In 2021, the Los Angeles City Council approved an ambitious plan to bring dozens of charging stations and low-cost electric cars to South L.A., a community in desperate need of more affordable and environmentally-friendly transportation options.
Four years later, however, not a single station has been built in South Los Angeles. And the program that was expected to bring these electric cars and stations to the region has ended.
Last month, BlueLA, the city of Los Angeles’ electric car-share program, quietly shut down.
BlueLA launched in 2017 as a membership program targeting low-income residents that allowed drivers to rent electric cars by the minute at a monthly cost as low as $1 per month. It eventually grew into California’s largest electric car sharing program of its kind, according to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT), with over 1,000 active users as of last year, about half of whom qualified for community memberships with discounted rates based on income.
In 2021, plans were announced to add at least 100 vehicles and 20 stations in South L.A., as well as hundreds of e-bikes.
Until recently, there was little indication that BlueLA was at risk of ending.
Demand for the service was reportedly “surging” just a year ago, after 50 new electric cars were added to the BlueLA fleet and improvements were made to the app, which was known for glitching. By mid-2025, the city expected to have three South L.A. stations online.
But that never happened.
On the eve of April 21, the morning that L.A. Mayor Karen Bass unveiled her latest budget proposal, BlueLA ended, exactly seven years after it first launched.
“As of the 20th of April there is only one station in Culver City,” a BlueLA customer service representative told the reporter of this story when they called the customer service line in late-April.
“For now all of the [other] stations have stopped permanently,” the rep said.
In a written statement, Colin Sweeney, a spokesperson for LADOT, confirmed with L.A. TACO that “The city's contract with BlinkMobility, the operator of the BlueLA EV car share program expired in April.”
“While the BlueLA service will be ending in its current form, LADOT will repurpose charging assets established under the program to better serve Los Angeles residents and meet the needs of communities,” he added. “In the coming months, LADOT, working with council offices and private sector companies, will seek opportunities to repurpose existing stations for services such as independent car share services available to the public, additional bike share stations, and mobility hubs. Through this work, we will continue to reimagine new uses of curb space in Los Angeles and expand mobility options for Angelenos.”
Sweeney said that three notices were sent to BlueLA customers notifying them that the service was winding down. One was sent on March 13, another on April 4, and the final notice on April 18. Sweeney shared all these notices with L.A. TACO.
In a written statement to L.A. TACO, a Blink Mobility spokesperson confirmed that “On March 13, 2025, we notified all members via email that the BlueLA pilot program would conclude on April 20, 2025.”
“We recognize that this change has a significant impact on the community and share in the disappointment,” the spokesperson said. “While the BlueLA program has come to an end, Blink Mobility remains committed to expanding access to clean, affordable transportation in Los Angeles and beyond. Our Culver Hub remains active at 8575 Washington Blvd. Culver City, CA. We are also actively working with LADOT on obtaining permits to launch other open-to-the-public hubs across the city.”
Concerns about BlueLA shutting down were raised two months ago, in late-March, after LADOT submitted a report to the city council in February asking to redirect a portion of a multi-million dollar grant that they received from the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The roughly $3 million grant was intended to provide funding for BlueLA’s expansion into South Los Angeles.
“LADOT has failed to uphold its commitments to expanding EV car sharing in South and east L.A.,” a community member wrote the city council at the end of March. “Instead, now LADOT wants to [allow] Blink Mobility to dismantle 40 public EV Car Share stations in CD 1, CD 8, CD 9, CD 10, CD 14, and wants Council approval to reallocate $1.5 million in [grant] funds without community consultation … ”
In their report to the council, LADOT acknowledged that no stations had been built in South L.A. since the agency received the CARB grant in 2021. The department attributed the lack of progress to “repeated acts of vandalism and theft, supply chain issues, and operations changes including change in the contractual operator and a pandemic-era shutdown.”
“Due to these ongoing challenges, Blink Mobility has not installed any new BlueLA stations since it took over the contract from” [the previous operator] in 2021, LADOT told the council.
“While reallocating this funding now is necessary to meet grant obligations, LADOT will continue to work to address the issues facing its BlueLA low-income car sharing program, and seek opportunities to expand access into South Los Angeles.”
On April 1, the city council approved LADOT’s request to move $1.5 million in grant funds for BlueLA to an on-demand shuttle service in South Los Angeles.
Residents of South L.A. say that the city’s decision to take away funding for BlueLA and pull the plug on BlueLA’s expansion into South L.A., follows a familiar pattern of neglect.
“For years I have witnessed the excitement and momentum in my community around the promise of clean mobility resources like e-bikes and electric carshare. The anticipation of cleaner, more accessible transportation has brought hope to many,” South Los Angeles native Neyda Quintanilla wrote to the city council before it voted to repurpose funding for BlueLA. “However, time and time again, that hope turns into frustration as these resources never materialize.”
“Instead, well-to-do communities gain access to these advancements while neighborhoods like mine are left behind. Why are we continuously overlooked when we need these resources the most?”
“The mismanagement of money and BlueLA program has been a travesty for the South LA community,” Steven Tan wrote to the city council. “Having reliable and sustainable transportation is one step toward improved infrastructure within Los Angeles.”
The end of BlueLA comes at a time when the city is facing dire financial uncertainty, further raising doubts about the possibility of electric car sharing coming to South Los Angeles anytime soon.
A day after BlueLA’s last day of service, in an effort to make up for a nearly $1 billion budget deficit, Mayor Bass outlined a plan to potentially lay off over 1,600 city workers, in addition to closing city departments (including the city’s climate emergency office).
The contract with Blink Mobility was not renewed because of "rising costs" and "challenges with vandalism," according to Sweeney.
"Due to rising costs and ongoing challenges with vandalism, the BlueLA service operator was not able to meet its contracted deliverables, and was unable to install the planned new stations," Sweeney told L.A. TACO after this story published. "LADOT determined that the remaining grant funding could better serve Angelenos if directed to other purposes like the recently launched free CityRide membership program which repurposes $1.5 million in CARB STEP grant funds to offer 5,000 free memberships for our on-demand paratransit program to eligible applicants in SouthLA."
Although BlueLA suffered from chronic issues including vandalism, poor customer service, data breaches, and problems with the app, hundreds of mostly low-income people still regularly used the service.
A 2023 study by a team of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Texas found that in general, despite its technical problems, the service was still of value to the dozens of people that they surveyed.
For their study, the researchers interviewed more than 35 BlueLA users. In most cases, interviewees said that they joined BlueLA because they didn’t have regular access to a car and they wanted to access destinations that were more easily reached by car.
Almost all of the people that they spoke to said that one of the main draws of BlueLA was its affordability. A BlueLA membership costs as little as $1 per month and a three hour rental costs around $15.
Users also reported that they commonly used BlueLA to complete household errands and do their grocery shopping.
“Many of the interviewees rented vehicles for 3 or 5 hour blocks of time, batching errands from throughout the week,” the researchers wrote in their report. “Relative to public transit or walking, BlueLA offered considerable advantages in making these household trips because the service allowed them to haul goods, other people, or pets.”
For the hundreds of low-income residents that relied on BlueLA, those days are now over.
