How to Tell Whether Your Building Actually Needs EV Chargers
Stop asking whether people want chargers. Saying yes costs a respondent nothing, so the answer is always yes and it predicts nothing about utilisation. Ask instead where the vehicle parks overnight, whether the household charges somewhere else today, and when the lease renews — three questions with a cost attached to the answer. Then count the lot, because your property already owns two datasets that beat any survey: the parking assignment records and the vehicles physically in the spaces.
Updated 2026-08-20
Why the obvious survey question fails
"Would you use an EV charger if we installed one?" is a free option. Answering yes commits the respondent to nothing, costs them nothing and makes them feel forward-looking, so a large majority say yes in almost every building. The response rate is high, the board is satisfied, and the resulting port count is wrong.The same problem appears in every variant: would you pay more for it, would it influence your renewal, is it important to you. These are hypothetical questions about a hypothetical charge on a hypothetical vehicle, and hypothetical questions produce hypothetical demand.The fix is not a better-worded question. It is to ask about things that have already happened. A question about the past cannot be answered aspirationally.
The questions that actually predict
Every question below is about current, observable behaviour, and each one maps to a specific piece of the sizing decision. Keep the survey short — six questions gets answered, twenty does not — and put the vehicle question first so people who do not have one can stop.The single most predictive question is where the vehicle charges tonight. A household that plugs in at home in a garage they control has no need of your ports. A household with an electric vehicle and no home charging option is a guaranteed nightly user, and those are the households your port count has to serve.Ask the renewal date question too, even though it feels unrelated. It tells you how much of the demand you are measuring will still be in the building when the chargers energise, which on a project with a six to twelve month utility timeline is not a trivial correction.
Two datasets you already own
The first is the parking record. Assigned or permitted parking means you have a vehicle make and model against a unit or a tenant, which converts directly into a count of plug-in vehicles without asking anybody anything. It is more accurate than a survey because it has no response bias, and in most systems it is one report away.The second is the lot itself. Walk it at the hour it is fullest — late evening for residential, mid-morning for an office — and count plug-in vehicles against total vehicles. Do it three or four times across different days so a single visitor-heavy evening does not distort it. The count is a hard floor on demand, it costs an hour, and it is the single most persuasive number you can put in front of a board that is sceptical of a survey.Run both and compare them to the survey. If the survey says forty households want charging and the lot shows six plug-in vehicles, the survey measured enthusiasm and the lot measured demand. Size to the lot, and put conduit in the ground for the survey.
Turning the count into a port count
The conversion is not one port per vehicle. On an overnight residential site, a vehicle needs enough energy to replace a day of driving, not a full battery, and that is a few hours of Level 2 charging. Ports can therefore be shared across the night, either informally or through scheduling in the network software.The arithmetic that matters: a 9.6 kW port delivers roughly ten kilowatt-hours per hour of active charging. A household replacing a typical day of driving needs an amount of energy it can take on in a small number of hours. The overnight window is ten hours or more. That is why a single well-managed port can serve more than one vehicle per night, and why the ratio of vehicles to ports on a residential site is usually greater than one.Workplace and retail are different because the dwell window is shorter and the arrival pattern is concentrated. There the constraint is simultaneity, not total energy, and the port count tracks peak concurrent demand rather than nightly throughput.In all cases the same rule applies to the civil work: trench and conduit for the full eventual layout, energise a fraction. Adding a port to existing conduit is cheap. Cutting a resurfaced lot a second time is the most expensive way to add one.
Build the measurement to survive the board meeting
In an association or a corporate real estate committee, the charging proposal will be challenged by someone who does not want to spend the money, and the challenge is almost always some version of "how do we know anyone will use it?" A survey answer loses that argument. A lot count wins it, because it is a fact anyone in the room can go outside and verify.Present three numbers together: the count of plug-in vehicles on site today, the count of those with no home charging option, and the port count you propose to energise now. Then present the conduit plan separately, framed as the thing that makes the next decision cheap rather than as part of this one. Splitting the capital request that way is what usually gets it approved.Do not present a federal tax credit as part of the funding. Section 30C terminated for property placed in service after June 30, 2026 under Public Law 119-21. A board that later discovers the credit was never available will not approve the next request. Utility make-ready programs are the layer worth presenting, and they should be named — the sponsor, the amount, the funding status and the date you checked.
How many EV chargers should we install for a 200-unit apartment building?
The count comes from your lot, not from a ratio. Count the plug-in vehicles physically parked overnight, ask that group where they charge today, and size the energised ports to the households with no home alternative. Then put conduit and panel capacity in for several times that number, because the trench is the expensive part and the vehicle count will move.
Should we survey residents before installing chargers?
Yes, but ask about behaviour rather than interest. Where does your vehicle charge tonight, how often do you use a public charger, when does your lease renew. Questions about the past cannot be answered aspirationally, which is the whole problem with asking whether someone would use a charger.
What if residents say they want chargers but nobody has an EV yet?
That is an argument for infrastructure, not for ports. Run conduit, size the panel, set the pads, and energise two ports. If the vehicles arrive, adding ports to existing conduit is inexpensive and quick. If they do not, you have spent a fraction of the money and the capacity stays useful for anything else the property electrifies.
How long does the utility side take, and does that affect the count?
It affects it materially. Electrical work is typically weeks; utility interconnection on a commercial project is typically months and can be longer where new service equipment is involved. Measure demand against the date the chargers will energise, not the date of the board meeting, which is why the lease-renewal question earns its place in the survey.
Is there funding to help pay for this?
Not from the federal government for charging equipment — Section 30C ended for property placed in service after June 30, 2026 and has no successor. Utility make-ready programs remain the meaningful source on commercial and multifamily projects in many territories, along with state programs in some states. Both are sponsor-specific and dated, so check the sponsor's own page rather than a national summary.
Cost the conduit plan and the port plan separately
Boards approve the two together far more often than they approve one big number. Tell us the eventual layout and the count you want energised now, and you get a range for each.