LACI’s New White Paper Calls For “Gold, Silver, And Bronze Medal Actions” To Increase Clean Energy And Transportation Electrification Deployment By Time Of 2028 Games

“Going for Gold on the Road to 2028” Estimates at Least  $11 Billion in EV Charging, Batteries, EV Buses, Heat Pumps, & More Deployed Across LA County since 2020

Paper Calls for Additional “Commitments to Action,” Outlines Actions Needed for Clean Air, Economic Investment, & Climate Innovation to be Legacies of 2028 Games

Los Angeles, July 28, 2026 – Today, the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) released “Going for Gold on the Road to 2028: A Medal Framework for Accelerating Transportation Electrification and Clean Energy Deployment in Greater Los Angeles Ahead of the 2028 Games,”  a new white paper outlining how Greater Los Angeles and California can take “Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medal Actions” to increase and accelerate investments and deployments by the time Los Angeles welcomes the world for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. These recommendations will help ensure a visible, reliable, and lasting legacy of cleaner air, increased economic investment, and climate innovation for all communities, including frontline neighborhoods.

The white paper estimates that since 2020, at least  $11 billion has been deployed across Los Angeles County into EV charging, electric buses and fleets, building electrification, distributed solar, battery storage, and other distributed energy resources. This estimated investment shows how state and local policy have helped move climate ambition into deployed clean transportation and clean energy infrastructure and investment.

To build on this momentum and the unique delivery window presented by the 2028 Games, the white paper introduces a Gold, Silver, Bronze Medal action framework to focus the region’s investment agenda around: enhancing the systems critical to 2028 performance, defining the pathways that must be redesigned before scaling, and expanding the long-term investments that must be protected as legacy for the decade ahead and beyond. The framework includes:

• Gold for 2028: Actions to ensure key infrastructure systems are deployed by 2028, including increased charging for fleets and key infrastructure for powering heavy-duty EV trucks in polluted freight corridors along with enhanced managed load and dispatchable storage to support reliability.
• Silver for 2035: Advancing pathways to scale building electrification at time of replacement, supporting EVITP and the workforce needed to build, deliver, and maintain these projects, and scaling increased investment in underserved communities to achieve state goals by 2035.
• Bronze for 2045: Protecting the long-term trajectory for the decades ahead by 2045 requires planning for deep retrofits, full fleet electrification, broad grid modernization, and more for LA and California to lead.

The white paper builds on the work of LACI’s Transportation Electrification Partnership (TEP) and Clean Energy Partnership (CEP)–two unprecedented public-private partnerships that have proven instrumental in shaping the policy, funding, and regulatory landscapes that are critical to accelerating transportation electrification and clean energy by 2028. 

The white paper also calls for immediate action at the local, state, and market levels, including:

1. Local action to remove barriers and invite innovation, including permitting and interconnection tiger teams (e.g., LACI is leading a tiger team with LADWP and City of LA officials along with nearly 10 charging companies to remove nine identified barriers to getting charging interconnected by 2028), flexible interconnection approaches, mobile and temporary storage and charging, and workforce partnerships to scale the skilled labor needed to deliver projects.
2. State action to target funding to the region and increase statewide incentives, including moving existing funding from the California Energy Commission (CEC), the California Air Resources Board (CARB), and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) into high-impact Los Angeles area projects; accelerating truck and fleet incentives; increasing support for school bus electrification; and extending virtual power plant and demand-side grid support programs through 2028.
3. Commitments to Action, calling on companies, investors, philanthropies, public agencies, community partners, and entrepreneurs to bring forward projects, capital, pilots, and programs that accelerate clean energy, clean transportation, clean air, and economic opportunity by the time of the Games and beyond. To date, LACI has announced more than $700 million in Commitments to Action for LA (including the nearly $600 million in Commitments announced at the Road to 2028 Summit on July 14-15). 

Read the white paper for the full list of recommended actions and more. 

ABOUT LACI:
The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) is unlocking innovation by scaling cleantech startups, transforming markets through catalytic partnerships with policymakers, innovators, and market leaders, and enhancing communities through workforce training, pilots and other programs. Founded as an economic development initiative by the City of Los Angeles and its Department of Water & Power (LADWP) in 2011, LACI is recognized as one of the top 10 innovative business incubators in the world by UBI. LACI has helped 537 portfolio companies raise over $1.5 billion in funding, generated $477 million in revenue, and created more than 3,000 jobs throughout the Los Angeles region, with a long term economic impact of more than $733 million.

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