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EV adoption in the US is facing a new wave of doubt. Months after sales hit an all-time high, EV demand in the country has stalled and in some cases reversed. Luxury nameplates like Genesis and Volvo have seen customers walk away from their electric vehicles, forcing both automakers to rethink their EV lineups.

The Biden administration has also done its part to create uncertainty, halting subsidies and rolling back vehicle pollution standards. These moves leave buyers with fewer federal incentives and less certain about the direction of the nascent EV industry. However, industry analysts say the biggest barrier to adoption may not be political, but rather parked in American garages.

Charging Where You Park

Anxiety over charging availability is the number one reason given for not buying an electric vehicle, and has been for several years. A new report by Sam Abuelsamid, vice president of Telemetry, a market research firm, drills down on this concern. In it, he highlights a relatively obscure issue, garage use.

Fast-charging networks are high-profile and take up most of the attention on EV charging. But most vehicle charging is done at home. An estimated 80 percent of all EV charging, in fact, uses AC power at a single-family home. But according to data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), 42 percent of homeowners already have an outlet near their parked car that can support level 2 (240-volt) charging.

That percentage could nearly double to 68 percent if more homeowners cleared space in their garages and changed where they parked. “90 percent of all houses can add a 240 V outlet near where cars could be parked,” says Abuelsamid. “Parking behavior, namely whether homeowners use a private garage for parking or storage, will likely become a key factor in EV adoption.”

Opening more space in garages for parked vehicles rather than storage could expand the number of homes able to charge EVs from 31 million to over 50 million. When you factor in homes where new wiring is possible, this number jumps to over 72 million. This is well above Telemetry’s highest EV penetration forecast for 2035, which is between 33 million and 57 million vehicles.

The Cost Barrier

The ability to charge on paper, however, is not the same as readiness in reality. The same NREL study showed that almost 34 million homes would need a costly electrical upgrade to support a level 2 charger, which typically requires at least 30 amps. These upgrades can range from installing new wiring to replacing the entire electrical panel, a process that can cost homeowners thousands of dollars.

This possibility calls into question one of the supposed major value propositions of electric vehicles: lower overall cost. When the price of installing charging infrastructure is added to the upfront purchase price of an EV, total cost of ownership can approach or even exceed that of a comparable gasoline-powered vehicle.

The situation is even more difficult for the 23 percent of Americans who live in multifamily dwellings such as apartments, condos, and townhomes. In these cases, an individual EV owner rarely has the autonomy to install chargers. Tenants must get permission from a landlord, management company, or co-op board, and these entities are far from guaranteed to agree.

The financial barrier is also greater. To install a pair of shared level 2 chargers at a co-op, for example, may first require a complete electrical panel upgrade, a project that can cost millions of dollars. Wiring must be run to individual spots, which may be some distance away from a distribution panel. Residents of these types of buildings are also often ineligible for municipal or utility subsidies that owners can use to install chargers.

While about one million EV owners in the US live in multifamily housing, only 11 percent have a spot close enough to an outlet to charge. Several states are beginning to require that 20–25 percent of parking spaces in new developments be EV-ready, but even this would not be enough to meet projected demand. Telemetry estimates that there will be only 6.7 million to 11.4 million charging-capable spaces in multifamily dwellings by 2035.

The Public Charging Gap

Home charging won’t be enough. As such, public charging infrastructure will be essential to meeting the need. Telemetry estimates that 11.7 million to 14.3 million EV drivers who own homes will also use public charging by 2035. An additional 7.8 million to 8.1 million EV drivers who live in multifamily residences will also use public charging.

This will necessitate between 523,000 and 586,000 DC fast chargers, as well as another 1.5 million to 1.6 million level 2 chargers nationwide. However, building this infrastructure is easier said than done. Power companies are already struggling to meet demand for new AI data centers, which are competing for generation and distribution capacity, a situation that will only make building out large numbers of large-scale charging sites more difficult.

In a vacuum, the future of electric vehicles in the US may look bright. But on the ground, the situation is a bit more complicated. While tens of millions of homes could, in theory, support EV charging, garage clutter, the high cost of electrical upgrades, and multifamily living all stand to slow adoption. Even if public charging expansion is robust, demand may outstrip supply in the decade ahead.

One thing, at least, is certain: the future of electric vehicles in America will depend as much on people’s garages as it will on government policies or automaker strategies.