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Electrification plans in the US have hit a new speed bump. After a year of continuous monthly growth, electric vehicle (EV) sales are contracting, with auto brands like Genesis and Volvo already having tasted rejection at the hands of electric-vehicle customers and pivoting away from their EV lineups.

American policy-makers have also weighed in, with the Biden Administration both rescinding vehicle pollution standards and diminishing subsidies. While potential customers face limited federal support, the real bottleneck to EV adoption in the US may be more domestic, according to Telemetry.

Garage clutter could be bad news for EV sales

A new report from Sam Abuelsamid, vice president at Telemetry, highlights a big (but often overlooked) problem when it comes to American EV charging: the residential garage. Headlines tend to focus on the expansion of DC fast charging networks. But an estimated 80 percent of all EV charging is still done using AC power, and the vast majority of this occurs at a single-family residence (SFR) at some point during the day.

A report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found that 42 percent of all homeowners already have a garage or driveway that is parked near an outlet that supports level 2 (240-volt) charging. But this number is “artificially low,” Abuelsamid states, because many garage spaces are full of clutter and owners rarely park next to a charging outlet. He continues:

We estimate that if all owners used a private garage and parked near an outlet, 68 percent of owners could charge an EV at home, with nearly all houses (90 percent) being able to add a 240 V outlet near where the car would be parked. Parking behavior, namely whether homeowners use a private garage for parking or storage, will likely become a key factor in EV adoption.

Opening up more garage spaces to vehicles instead of storage would increase the number of homes that could support EV charging from 31 million to over 50 million. Add in homes that could feasibly support the new wiring, and that number jumps to over 72 million. Even Telemetry’s own higher bound of EV penetration in 2035 (57 million vehicles) may fall short of the charging capacity if the nation’s residential garage habits improve.

That’s a lot of numbers to digest, and the reality is that not all this potential capacity is usable. The NREL study also found that nearly 34 million homes would need a “moderate to major electrical system upgrade” to support a level 2 charger. These systems need at least 30 amps of power and many homes will need either wiring or entire panel replacements. The cost of these electrical system upgrades will be thousands of dollars for many homeowners.

The cost of installing these upgrades is at odds with one of the primary value propositions for EVs: that over the long term they are more affordable than internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. But when factoring in the cost of installing charging capacity, that total cost of ownership (TCO) can quickly approach or even exceed that of a gas-powered vehicle.

For the 23 percent of Americans who do not own a single-family house, the situation gets even more challenging. Residents of apartments, condos, and townhomes often do not have the autonomy to add chargers on their own and must get permission from landlords, management companies, co-op boards, or homeowners’ associations (HOAs). These entities are often reluctant to pay for chargers unless subsidized by utilities or local governments.

The cost of installing shared charging is also higher for multifamily residences. Co-ops and condos will often need to spend heavily on electrical panel upgrades or new wiring before adding a pair of level 2 chargers. Wiring chargers to distant parking spaces will only increase the cost and timelines. The owners of these residences may also not be eligible for municipal or utility subsidies for charging, unlike residents in single-family houses. Less than a third of the roughly one million EV owners living in multifamily housing have a residence that is parked close enough to an outlet for charging. (The other two-thirds are working from home.)

The situation may improve somewhat in coming years, as more states require 20–25 percent of parking spaces in new developments be EV-ready. In addition, many multifamily buildings already have charging installed. Overall, Telemetry estimates that 6.7 million to 11.4 million spaces in multifamily dwellings could be charging-capable by 2035. That’s well short of the number of households living in multifamily homes.

Public charging could bridge the gap. Or could it?

Public charging will become a growing part of American EV infrastructure. While Telemetry estimates that 85 percent of EV owners will charge at home by 2035, that leaves between 11.7 million and 14.3 million who will need to use public charging but own a house. There will also be another 7.8 million to 8.1 million EV owners living in multifamily residences who will have no choice but to charge at public locations.

Meeting this demand will require 523,000 to 586,000 DC fast chargers plus an additional 1.5 million to 1.6 million level 2 chargers nationwide. So where will all that power come from? American power companies are already reeling, with new AI data centers coming online for their own massive electricity needs. Infrastructure to support massive new charging networks is not guaranteed.

In short, it’s going to be a struggle. Most homes could support EV charging but homeowners garage clutter, high electrical upgrade costs, and inflexibility of multifamily living could leave a lot of demand on the table. Expansion of public charging, while substantial, may still be outstripped by demand in the coming decade.