Renters, Apartments & HOA Charging·September 29, 2026·@jvdberg

What's actually the realistic fix for apartment EV charging — retrofitting old buildings or just building new ones EV-ready from day one?

Been renting in an older apartment complex (built ~1990s) for years and there's zero EV infrastructure -- not even conduit run to the parking area. I've seen newer complexes advertise "EV-ready" parking where they've pre-wired empty conduit to every spot even before anyone owns an EV, which seems like the actual long-term fix, but that does nothing for buildings like mine that already exist. Is retrofitting an older lot ever actually cost-effective for a landlord, or is the honest answer that older apartments are just going to lag behind for another decade until enough tenants demand it? Curious what's actually worked in complexes that weren't built with this in mind from the start.

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18 ANSWERS

@rsaldanaSeptember 29, 2026

Landlords will do it when they start losing tenants over it, same as they eventually did with in-unit laundry and AC. Nobody was retrofitting those out of kindness either. In California it's partly moot anyway. If a tenant asks to put in a charger at their own expense, the landlord mostly can't refuse. There are exceptions, and you pay for the install and the power.

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↳@111solar_rush_o13210fSeptember 30, 2026

I see

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@tim_okonkwoSeptember 29, 2026

In an older building the conduit is not the expensive part. The service is. After my one 50 amp outlet went in, my place is maxed. I paid 1300 to 1400 for about 50 feet of wire and conduit and I cannot add another major load without an upgrade. Picture that across a whole parking lot and you are talking to the utility about a transformer. No landlord is doing that voluntarily with the units full. honestly I think the older complexes are going to lag, and if you cannot charge at home or at work I would hold off on an EV. Once you are paying fast charge prices every week most of the savings are gone.

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@aldridge_sSeptember 30, 2026

I'd push back a little on that last part. My DC fast charging over 11 months was $173 and home charging was $240, and my gas Soul would have been over $2,300 for the same distance. Mostly-DC is obviously worse than what I have, but it's not break-even worse... at least not at Ontario prices! Agree on the service thing though. I rent too, and the only reason I could do it was that there was already a circuit near my spot. My landlord's answer was basically 'sure, as long as it doesn't cost me anything.' $1,830 for the Pion plus install, and I paid it.

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@tim_okonkwoSeptember 30, 2026

@aldridge_s fair, depends a lot on local DC pricing. Around here some of the networks are close to gas money per mile, so it varies.

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@mgauthier_September 30, 2026

@aldridge_s depends which DC network you use in Ontario too. Some of them charge per minute and it's awful if your car can't pull high power

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@nkowalskiSeptember 30, 2026

I'm with Tim on the holding off part. A plain 120V outlet at your spot is enough to make it work. I've been on L1 only for over four years. Without one you're at the fast charger every few days, and near me those are full half the time.

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@jvdbergSeptember 30, 2026

yeah that's kind of what I figured. I asked the office last year about even a regular outlet near the lot and got a blank stare and a 'we'll pass it along to management.' never heard anything back. not in CA either so no law to wave at them

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@rsaldanaSeptember 30, 2026

Send it in writing next time. 'Pass it along' means nobody's going to pass it along.

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@jwozniakSeptember 30, 2026

Which state... a few besides CA have some kind of right-to-charge now. Most of them only cover HOAs, not landlords.

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@jvdbergSeptember 30, 2026

@jwozniak Ohio. pretty sure there's nothing here for renters

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@dtorres22September 30, 2026

I've put 68k miles on my ID.4 using only DCFC, so I'm probably the worst case here. I'm in a SoCal condo and the HOA refused to let me put a charger in. EVgo with the $12.99/mo plan still comes out well ahead of gas for me. You have to charge off-peak, though. Between 4 and 9pm the price jumps and it gets a lot closer to what Tim said.

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@wadecrossSeptember 29, 2026

Not an apartment, but I put free charging at two of my Airbnbs thinking it'd be a selling point. It got used twice total in over a year... so I get why a landlord looks at a trenching quote and says no. Demand has to actually show up first

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@derek_whitcombSeptember 30, 2026

Honestly the per-spot retrofit is where people overthink it. Nobody needs 48A at every space in an apartment lot. The cars are parked 10+ hours a night, so a 20A 240V circuit per spot is plenty, and with load management on a shared feeder you don't have to size the service for every spot pulling at the same time. That's the part that actually makes an older building workable without the utility swapping the transformer. The trenching is still the trenching though... that doesn't get cheaper, and on a surface lot that's usually most of the bill. Conduit in new builds is the right call because the ground is already open.

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@lmcallisterSeptember 30, 2026

Load management is permitted under both the NEC and CEC for this. A lot of the transformer quotes landlords get assume every charger at full current at once, which isn't required.

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@gwintersSeptember 29, 2026

Our workplace load management is about as simple as it gets. Every EVSE gets full power until a certain number of cars are plugged in, then it rotates which ones get power on a one-hour cycle. Nobody notices, because everyone is parked for eight hours. An apartment lot overnight gives you even more time than that. The hard part for a place like OP's is still getting copper out to the lot at all.

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@111solar_rush_o13210fSeptember 30, 2026

Our HOA ran into this too -- ended up being cheaper to just pre-wire conduit to every spot during a planned repaving instead of doing it building-by-building later.

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@111solar_rush_o13210fSeptember 30, 2026

Conduit during a repaving project makes sense if the timing lines up, but plenty of HOAs are stuck retrofitting without that option.

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What's actually the realistic fix for apartment EV charging — retrofitting old buildings or just building new ones EV-ready from day one?

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