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EV growth in the United States has hit a snag. After more than a year of month-over-month increases, sales have started to decline. Genesis and Volvo have seen consumers walk away from their EVs, forcing the companies to rethink their offerings. And the current administration has cut subsidies and rolled back vehicle pollution standards, leaving fewer carrots at the federal level to offer would-be buyers.

But as Telemetry Vice President Sam Abuelsamid writes in a new note, the biggest potential deterrent to EV adoption may already be sitting in American garages. For years, surveys have shown that range anxiety is a top concern among prospective EV buyers, but charging at home is typically less urgent than trips to the local fast-charger. Abuelsamid’s new market research study takes a close look at the problem and identifies one element that’s often overlooked: how drivers use their garages.

An estimated 80 percent of all EV charging is done at home using AC power, mostly at single-family residences. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found that 42 percent of homeowners already park within range of an outlet that can be used to support level 2 (240-volt) charging. With a few changes in parking behavior, that number could increase to 68 percent. “Parking behavior, namely whether homeowners use a private garage for parking or storage, will likely become a key factor in EV adoption,” Abuelsamid said.

In fact, if more drivers opened up their garages to vehicles rather than storage, the number of houses with the physical space to charge EVs could increase from 31 million to more than 50 million, Abuelsamid says. Add in homes where wiring a new charger would be possible and that number rises to more than 72 million. That figure is more than Telemetry’s highest estimates of EV penetration in 2035, which are currently pegged at between 33 million and 57 million vehicles.

Challenges to Home Charging

But being able to fit an outlet into a garage doesn’t mean homeowners are ready to charge EVs. The NREL study also found that nearly 34 million houses would require a major (and expensive) electrical upgrade to support a level 2 charger. Level 2 charging stations typically require a dedicated circuit capable of at least 30 amps of current. Wiring upgrades, in some cases all the way back to the main service panel, can run into the thousands of dollars. Some homes will require an entirely new panel. This expense could take a significant bite out of the presumed advantage of EVs on the long-term total cost of ownership.

In multifamily homes, which include apartments, condos, and townhomes, the number of charging-capable spaces drops even further to 8.2 million. Multifamily EV owners have few options to install chargers themselves and are often at the mercy of landlords, property management companies, co-op boards, or HOAs for approval. An approval that, in most cases, won’t be given. These spaces also have a higher financial barrier to chargers, with upgrades and new wiring costing into the millions in many cases. Multiunit residents are also often shut out of municipal and utility programs to subsidize chargers.

Today, about one million EV owners live in multifamily homes, but only 11 percent of those drivers park close enough to an outlet to charge. Some states are requiring 20–25 percent of spaces in new developments to be EV ready, which Telemetry estimates will increase the number of charging-capable spaces in multifamily dwellings to between 6.7 million and 11.4 million by 2035. But that may not be enough, even as demand increases, to support widespread charging. Telemetry also estimates there are just 4.9 million multifamily dwelling parking spaces that are EV capable today, and about 10 million total spaces. The number of people who want to own EVs may far outstrip the number of people who can actually charge them, at least at home.

Public Charging Infrastructure

The gap in home charging could make public charging more important than ever. Telemetry estimates that 11.7 million to 14.3 million EV drivers who own houses will use public charging in 2035, including 7.8 million to 8.1 million EV owners in multifamily dwellings. Accommodating this surge in public charging will require between 523,000 and 586,000 DC fast chargers, with a further 1.5 million to 1.6 million level 2 chargers nationwide. And building out this infrastructure comes with its own issues.

Power companies are already strained, with data centers powered by AI gobbling up generation and distribution capacity, even in fast-growing places like Texas and the Pacific Northwest. Utilities have had to get creative to meet the demand from just data centers. It’s unclear that they have the bandwidth to meet a large-scale build out of EV charging, especially on the fast-charging side.

EV adoption in the United States has a way to go before it hits the rate many experts expect to see. Millions of U.S. houses could technically charge an EV today, but garages full of clutter, expensive electrical upgrades, and multifamily housing make widespread adoption a challenge. Demand for public charging could outpace even the best projections for charger installation in the coming decade. At least one thing is certain, though: the future of the EV in the U.S. is inextricably tied to the condition of the average American garage.