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by crate_barre 1528 days ago
Naive question, but aren’t we talking about installing an electrical outlet essentially? Some of these options look like they plug into a wall:

https://www.amazon.com/MUSTART-Portable-Charger-Electric-Cha...

Bare minimum the apartment building can work to install wall outlets in the garage, or very long extension cords.

Video: https://www.amazon.com/vdp/006d5bc8225646d086bb5afa191e52d8?...

That’s not asking for a lot from a building.

3 comments

That’s not asking for a lot from a building.

It's definitely asking for a lot. For my building's parking structure, that would require at least $5 million worth of upgrades to the electrical system, and we're not even the biggest condo building on the block.

The outlet isn't a big deal. The infrastructure to support it is. You need to pay the supplier for additional supply lines, an electrician for the panel and other customer side infrastructure. That's the expensive part.
Most people don’t need a supply upgrade, because they can shift most of the charging to night time, and the majority of people don’t use as much power at night as during the day. Unless they have a very small service. But most people have it sized to support a stove, electric dryer and A/C, if they got service relatively recently. And most electric companies will do the service upgrade for cheap if necessary, because they’ll make it back from more electric use.

They do need an electrician to run the new wires to the garage though.

If we are talking about a SFH charging one car at a time (or slow charging 2), sure.

My comment was more focused on the gas stations, apartments, condos, etc that others have brought up.

Yeah, apartments and condos are probably going to need supply upgrades... but the normal use case for charging IME is: park, and plug in overnight. With sufficiently smart EVSEs, you should be able to limit the charge rate to not have to worry about exceeding your electrical service, even with 2 cars.

Most gas stations shouldn't have car chargers, because even with fast chargers, who really wants to be spending 30-60 minutes at one? Fast chargers should be at restaurants and other places people will naturally want to be for a bit of time. Only gas stations that should have chargers are really things like truck stops, where they already have some amenities.

The grandparent comment mentioned a parking garage at a condo, presumably, spaces for dozens of cars.
Depending on the current electrical system and the number of outlets you’re adding it could consist of a significant upgrade to the electrical infrastructure in the building.
In the context of charging multiple vehicles simultaneously at gas stations, apartments, etc, it's almost a certainty that the building infrastructure would need to be upgraded. Newer 200 amp SFH can likely charge one car at a time with minimal upgrades.