When I go to the grocery store, I admire the many modes of transit people use to run their errands—from buses to bikes to cars. The modes people choose tell a story about the neighborhood, but so too do the variety of cars on the street. There are sports cars, pickups, sedans of all shapes and sizes, hybrids and hatchbacks with kayaks strapped to them, and motorcycles. With all this automotive diversity, I’ve been surprised that I have not once seen an electric vehicle (EV) parked on the street. This is despite EVs making up 8% of U.S. new car sales in 2024 and being a common sight on Midwestern roads.

The dearth of EVs parked on the street isn’t a coincidence. Most of the buildings in my neighborhood are condos and apartments without designated parking ramps or even parking lots. Residents of these Multi-Dwelling Units (MDUs) with cars have to park on the street and have no way of charging an EV at their address.

It’s not that MDU residents wouldn’t like to have electric cars. In fact, 15% of these residents plan to buy an EV in the next 5 years. Renters that live in densely populated and high-traffic areas could benefit more than most from electric vehicle adoption. EVs are quieter and reduce noise pollution. They also have no tailpipe emissions, which are linked to cognitive impairment and respiratory health problems. And when drivers can charge at home, EVs are ultimately cheaper to own and operate than gas-powered vehicles. That, however, is the crux of the issue.

Without an electric vehicle charger easily accessible in your garage, charging an electric vehicle becomes both more expensive and more inconvenient. This barrier holds back one in four Minnesotans from switching to an EV and slows Minnesota’s shift to clean transportation—but there are solutions.

Without electric vehicle chargers, renters are stuck in the slow lane

When a residential building has no designated parking, residents with cars typically must park on the streets nearby. In these cases, finding an outlet to plug in your EV on the street is rare. Even if you do find one, plugging in can mean blocking a sidewalk or causing a tripping hazard with the charging cord. Right now, for many MDU residents that want to use an EV, the only solution is to use existing public charging infrastructure.

Public charging stations are becoming more prevalent, but they are more expensive and significantly less convenient than home charging. Most estimates agree that public charging is about three times more expensive than charging at home. That is an enormous difference! Imagine if you could fill your car with gas for $1.00 per gallon from the comfort of your own home or pay $3.00 per gallon at the pump at a cold gas station. You would probably do everything in your power to fuel up at home whenever possible, and your wallet would thank you.

These cost differences make EVs less affordable for MDU residents that park on the street, and they also highlight the importance of creating affordable, at-home charging solutions for MDU residents with allocated parking lots or garages.

But it’s not just on-street parking. There are significant barriers for MDU residents with designated off-street parking to access EV charging, too.

Installing EV charging at an MDU building requires coordination between the building owner, residents, the electric utility, and professional electricians. Although parking lots and communal parking garages can more easily accommodate charging infrastructure than streets, they often were not designed with these facilities in mind, and retrofitting can be several times more expensive than installing the infrastructure during initial construction.

Furthermore, cost allocation—who pays for the electric charger infrastructure—is more complicated when not all residents own an EV or a resident’s electric meter is located far from where their EV is being charged. In theory the building owner could pay the upfront cost of charger installation and then charge residents for using the infrastructure, but without guarantees that tenants will use the chargers, it can be hard for building owners to justify paying the high up-front costs. This creates an avoidable negative feedback loop: building owners don’t want to invest in infrastructure that renters won’t use, but renters don’t want to buy an EV if owners don’t have chargers installed.

There’s also the issue of what electricity rates MDU residents will be charged if they can access at-home charging. Single-family home residents get access to cheaper, off-peak electricity rates through various utility EV programs. This makes EVs much more affordable to operate than gasoline vehicles while also optimizing use of the electric grid in a way that benefits all ratepayers. However, given the complexities for MDU charging mentioned above, MDU residents are less likely to be able to access similarly priced electricity rates as their single-family home counterparts without policy changes.

MDUs are also often the most affordable option for under-resourced populations, and many residents of MDUs identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Climate change and transportation pollution disproportionately harm both communities of color and under-resourced residents. Making it easier for these Minnesotans to own electric vehicles and reduce pollution in their communities is a major equity issue that deserves focus from as many angles as possible.

This isn’t a fringe issue. Nearly a quarter of all Minnesotans are renters, and cities like Duluth have upward of 40% of households living in rental units. In total, there are over 700,000 rental apartment units spread across the state, and that figure doesn’t include owned condos, duplexes, or other forms of shared tenant buildings.

