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Sales of electric vehicles are slowing, while ongoing concerns about charging have continued to dog the EV market in the United States. After seeing more than a year of month-over-month growth, EV sales have now started to contract. And after seeing customers back away from their EV offerings, Genesis and Volvo have both been forced to rethink their product plans. The political situation hasn’t helped either, with the current administration cutting subsidies and easing vehicle pollution rules, meaning that there are now fewer federal incentives available for EV buyers. But according to industry analysts, the biggest challenge may be the one facing vehicle owners when they return home from work every day.

Parking the EV

Recent surveys have consistently found that charging remains the number one concern among prospective EV buyers. In a new report, Telemetry Vice President Sam Abuelsamid dove into this issue, finding that one of the biggest hurdles for EV charging may be an often-overlooked feature found in many American homes: the garage.

Telemetry has highlighted the need for charging infrastructure to accommodate rising EV sales, and most of the attention has been on expanding the network of fast chargers. But the reality is that most EV charging happens at home, using AC power. Some estimates put this at as much as 80 percent of all EV charging, and most of that power is being drawn at single-family homes. According to data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), 42 percent of homeowners already have the ability to charge an EV with a standard level 2 (240 volt) charger in the space where they park.

This number could more than double if Americans started to clear out their garages and change how they park, to 68 percent of American households. As Abuelsamid notes, “90 percent of all houses can add a 240 V outlet near where cars could be parked. Parking behavior, namely whether homeowners use a private garage for parking or storage, will likely become a key factor in EV adoption.”

If more drivers would use their garages to park instead of store things, the number of U.S. homes that could support EV charging would rise from 31 million to more than 50 million. Counting the additional homes where adding a 240V outlet would be possible, Abuelsamid estimates that number to be more than 72 million. This is more than the Telemetry’s base case for EV sales by 2035 of 33 million to 57 million vehicles.

However, there’s a big catch. Capacity on paper is not the same as readiness on the ground. As the same NREL study notes, “nearly 34 million homes” will need expensive electrical upgrades to support a level 2 charger, which requires at least 30 amps of power. This can range from a new wiring to adding a single outlet, but in some cases may require a complete panel replacement. These upgrades can run into the thousands of dollars.

This is a problem because it undercuts one of the EV’s main benefits: lower cost of ownership over the long-term. Installation of charging equipment is not included in the price of the vehicle. And if the infrastructure required to support an EV costs thousands of dollars, the total cost of ownership can easily start to rival an equivalent gas-powered car.

Harder in High-Density Housing

The situation becomes even more difficult for the 23 percent of Americans who live in multifamily housing, which is a category that includes apartment buildings, condos, and townhomes. Owners of EVs in these dwellings typically do not have the ability to install chargers on their own. Instead, they must ask a landlord, management company, or co-op board to install one. And the answer is far from guaranteed.

The financial challenge is also greater for owners of EVs in multi-dwelling units (MDUs). A pair of shared level 2 chargers in a co-op, for example, may require a new electrical panel for the entire building, a project that can cost millions of dollars for larger co-ops. Wiring must also be run to the distant parking spaces, a potentially lengthy and expensive project. Residents of these dwellings also tend to be shut out of many municipal and utility programs that offer to pay a portion of the installation cost of charging equipment.

The result is that, while about one million EV owners currently live in multifamily housing, only 11 percent of these residents have access to an outlet near enough to their parking spot to use an EV charger. A number of states have required that 20–25 percent of spaces in newly-built or converted multifamily properties be EV-ready, but even with these rules, Telemetry expects only 6.7 million to 11.4 million chargers in multifamily dwellings by 2035, far short of likely demand.

Public Charging Stations Needed

With the limits to charging at home, public charging stations will be critical. Telemetry expects that even though they will own a house, between 11.7 million and 14.3 million EV drivers will also be using public charging by 2035. Another 7.8 million to 8.1 million EV drivers who live in multifamily homes will also be dependent on public charging. That comes out to somewhere between 523,000 and 586,000 DC fast chargers that will be needed, plus another 1.5 million to 1.6 million level 2 chargers.

Expanding this infrastructure is not going to be easy, however. Power companies are already stretched thin, with tech giants installing AI data centers that will compete for new generation and distribution capacity. This will make the rollout of public chargers, especially the larger scale fast charging stations, more difficult.

Is Growth Coming to a Stop?

While EVs have plenty of momentum, the picture for EV sales in the United States is not as clear-cut as it first appears. Millions of Americans have the theoretical capacity to charge an EV in their garage but are not able to do so either because their garages are cluttered with junk or they live in an apartment or condo and need a landlord to install the necessary equipment. The high cost of electrical upgrades needed to install an EV charger in garages that have never had them is also threatening to dampen sales and relegate EVs to the status of a niche product. Finally, even with the expansion of public chargers, demand will likely outstrip the supply for at least the next decade.