The convenience case for an electric vehicle rests on charging where the car sleeps. For renters and condominium residents that assumption often does not hold, and the reasons are structural.
The parking is usually not assigned electrically
A single-family home has a garage with a panel a few feet away. An apartment complex has a shared lot where no space is wired to any particular unit.
Metering is the immediate problem. Electricity drawn at a shared space has to be attributed to someone, and the building's existing wiring rarely provides a way to do that.
Even where a resident is willing to pay for an outlet, the space they park in may change, which breaks the connection between the investment and the person who made it.
Building electrical capacity is finite
Older multifamily buildings were sized for the loads of their era. Adding several vehicle chargers can approach or exceed the capacity of the existing service entrance.
Upgrading that service is a major project involving the utility, the building's main equipment and often a transformer, with costs far beyond a single charging station.
Load management systems exist that share a fixed capacity across many chargers, slowing each one when demand is high, and they are the usual practical answer.
Ownership structures complicate decisions
A renter cannot authorize permanent electrical work, and a landlord has little direct incentive to fund it unless it helps fill units or is required locally.
In a condominium the parking areas are typically common property, so installation requires a decision by the association rather than by an individual owner.
Some states have passed right-to-charge provisions that limit an association's ability to refuse a reasonable request, though the resident generally still bears the cost.
Public charging is a poor substitute for overnight
Fast charging is designed for travel, not routine replenishment, and using it as a daily habit costs considerably more per unit of energy than home charging does.
It also consumes the driver's time in a way home charging does not. Twenty minutes several times a week is a real burden compared with plugging in at night.
Frequent high-power charging is additionally less gentle on a battery than slow overnight charging, though modern thermal management limits how much that matters.
Workplace and curbside charging fill part of the gap
Charging at an employer's lot mirrors overnight charging closely, because the vehicle is parked for many hours and the power level can be modest.
Curbside charging on residential streets serves dense neighborhoods where off-street parking barely exists, and depends on municipal rather than private decisions.
Which of these becomes common in a given city will do more to determine electric vehicle adoption among renters than any change to the vehicles themselves.