public EV charging installations funded by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) – money came from DMV fees – were required to have both an inductive and a conductive AVCON charging head. This meant twice as much money was spent because the simple, cost-effective AVCON was not adopted by all automakers. These public EV charging installations did not use Avcon model charging heads; they used the more expensive EVII ICS-200 model AVCON charging heads. Automakers abandoned their promise to CARB to produce production EVs for public purchase by using a CARB mandate loophole (selling slow neighborhood EVs or carts to obtain their CARB credits) and very few production EVs were actually sold to the public (either inductive or conductive). Success of the conductive system An experiment co-sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and conducted by Underwriters Laboratories during the development of SAE J1772 concluded that butt-type contacts outperformed other conductive contact types, including pin-and-sleeve contacts, for the environmental endurance testing phase. In 2001, AVCON was endorsed by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) over Magne Charge, which caused GM to retire inductive paddle technology in 2002. Since conductive EV charging AVCONs can be used by all EVs by using an AVCON adapter box that provides a 240 V NEMA 14–50 outlet, and inductive EV charging cannot, some RAV4 EV drivers have taken to bringing their SPI TAL inductive charger with them. This allows RAV4 EVs with an inductive charging system to recharge from public, conductive, AVCON EV charging heads. This practice will fade away since virtually all 2011 and later production Electric Vehicles are equipped with a SAE J1772 charge port. Drivers of the few 2011 and later or conversion vehicles are either using SAE J1772 adapters that connect to their chargers or are putting SAE J1772 charge ports in their vehicles. Current status With no current production EVs available using the AVCON standard, hosts of EV charging stations (such as Costco, shopping malls, etc.) providing electricity at no or little charge to the consumer withdrew their support to repair their public AVCON EV charging stations. Members of the Electric Auto Association, a 501.3c nonprofit, have set up funds soliciting public donations for EV charging so the charging stations can be repaired after vandals damage them. This keeps the EVs on the road by extending their range for very little electricity cost to the host. AVCON stations are