Installing electric-vehicle chargers in Canada’s growing number of apartments and condominiums persists as a sticking point to wider EV adoption as policymakers and real estate developers work to balance high upfront costs with long-term demands.
For Canadians moving into new multiunit residential buildings , this means a dedicated charger in parking stalls. But it’s a convenience that doesn’t come cheap. Costs run about $5,000 to $7,000 per charger, Li said. That’s roughly in line with federal government estimates in December that accompanied its zero-emission-vehicle sales mandate. Its analysis put per-charger costs at $4,630 to $5,755.
According to 2021census data from Statistics Canada, the latest data available, 52.6 per cent of Canadians lived in detached houses, compared with 55 per cent a decade earlier. Conversely, close to half of Canadians lived in some form of shared building in 2021: 18.3 per cent lived in apartments with five or fewer storeys, and 10.7 per cent lived in MURBs with more than five storeys.
But for builders, Toronto’s recently enacted bylaw triggered “very challenging” load requirements from a construction standpoint, said RESCON’s De Berardis. But for McEwen of Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors, electrifying every parking stall is a way to ensure that new buildings are future-proofed. Li from Swtch agrees that tackling the charging challenge upfront is cheaper than adding EV infrastructure to buildings after the fact.