07-09-2017, 05:53 PM
(07-09-2017, 03:03 PM)panamaniac Wrote: What are the (perceived?) downsides of retrofitting chargers into multi-unit buildings? I've only heard about resistance, even for owners willing to pay the costs of installation. I would have thought that the Province would be creeping toward making them obligatory in new builds, before too many more years have passed.
In a garage without assigned spaces (I think 1 Victoria uses FCFS parking, for example), it's not that difficult for the building owner or the condo corporation to put in one or two EV charging spaces. There are L2 chargers available that will automatically charge the car owner (using an Internet connection) so it's pretty easy to implement.
Buildings with assigned spaces are much more of a challenge. Now the charger has to be installed at the EV owner's assigned parking space. The parking garage has to be prepared for the connection of multiple chargers (the more capacity, the more cost) and then the individual charger needs to be connected to the backbone. It's unlikely that many tenants in a rental building would be willing to pay for that so this really applies to condo buildings.
Most garages do not have even 110V outlets at parking spaces. Installing those is less expensive than installing L2 chargers, but it's still a substantial cost. And the building would need to decide on a policy for charging for the electricity use.
We are looking at this for our building (assigned spaces and L2 charging in our case). It won't come cheap, though.