Case Study: City of Fremont Deploys 19 CyberSwitching EV Chargers Across 5 City Sites

The Customer

The City of Fremont is one of the largest cities in the San Francisco Bay Area and a hub for advanced manufacturing and clean-tech in Silicon Valley. Like many California municipalities, Fremont is electrifying its vehicle fleet while also giving residents and visitors convenient places to charge at City facilities.

That means one charging network has to serve two very different users: City staff who need fleet vehicles charged and ready every morning, and members of the public who expect to pull in, pay, and charge without friction — across multiple sites, each with its own parking layout and electrical constraints.

The Challenge

When the City approached CyberSwitching, it had one site running legacy chargers and four new sites it wanted to bring online. Its experience with the existing stations had left the team frustrated, and it didn’t want to repeat those problems at the new sites. The issues came down to three things:

1. Reliability. Stations went down and stayed down. For a fleet that depends on vehicles being charged overnight, a dead charger means a city vehicle that can’t go out on its route — and for public stations, it means frustrated residents and a poor reflection on the City.

2. Support. When something broke, getting a real answer from the previous vendor was slow and difficult. Facilities staff were left chasing tickets instead of fixing problems.

3. Management across many sites. With chargers spread across multiple City properties, staff needed one simple system to see every station, control who can charge, collect payments, and pull reports — not a patchwork of portals.

On top of that, the City needed better pricing than it had been paying, and it wanted to add charging without triggering expensive electrical service upgrades at each site.

The Solution

Fremont selected CyberSwitching for a complete charging solution — hardware, software, and support from one U.S. manufacturer — and deployed 19 chargers across five City locations: replacing the legacy stations at one site and building four new charging sites from the ground up.

The Chargers: CSE1 Level 2 + 30kW DC Fast Charging

The backbone of the deployment is the CyberSwitching CSE1, a commercial-grade, networked Level 2 charging station. Most units were installed in dual-port pedestal configurations with cable management, which keeps cords off the ground, protects connectors from damage, and keeps walkways clear and ADA-friendly — a big part of keeping chargers working and looking good year after year.

For locations where vehicles need a faster turnaround, the City added CyberSwitching 30kW DC fast charging stations. These give fleet vehicles and public drivers a quick top-up without the cost and electrical footprint of a high-power DC site.

Fleet Charging with RFID

City fleet stations are restricted to authorized vehicles using RFID cards. Staff tap to start a session; unknown cards are rejected. Cards can be issued or deactivated centrally, so the City always controls who can charge — and every session is logged by user and vehicle for fleet energy reporting.

Paid Public Charging

At public-facing sites, drivers pay to charge using the QR code on each station or the mobile app. The City sets its own pricing, and revenue from public sessions helps offset the cost of electricity and operations — instead of the City giving away charging it pays for.

Dynamic Load Management

Rather than upgrading electrical service at every site, Fremont uses Dynamic Load Management to share the existing electrical capacity across chargers. Power is automatically balanced among active sessions in real time, so the City can install more charging ports on the same circuit capacity without overloading the panel. This cut installation cost and time and made it practical to add charging at locations that would otherwise have required a service upgrade.

One System for Every Site

All five locations are managed from a single cloud dashboard: real-time station status, remote diagnostics, RFID user management, pricing, session history, and reporting — fleet and public, Level 2 and DC — in one place. And when the City needs help, it gets responsive, U.S.-based support directly from the manufacturer.

The Impact

Fremont now runs a reliable, centrally managed network of 19 chargers that serves both of its audiences. The legacy site has been brought up to the same standard as the four new ones. Fleet vehicles charge on RFID-controlled stations the City fully controls. Public drivers can pay and charge at City sites, generating revenue that offsets operating costs. Dynamic Load Management lets the City add charging without costly electrical upgrades, and staff manage every charger at every location from one dashboard — with a support team that actually responds.

Reliable hardware, real support, fair pricing, and one system to run it all — that’s what a municipal charging program should look like.

Planning a fleet or public EV charging program for your city or agency? Get in touch with CyberSwitching or call 408.436.9830.