The Multifamily Gap

The headlines from this week’s J.D. Power 2026 U.S. Electric Vehicle Consideration Study read like a rebound story. Total “very likely” consideration rose to 25 percent. April hit 26 percent as gas prices climbed. Charging-related rejection reasons all improved year over year. After a two-year stall, the demand signal is finally moving up.

That is the headline. The deeper finding, buried in the same release, is a much sharper story for anyone in the parking or commercial real estate business.

For shoppers who cannot charge where they live, EV consideration is going the other direction.

Two curves diverging

J.D. Power surveyed 8,154 in-market shoppers from January through April 2026. The aggregate numbers are encouraging. The disaggregated numbers are not:

• Apartment residents: 18 percent “very likely” to consider an EV — down 4 points year over year
• Condo and townhouse residents: 17 percent “very likely” — down 1 point year over year
• The general shopper population: 25 percent “very likely” — up 1 point year over year

While the average rose, multifamily fell. The market is bifurcating along a single axis: whether the shopper can plug in at home. For people who can, EVs are increasingly compelling. For people who can’t, they are increasingly off the table. The gap is widening, not narrowing.

What J.D. Power actually said

The framing did not come from us. It came from J.D. Power’s own executive director of EV practice, Brent Gruber, in the press release itself:

“While concerns around driving range and public charging are easing, consideration among shoppers who can’t charge at home or work has barely moved, highlighting a critical gap in multifamily and workplace infrastructure. Without meaningful progress in these areas, a large share of would-be EV buyers will remain out of reach, regardless of how attractive the vehicles become.”

That is J.D. Power naming the parking industry — multifamily and workplace — as the gating factor for U.S. EV adoption. By name. In the press release.

The practitioner read

Three things follow from this data, and they should be on the desk of every commercial real estate owner, multifamily operator, and workplace facility manager reading this.

First, the EV adoption story is no longer primarily a vehicle problem. Range is improving. Public charging satisfaction is at study-record highs. Charging time concerns are easing. Even purchase price is down 5 points from 2024 as a rejection reason. The vehicle side of the equation is working. What is not working is the place where EVs sit for 12 to 16 hours a day. That is parking.

Second, the gap is structural, not cyclical. It will not close because gas prices rise or fall. It will close only when multifamily buildings, condo associations, and workplace facilities install the charging infrastructure that single-family homeowners already have. That is a 10 to 20 year construction and retrofit cycle. It starts with code, capital planning, and vendor selection decisions being made right now.

Third, the practitioners who position their assets to close this gap will capture a durable demand pool. The renters and condo dwellers currently being priced out of EV consideration are not a small population — they are roughly a third of U.S. households. When their buildings get charging, they re-enter the market. The asset owner who is ready to serve them captures both the parking premium and the charging revenue. The one who is not, will not.

Where this fits in the policy and operational stack

The demand-side argument the 2026 data makes — that infrastructure access governs adoption — is the foundation of a forthcoming Parking Consultants Council white paper, Right-Speeding: EV Charging — A White Paper for Communities, authored by PCC member Mary Smith for release through the National Parking Association. The policy thesis is direct: building codes should require capability, not specify capacity. Mandates calibrated to projected adoption curves consistently overshoot. The remedy is to require the conduit, panel headroom, and structural readiness that allow charging to scale on demand, and to trust the market to deploy capacity when usage warrants it.

For the multifamily and commercial owners evaluating EV charging partners, contract structures, and deployment phasing right now, the operational companion is Plugging In Wisely: What Every Parking Operator, Property Owner, and Municipal Manager Needs to Know Before Partnering with an EV Charging Company. The 40-page guide, published in the Parkonomics Series, walks through certifications that actually matter, real PARCS integration versus reporting APIs dressed up as integration, total cost of ownership including the incentives that reshape Year 1 economics, and an 18-point vendor evaluation scorecard. The operating philosophy throughout: let the marketplace tell you when you need more capacity. Download the guide.

The bottom line

The 2026 J.D. Power data tells the parking industry two things at once. The good news: EV demand is back on the rise, and the vehicle-side concerns that dominated the rejection list for years are easing. The harder news: the next phase of EV adoption is gated by infrastructure that lives on our properties, in our garages, and at our workplaces. The market signal is no longer ambiguous. It is pointing directly at us.

Eighty-three percent of apartment residents and condo dwellers said they were not “very likely” to consider an EV. They are telling us why. The question is whether we are listening.