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Jun 11, 2023

Apartment EV Charging: How Renters Can Get Juice

Related Video When shopping for a vehicle, most car buyers almost never consider

Related Video

When shopping for a vehicle, most car buyers almost never consider where they'll refuel since, unless you live in the boonies, gas stations are almost everywhere. But for buyers of electric vehicles, where to charge is a major aspect of EV ownership at present.

If you own a home, installing a Level 2, 240-volt charger allows for topping off an EV's battery in your garage or driveway each night if you need to. But if you're among the 36 percent of people in the U.S. who live in multi-unit dwellings such as apartments or condominiums (according to the latest U.S. census) you have limited options. Compared to home EV charging, none are ideal and are typically costly, inconvenient or both—and serve as barriers to EV ownership for multi-unit dwellers.

A 2022 survey found that some 40 percent of shoppers postponed buying an EV until they had their own garage because of concerns about charging. And a study of California residents who purchased EVs between 2012 and 2018 found that one in five returned to a gas-powered vehicle due the inconvenience of charging—and around 70 percent didn't have access to Level 2 charging at their home or workplace.

"Charging is obviously less convenient and more complicated for someone living in an apartment—and an anchor on growth of the market," says Jeff Allen, executive director of EV advocacy group Forth in Portland, Oregon.

"I think for the average consumer it's a barrier," adds Ben Prochazka, executive director of the D.C.-based Electrification Coalition. "That's why there's a lot of policy considerations in play to help move that forward."

One of these policy considerations is advancement of laws aimed at helping renters and condo owners more easily install chargers. Currently nine states have right-to-charge laws requiring landlords or home-owner associations (HOAs) to allow residents to install EV chargers. The laws differ from state to state but all prohibit building owners and condo HOAs from preventing the installation and use of EV chargers by residents, though they also stipulate requirements for renters and condo dwellers.

The renter or condo owner usually pays for the charging equipment and its installation. They're also typically required to shell out for charger maintenance, the electricity used, liability insurance, and a designated parking space if one isn't already assigned or near where the charger is installed.

California, which leads the nation in EV ownership, adopted a civil code in 2014 that applies to both owner- and renter-occupied units. It allows an EV charger to be installed "within an owner's unit or in a designated parking space" or "at a parking space allocated for the lessee." Building owners can also locate a charging station in a common area if installation in the owner's designated parking spot is unreasonably expensive or impossible.

There are several caveats, however. For example, it doesn't apply to properties where landlords have installed EV charging stations in at least 10 percent of the designated parking spaces, there are fewer than five parking spaces, or the law is superseded by some local EV charging station ordinances.

Other states with right-to-charge laws include Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, New York, Florida, Oregon, Colorado, and Hawaii, although renters and even building owners and managers may not even be aware of the laws. "It's really up to individual EV owners and apartment managers to do the research," says Allen. "We've done some work that the U.S. Department of Energy helped fund to develop tools for apartment managers to make it easier for them to navigate the process."

Several cities are making EV charging easier for anyone without a garage or driveway by installing on-street chargers on utility and streetlight poles. This has the added benefit of reducing the cost of installation by up 70 percent compared to building new ground-based chargers

Kansas City started a three-year pilot in 2021 that added EV charging to streetlights and last year the city of Melrose, Massachusetts, north of Boston worked with a local utility to install 16 pole-mounted EV chargers in 10 locations around town. In 2022, Seattle announced a program with a local utility to install pole-mounted Level 2 EV chargers at a requested location at no cost to residents or property owners.

Congested urban areas such as San Francisco, where EV ownership is high but parking is problematic, may run into roadblocks if they try to follow these examples, says Prochazka. "Right-of-way in cities becomes a challenge because you have to come up with where you can actually put street charging," he adds.

"If you're parked overnight and you're not actively charging the whole time that's a waste of the asset," Allen says. "And you're blocking that charger for the entire time you're parked."

