From Fleets to Apartments: Ensuring No EV Customer Is Left Behind

This briefing by RMI outlines a roadmap developed with partners like EPRI and IREC to streamline electric grid service connections for small EV customers, specifically small fleet operators and residents of multi-family housing. It identifies systemic barriers—such as unpredictable costs, long utility lead times, and complex permitting—and proposes four key areas for improvement: enhancing customer educational resources, increasing utility transparency, collaborating with local governments and industry, and maintaining post-energization customer relationships.

• Small EV customers, including apartment building owners, renters, and small fleet operators, face significant barriers to grid connection that can lead them to abandon electrification plans. These obstacles include confusing processes, unpredictable costs related to trenching, panel upgrades, and new transformers, and a lack of in-house expertise.
• There is a critical mismatch between the speed of EV and charger procurement and the time required for utility grid connections. While vehicles and chargers are acquired quickly, utilities have longer lead times for upgrades, and the process is often slowed by complex permitting and the need for large grid upgrades.
• To improve the connection experience, utilities should provide accessible educational tools and resources. Recommended actions include hosting webinars, offering translation services, creating standardized templates, and providing submission guidelines and site design templates to help customers plan more effectively.
• Collaboration between utilities, local governments, and industry is necessary to reduce administrative barriers and build a skilled workforce. Key strategies include standardizing permit requirements (using tools like SolarAPP), creating pre-approved easement language in tariffs, promoting pre-designated EV zones in city plans, and sponsoring EVITP certifications for workers.
• The document emphasizes the importance of post-energization engagement to ensure service continuity and identify process improvements. Utilities are encouraged to provide maintenance support resources and engage customers in managed charging or demand response programs.

APA

RMI (2025). From Fleets to Apartments: Ensuring No EV Customer Is Left Behind. https://rmi.org/resources/from-fleets-to-apartments-ensuring-no-ev-customer-is-left-behind/

Chicago

RMI. From Fleets to Apartments: Ensuring No EV Customer Is Left Behind. 2025. https://rmi.org/resources/from-fleets-to-apartments-ensuring-no-ev-customer-is-left-behind/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=From Fleets to Apartments: Ensuring No EV Customer Is Left Behind |date=15 September 2025 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/from-fleets-to-apartments-ensuring-no-ev-customer-is-left-behind/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2025from, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{From Fleets to Apartments: Ensuring No EV Customer Is Left Behind}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2025}, month = sep, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/from-fleets-to-apartments-ensuring-no-ev-customer-is-left-behind/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }