Multifamily EV Charging? Proptech Firms Are Along for the Ride

Sales of electric vehicles in the U.S. bounced 40.7 percent in the third quarter of 2025 to an all-time high, besting the prior peak set in the last three months of 2024, according to Kelly Blue Book estimates. 

The timing of that record is no accident. The end of many federal incentives for purchases likely means a steep drop in sales ahead. In the meantime, proptech companies that service multifamily owners seeking to provide EV charging stations are reveling in the unprecedented demand. 

Swtch Energy, a Toronto-based company that provides EV charging ports for multifamily and other commercial buildings, conducted a survey in September 2024 that revealed 82 percent of North America multifamily residents lack home access to EV charging, said Carter Li, SWTCH’s CEO and founder.

“We found that multifamily residents are two and a half times more likely to own an EV if they have charging access in their buildings,” Li said. “Furthermore, they would actually pay $50 to $100 more per month for their apartment if they had access to charging in these locations. But there’s a relative abundance of what we call, ‘garage orphans,’ who don’t have access to charging where they work and live.”

Swtch has seen an increase in how many buildings have EV charging, said Li.

“I think we did a survey two or three years ago and it was 6 percent of the multifamily buildings that had access to EV charging in North America,” but he now estimates that 13 to 14 percent of buildings are currently equipped with the necessary technology.

Founded in 2016, Swtch was created when Li realized his own challenges in owning an EV where he lived in Downtown Toronto.

“The technology, the business model, everything was designed around: How do you put in charging in multifamily buildings in Downtown Toronto?” he recalled. Since then, EV adoption in Canada and the U.S. has been similar: about 10 percent of new vehicle sales. Swtch’s business is primarily U.S.-based, with a significant presence in the Northeast and California, said Li.

The growth in EV ownership, despite periods of political opposition to subsidies in the U.S. and Canada, has been a net positive.

“The rate of increase might plateau a little bit, but there’s this consistent overall increase in EV adoption,” said Li. “There might be states and provinces across North America that have higher rates of adoption due to state or provincial policies, but irrespective of that, the general trend, with or without policies, is still increasing. It’s just how quickly it’s increasing.”

EV ownership and the subsequent demand for residential charging ports is particularly strong in California, Florida and Texas, said Olga Shevorenkova, CEO of Loop Global, a Los Angeles-based company that integrates EV charging hardware and software services into residential and other commercial buildings.

“We’re seeing that multifamily is one segment where demand continues strong, because a lot of  tenants would not move into the building if there is no EV charger,” said Shevorenkova. “And that’s not just California. That goes across the country.” Founded in 2019, Loop Global has about 7,000 ports — approximately 6,000 in multifamily and under 1,000 in single-family homes — across 30 states, Shevorenkova said.

As far as demand for EVs, Shevorenkova doesn’t see Trump administration cuts to EV subsidies as being a huge negative — in particular, specific cuts to certain charging portals.

“Federal subsidies, which Trump canceled or nearly canceled, were designed to support corridor charging,” she said, meaning highway charging stations. “Those fast chargers are built alongside corridors to eliminate the range anxiety of a lot of people who buy these vehicles. 

But we’re not playing in that market. So that particular federal subsidy affected a lot of companies, but not ours. 

“The multifamily segments still have state, municipal and utility subsidies and rebates. Those didn’t go away. Despite federal subsidy cuts, state and municipal subsidies remain strong.”

Consistent demand from multifamily owners is a big plus to providers such as Loop Global, as real estate investment trusts that own many apartment buildings look to spread good practices throughout their portfolios, said Shevorenkova. 

“If you’ve done a good job for them in a few buildings, they continue to do business with you,” she said. “And it’s a very agile way to grow your revenues and adoption, versus going and knocking on every building’s door. You’re not working with a corporate structure who pushes down your solution on individual buildings.”

Loop Global’s technology, too, can work with charging stations in underground concrete multifamily garages.

“The garages have very bad reception on a cellular site, and the chargers are smart devices for 21st-century infrastructure,” she said. “They  don’t work without a connection to the internet. You need the internet for billing, reporting and connectivity for the car to send the signal to the charger, and so on and so forth.”

Tapping into a building’s WiFi is a bad solution, because security wouldn’t allow it, she continued. So, Loop Global developed what it calls network access packages and connectivity infrastructure to create a local Wi-Fi network that connects all the chargers and allows for local load management.  

In addition, later this year, the company plans to bring to market what it calls Infinity Link, a Bluetooth-based technology that allows the charger to go offline if there is a grid outage and then connect back to the network.

Shevorenkova also noted growing investor interest in profitability over rapid growth for EV charging companies.

“The era of, ‘I’m going to grow at any cost,’ is over,” she said. “Investors only want to invest in companies which have either reached profitability, which not that many have done or maybe no one has done. An EV charging company must have a very clear path and strategy towards getting there. We have two fantastic investors, Fifth Wall and Agility, which is a large Middle Eastern group.”

Swtch’s Li said installing EV charging ports in a single-family home is far easier than in multifamily.

“Single-family is growing for sure, because they require less of what we call managed charging,” said Li. “It’s relatively easy to put a charger in a single-family home. You just hook it up to your electrical panel and it gets included as part of your monthly electrical bill. It’s when you’re dealing with complex common shared amenities and assets that it becomes really complicated in multifamily or commercial buildings.

“People who own and operate these EV charging assets — what they call charge point operators — raise money and go in there and own and operate. So it’s a zero capex model for the people the site hosts. They don’t have to necessarily put any skin in the game.”

A firm like Swtch is different, Li said.

“We are taking on the risks because we believe in the business model, and we’ve done all the math, and everything that we understand pencils,” he said. “So this has been a much easier way for people who still want to provide the amenity for their residents and tenants, but don’t quite understand the ecosystem, don’t really understand the risks involved. We do this day in and day out to be able to take on that risk and to deploy these assets in these locations.”

Aubrey Gunnels, CEO and co-founder at 3V Infrastructure, a Manhattan-based EV charging infrastructure investor, owner and operator, said in an email that her company is tackling the challenges of single-family and multifamily installations.

“Historically, it’s been easier to own an EV if you lived in a single-family home and could install charging yourself,” said Gunnels. “We’re trying to change that at 3V Infrastructure by removing the cost and burden for property owners to offer charging to their residents. 3V Infrastructure is one of the only companies addressing the market gap in infrastructure dollars to build chargers in multifamily buildings. This removes the financial and operational barriers for property owners to offer charging as an amenity to their residents.

“As EV adoption increases, more residents expect at-home charging, and they’re willing to pay more in rent for it.”

Gunnels cited a recent survey from multifamily ownership giant Greystar. It showed that residents were willing to pay $66 a month for EV charging — and won’t rent without it.  

“Even if EV penetration peaks at 20 percent, that’s still 20 percent of building residents who will expect access to charging,” she said. “Multifamily property owners can’t ignore that.”