An enormous percentage, especially in the current housing market, however…
Many (most?) American cities have wildly inadequate public transit and are prone to sprawl. Many Americans live in apartments, but are a multiple mile walk from their grocery store. If there’s any public transit at all it’s probably an infrequent and unreliable bus line that may not go anywhere near their home to begin with. They live in apartments, but are not anywhere near ‘downtown’.
These are problems that need to be solved, and quickly, but public transit is best grown with a city, which didn’t happen. Inserting a subway after the fact is difficult, expensive, and slow.
The reality of right-now (which is all a renter is likely to be able to consider financially) is that a reliable car is an essential item in most parts of the country.
According to Quota its ~80% of people live in houses.
Classic 80:20 rule. Making excuses for why the most difficult 20% doesn’t work is the wrong way of thinking about it. Most of the result for least effort cones from dealing with the 80%.
I charged my EV overnight from an overhead garage door power socket in my apartment for years before I moved out. Never even needed public charging. Many people just don’t realize you can charge from a normal household outlet
Near all apartments around me have exclusively open-air parking, so this isn’t a viable solution for many. It’s not that the available power is inadequate, it’s non-existent.
Y’all really need to go about asking your landlord to install chargers. There are even options where it charges you for power so he’s not out the cost
They’ll probably ignore the request, but at this point it’s progress to plant the seed, give them the idea, show them interest is building. Your future self will thank you
The condo my ex lives in just had a board meeting about installing chargers. It seemed like a reasonable cost and they haven’t rejected it, so it’s possible
I’ve never had an apartment with a garage. At minimum I’d have needed a 100 ft extension cord. Probably longer, which means it’d have to be thicker. Which means more expensive.
Because if you live in an apartment your only option for charging is to go to a charging location. You can’t just plug it in overnight.
Which I can see as a big hurdle for a lot of people.
What percentage of people live in apartments?
Surely those people should be taking public transport anyway not buying a car when they live downtown.
An enormous percentage, especially in the current housing market, however…
Many (most?) American cities have wildly inadequate public transit and are prone to sprawl. Many Americans live in apartments, but are a multiple mile walk from their grocery store. If there’s any public transit at all it’s probably an infrequent and unreliable bus line that may not go anywhere near their home to begin with. They live in apartments, but are not anywhere near ‘downtown’.
These are problems that need to be solved, and quickly, but public transit is best grown with a city, which didn’t happen. Inserting a subway after the fact is difficult, expensive, and slow.
The reality of right-now (which is all a renter is likely to be able to consider financially) is that a reliable car is an essential item in most parts of the country.
According to Quota its ~80% of people live in houses.
Classic 80:20 rule. Making excuses for why the most difficult 20% doesn’t work is the wrong way of thinking about it. Most of the result for least effort cones from dealing with the 80%.
You explicitly asked about apartments tho
The title is about why “Americans” aren’t buying EV’s. The excuse of them living in an apartment only applies to ~20% of the population.
That’s not enough to explain why Americans aren’t buying, just why 20% if Americans aren’t.
And like I said you don’t start with the most difficult and you don’t push a solution onto a problem when it isn’t the right solution anyway.
You realize not all apartments are located in big cities? Plenty of people live in small towns with no or shitty public transportation.
I charged my EV overnight from an overhead garage door power socket in my apartment for years before I moved out. Never even needed public charging. Many people just don’t realize you can charge from a normal household outlet
Near all apartments around me have exclusively open-air parking, so this isn’t a viable solution for many. It’s not that the available power is inadequate, it’s non-existent.
Y’all really need to go about asking your landlord to install chargers. There are even options where it charges you for power so he’s not out the cost
They’ll probably ignore the request, but at this point it’s progress to plant the seed, give them the idea, show them interest is building. Your future self will thank you
The condo my ex lives in just had a board meeting about installing chargers. It seemed like a reasonable cost and they haven’t rejected it, so it’s possible
I’ve never had an apartment with a garage. At minimum I’d have needed a 100 ft extension cord. Probably longer, which means it’d have to be thicker. Which means more expensive.