The lack of EV charging infrastructure for renters is a serious problem for many Minnesotans and has a sizable impact on Minnesota’s ability to meet its decarbonization targets. To address this challenge, a range of solutions—spanning policy, innovation, and advocacy—will be essential for enabling renters to fully participate in the shift to electric vehicles.

Fixing the EV charging problem for renters starts with innovation, smarter policy

Improving EV charging access for MDU residents will require technological innovation; local, state, federal, and utility-level policy changes; and advocacy from MDU residents to help facilitate discussion about the opportunities and challenges in adopting EVs.

Electric vehicle charging technology is improving every year, bringing new potential solutions for MDU residents challenged by charging on-street. These opportunities will give more people access to EVs and will improve our cities and grids in the process. Companies such as Voltpost are creating new streetlamps that have EV charging plugs built in, making use of existing electrical interconnections to create cost savings while also massively expanding the number of potential EV charging locations. These locations are especially helpful at providing ‘near-home’ charging to residents that live in MDUs without off-street parking that are otherwise the hardest groups to reach. As the EV industry grows, so too will cost-effective charging infrastructure.

In the policy and regulatory space, utilities like Xcel Energy and Minnesota Power have been implementing pilot programs to make electric vehicles more accessible to MDU residents.

Xcel Energy started its first pilot project in 2020, which has helped 16 MDUs in the Twin Cities metro install 292 charging ports for their residents. This spring and summer, Xcel Energy will be revisiting its project ahead of proposing a permanent version later this year, per advocacy from Fresh Energy and our partners last year.

The Minnesota Power MDU pilot, which Fresh Energy and our partners asked for last year, was released for public comment on December 20, 2024. It has ‘make-ready’ rebate provisions that will cover a significant share of the costs of charger installation for MDUs, and even more for those buildings that provide housing for underserved communities.

These pilot programs demonstrate that with the right levers, the benefits of EV ownership can be extended to hard-to-reach populations. Fresh Energy is excited to work on pushing these pilots further in coming years to extend the benefits of affordable EV ownership to more Minnesotans.

These pilot programs also offer opportunities to rethink our relationship with transportation. Car ownership is expensive, and many Minnesotans would prefer not to own and maintain a car for their transportation needs. Most cars are parked for 95% of the day. It is inefficient for everyone to spend a significant portion of their income on a car when it goes unused for such a large time, and sharing cars between multiple households is a good solution to reduce the cost burden of car ownership without people needing to rely entirely on public transportation to get around.

One idea pioneered by Xcel Energy in partnership with the non-profit Hourcar is to increase access to electric car-sharing services at MDUs. Hourcar provides shared ‘Evie’ electric cars that are located at or near MDUs that residents and the general public can use and return for a small fee. In doing so, residents who can’t or don’t want the responsibility of car ownership can still get around sustainably and affordably when they need to make a trip that isn’t accessible via public transit. These Hourcar services are now available at 10 MDU sites across the Twin Cities metro area. Hourcar and Xcel are working to extend the model to even more locations, especially in underserved communities.

Finally, while making at-home charging for current MDUs will be a major effort, we can also make sure new apartment and condo buildings are being built with EV charging in mind through updates to our building codes. Forward-thinking legislation passed in 2023 directed the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry to add ‘EV parking minimums’ to the next set of building codes for commercial buildings, which includes MDUs. While an initial set of parking minimums have been proposed, they have not been finalized yet. Fresh Energy’s Transportation and Buildings teams will continue working with partners like Drive Electric Minnesota to make sure the minimums set match Minnesota’s climate targets.

What’s next?

Minnesota stands to benefit from the shift to electric vehicles, and overcoming charging infrastructure barriers helps make EVs more accessible to Minnesotans regardless of their living situation.

Widespread curbside charging will reduce ‘range anxiety’ and make it easier for everyone to feel secure that they will be able to charge their EV wherever they may be driving. More MDU residents driving EVs also means less noise pollution and tailpipe emissions, which helps us all regardless of what kind of home we live in. Increased EV adoption will help make us all healthier, happier, and more productive, and the sooner we can remove barriers to adoption, the sooner we can achieve our emissions reduction targets.

To make this vision a reality, Fresh Energy will continue to advocate for policy improvements at the local and state level that make EVs more available to all people. To do this, we need your help.

If you or anyone you know lives in an MDU and are trying to buy an EV, we’d love to hear from you. Email me at haeg@fresh-energy.org to share the challenges you are facing and your ideas for what amenities, policies, or charging solutions would help make it possible for your next vehicle to be electric. With your help, someday soon I may see many more EVs parked on the street on my walk to the grocery store. I’m looking forward to it!