While not the best or safest solution, EV drivers in Vancouver, British Columbia are allowed to run an extension cord from their home or apartment to their vehicles. But the cord must be covered "by a highly visible, stable and secure low-angle cable ramp" and the vehicle owner has to obtain a $5-per-year license from the city.

Of course, EV owners without a garage or driveway can also charge at commercial chargers. More office buildings, commercial spaces, and mixed-use developments that combine retail and office space with multi-unit dwellings are installing chargers as an amenity.

These often include Level 3 DC fast chargers that allow EV owners to quickly charge while at work, the gym, shopping or at their mixed-use dwelling. "That may be best because most people only drive 30 miles a day," Allen says.

More cities are also mandating EV charging in public parking spaces. In 2019 San Francisco began requiring all commercial parking lots and garages with more than 100 parking spaces to install EV charging stations in at least 10 percent of the parking spaces. Last year Oregon passed a similar law requiring "certain buildings to install electric vehicle charging infrastructure at a minimum of 20 percent of the vehicle parking spaces in the garage or parking area on the building's site, or the minimum percentage required by local government."

Cities are also starting to require developers to add chargers or at least wire new buildings for them. San Francisco passed a law in 2017 that requires all new residential and commercial buildings to have chargers in 10 percent of parking spaces and wiring installed in 20 percent of spaces to enable EV charging.

In 2020 Denver adopted one of the most ambitious EV building codes in the country, including requiring "EV infrastructure requirements" for new parking spaces in multi-unit dwellings. Cities from Atlanta to Honolulu have also implemented EV infrastructure building codes.

"The idea is to have EV-ready requirements so that any new construction and development has to put the wiring and conduit in for chargers," says Prochazka. "Those are things that a lot of cities are thinking through and realizing it makes a lot of sense that these become a part of traditional services."

"It's important because it's so much cheaper to install the electrical infrastructure when building—magnitudes cheaper," adds Allen.

The Inflation Reduction Act signed into law last year upped the federal tax incentives for property owners to install charging stations by increasing tax credits from 6 - to -30 percent of cost and raising rebate caps from $30,000 to $100,000. But the property needs to be in specific low-income and non-urban areas defined by the 2020 census—areas where EV adoption lags.

Mobile EV charging is also available from SparkCharge, a charging service company that currently operates in Los Angeles, California's Orange County, San Francisco, and Dallas, with plans to expand to Austin, Texas, and Boston. The app-based service costs $40 to $75 and brings Level 3 fast-charging to a driver.

"We're seeing a lot of startups trying to figure out how to solve the problem," says Allen, "It's a really lively space right now."

One is Amperage Capital, which in January 2023 launched a program to add charging stations at apartment buildings. The company provides what it calls "a white glove service by taking responsibility for the management, design, construction, permits, and implementation of the entire process."

Amperage charges residents to lease a dedicated parking spot with a Level 2 charger and shares the revenue with the building owner. The company didn't disclose when and where it will install its first chargers. Cofounder and CEO Farrukh Malik also couldn't divulge exactly how much a renter will pay since pricing will depend on varying costs such as location, electricity, and construction, but he estimates it will run $150 to $200 a month.

The advantage for renters is having an "assigned charging site and a single-point owner," Malik says. Amperage isn't partnering with major EV charging companies but is sourcing hardware and software from third-party providers.

"We don't want our customers to have to install another charging app and we're not trying to push our brand," Malik adds. Instead, an apartment building can brand chargers as their own. "A lot of building owners want it to be part of their amenities," Malik says.

"These amenities are becoming much more sought after and multi-unit dwellings are going to realize this is something they have to offer," says Prochazka. The SparkCharge and Amperage services are examples of charging solutions that could keep renters from delaying a decision to buy an EV, he adds. "If you're a renter you may not want to invest in a charger, and the average apartment-building owner might not know that incentives exist."

He adds that while organizations such as Electrification Coalition are engaged in public education and with city, state and federal officials to make charging for renters more convenient, automakers also play a larger role. "We need the OEMs to establish dealership education around charging," he says. "A dealership needs to be able to sell vehicles to all customers, some of whom live in multi-unit dwellings."