electric vehicle charging station is 51 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Related: A Whole Bunch of Electric Vehicle Chargers Could be Coming to SF Gas Stations and Auto Shops [SFist]

Image: JERSEY CITY, NJ - DECEMBER 1: Electric cars recharge their batteries at a curbside Charge Point electric vehicle charging station on December 1, 2024, in Jersey City, New Jersey. (Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)