As you may have heard Tesla is attempting to tackle the problem of EV charging in apartments and condos. This past year I have made little secret of that fact that EverCharge is the industry leader in this space and we couldn't be happier about the news.

We have spent countless hours, days, weeks, and months explaining, educating, and tackling this growing problem and now the industry leader in EVs has finally agreed: Getting EV charging in apartments and condos is incredibly difficult.

Telsa has finally agreed: Getting EV charging in apartments and condos is incredibly difficult

Now that we can all agree the problem exists, but the first question is, what makes it so hard in the first place?

Power Isn't Plentiful

The single biggest issue is one that almost all of us can plainly see, our parking spaces and garages were never designed to power our vehicles. As such access to power in most buildings, let alone apartments and condos, is limited, making it an expensive proposition to install more than one or two chargers.

To give you some idea how expensive things can get take one of our San Francisco properties, the 200 Brannan building. Originally they had enough power for two, possibly up to four residents. Pretty good right? Well not quite, Considering 8 residents were looking to charge and did not want wait for access to the charger every day. Without EverCharge they would have needed an additional $100K to support just those eight residents (an additional $12,500/resident). With us, they now have the ability to support 20 EVs charging simultaneously without having to spend an additional $100K.

Money might be the biggest blocker but it certainly isn't the only one.

Sharing Causes Bigger Problems

You may be thinking, "One or two chargers isn't that bad", but the reality isn't so straight-forward. Trust me, you really don't want to get into a community charging scenario.

Why?

It only takes a little bit before residents start getting upset. Non-EVs blocking the space, all spots at capacity, residents hogging a space all the time, are just some of the reasons community chargers are a difficult solution to swallow. Often times this creates the nightmare scenario of a fist-fight in the garage as multiple residents need a full charge by the next morning and only so many chargers to go around.

Imagine coming home after a long day and seeing all the spaces are full. Instead of being able to simply go home and unwind, you have to get up every few hours and march down to the lot and see if the spaces are open. Now imagine this happens every... single... day. Its a terrible scenario and something that many EV drivers face. In fact, access to charging is the biggest negative EV drivers state about their vehicles.

Everyone Has An Opinion

One of the most overlooked aspects in all of this is also the most obvious. Apartments and condos are a community and as such resources are shared whether you realize it or not. Water, gas, and yes even electricity needs to be divided fairly. Working through issues requires property managers, HOAs, residence boards or oftentimes all three have to sit down and come to an agreement.

This process can take months without proper experience and many residents, property managers, and HOAs get completely burnt out by the long list of tasks that faces them

As you can imagine these debates can get heated, some people don't want chargers, others don't know how to monitor electricity, no one wants to pay for them, and that's before you even get into permitting and insurance. Simply put, it goes on and on. This process can take months without proper experience and many residents, property managers, and HOAs get completely burnt out by the long list of tasks that faces them.

That's why EverCharge offers a full managed service, so from permitting all the way to installation and on-going service, support and maintenance we handle everything. Making the process easy and affordable.

Make no mistake, EV charging in apartments is no easy task, just ask Tesla.