Electric Vehicles

I charge at work, so for renters that is another option for covering the commute (and more). There's so many car parks without charging (and without solar roofs)... That's gotta change.

First, let's actually specifically define the problem. This has nothing to do with home ownership and everything to do with specifically living in rented apartments, not rental units in general. The typical person can meet 100% of their commuting needs by plugging an EV into a regular wall outlet. Unless you're a fringe case hypermiler, the same outlet you use to power or charge whatever device you're accessing lemmy on can cover your commute. So let's not blow this out of proportion and pretend it applies to everyone who rents.

We're talking only about the portion of the population that:

1. Doesn't own a home of any kind.
2. Doesn't rent a single family home.
3. Doesn't rent a townhouse.
4. Lives in an apartment without charging infrastructure.

Some searching suggests there are about 23 million apartment units in the US. So we're really only talking about 10% of the population here. People renting other housing types may not be able to install a 240V charger in a garage, but they can literally just use any 120V outlet.

For the 10% of the population that lives in apartment units? For these folks, they can continue to do what they already do - fuel their vehicle at a paid facility. The same thing every single ICE vehicle owner does. The absolute worst case scenario for EV ownership is the that charging your EV becomes as big of a hassle as fueling up an ICE vehicle. And the more people own EVs, the more landlords have to discount their outdated apartments without EV charging capability. At some point we'll just pass laws requiring EV charging. In most areas they already have parking minimums. The cost to add a bit of wiring is a rounding error in the cost of building a parking garage.