How public institutions can level up to meet the needs of their communities.

Learn how San Jose, California grew electric vehicle awareness and adoption in partnership with underserved neighborhoods.

Read the brief.

180 square miles, with few high-paying jobs, a heavily auto-focused transportation system, and ambitious climate targets, San Jose, California is laser focused on getting people into electric vehicles and onto bikes.

With the data showing that only high earning households are buying electric vehicles, People Place Consulting was brought in to design an engagement and communications strategy to ensure low-income neighborhoods benefit from San Jose’s mobility transition.

OUR APPROACH

1

Co-create solutions with trusted community leaders and organizations

We established formal partnerships with local leaders and organizations, including with Peninsula Family Service, a community services organization, and a paid community advisory group comprised of local leaders. Working in partnership with these groups, the following communications and engagement strategy was developed:

  1. Invest in an education campaign that could bridge into lower income neighborhoods. This would mean developing simple materials about electric vehicles, their benefits, and available resources in multiple languages and through the diverse communications channels.

  2. Part of a commitment to community is investing in multiple areas of community need. Realizing financial access was a concurrent barrier, a partnership with Peninsula Family Service and Access Clean California was formed to provide financial literacy and electric vehicle subsidy one-on-one and group workshops.

  3. A third part of the campaign work was to conduct training sessions with auto dealerships, as many sales people were not familiar with available state and federal subsidies. A partnership was formed with dealerships to provide an additional discount in exchange for marketing and exposure.

Engagement early and often in neighborhoods to collect and ground-truth data

Canvassing in neighborhoods, speaking with the city’s youth commissioners, hosting focus groups with community leaders, People Place Consulting first sought to understand the reasons why underserved neighborhoods were not participating in the electric vehicle market.

What we found:

  1. Awareness. Little to no education about electric vehicles within underserved neighborhoods.

  2. Financial access. A large majority of car purchases within underserved neighborhoods do not occur at dealerships, as dealerships require credit scores that lower income individuals do not meet.

  3. Complexity. Navigating available electric vehicle subsidies is a long and complicated process that many lower income families are not compelled to participate in.

  4. Incompatible infrastructure. Apartments and higher density single family households are not compatible with in-home charging infrastructure, and there is a lack of public charging infrastructure in underserved neighborhoods.

2

Build a strong and bridging communications infrastructure.

Key to the success of the strategy was improving awareness about electric vehicles and available subsidies by meeting community where they are. This required an evaluation of how San Jose’s non-English speaking and underserved households consumed information. Through this assessment, People Place Consulting pursued a multi-channel campaign strategy which included the following:

  1. Spanish and Vietnamese radio segments about electric vehicles and available resources on local radio stations, played over the course of several months.

  2. Spotify and Instagram advertisements in English, Vietnamese and Spanish. Another focus audience was digital native youth, who can act as a conduit of information into heads-of-household.

  3. Co-marketing partnerships with neighborhood serving organizations. The last element was marketing partnerships between the City and resource organizations in deep and regular contact with many of the neighborhoods we sought to reach.

4

Establish mechanism to track progress and pivot if needed

Recognizing the need to track whether efforts were resulting in uptake and adoption of electric vehicles, People Place Consulting evaluated available options to track progress. Ultimately, a partnership with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District was formed, as the regional government body tracked utilization of electric vehicle subsidies by city and census track.

3

Outcomes

  • Credit and EV awareness classes in multiple languages with hundreds of low income, non-English speaking residents in San Jose and surrounding cities

  • Multi-ethnic awareness campaigns run in language as segments on local Vietnamese and Spanish radio stations

  • Partnership with mainstream car dealerships and used car dealerships

  • Data tracking system with Bay Area Air Quality Management District to track whether San Jose communities are utilizing available subsidies