For more than a century, motorists have fueled their vehicles in the same way. You drive to a neighborhood gas station and pump in a tankful of gasoline. That’s the way it works whether people live in a sprawling single-family home or a one-bedroom apartment. However, that’s about to change. As the age of internal-combustion cars gives way to electric vehicles, the fundamental relationship between our cars and our homes is redefined. Gas stations, as remote car-fueling depots, will fade away in many cases. Instead, we will refuel our EV(s) at our homes when possible, the most convenient location to plug in, so that our car gets charged over a few hours as we sleep.
For homeowners with a dedicated garage or driveway, installing a home charging station, such as a Nissan LEAF home charger, is a liberating experience: no more visits to the gas station. It’s also a no-brainer—usually no more complicated than installing a new electrical outlet for a large appliance. However, with multi-family communities, property owners and homeowner associations must consider how to turn a parking lot or underground garage into an EV fueling location that can be easily managed and equitable for all multi-family unit residents, which can have a unique set of infrastructure challenges.
Attn: building owners: Here comes the EV future
The International Code Council, which provides widely adopted best practices and standards for construction, says there will need to be nearly 10 million new electric-car charging ports installed in the next decade. The shift to EVs is not a matter of if, but how fast. The number of EVs on American roads will grow from about 1.4 million today to approximately 12.5 million electric vehicles by 2030, according to Guidehouse Insights. As the detrimental impacts of climate change are becoming better known, outright bans on internal-combustion vehicles are proposed for 2035 onward. Considering that about 40 percent of Americans live in multi-family residential buildings, it’s time now to prepare for the shift.
How will property owners and managers first experience the change? The first signs will come when one or two residents ask to install an EV charging station or request that a common, shared set of charging stations be made available. You should anticipate those requests, and have a plan, before the requests arrive.
The International Code Council in January 2020 introduced “EV-charging readiness” as part of its latest official guidelines. While those ICC guidelines are voluntary, about a half-dozen states have already instituted EV charging as a requirement in building codes. Approximately half of all US states are expected to adopt the ICC’s EV-readiness requirements officially.
As a result, managers will need to quickly get up to speed on a new job function: EV specialist.