Besides the upfront price tag, there’s a good reason most electric vehicle drivers own single-family homes.
If you have a garage or carport, it’s easy enough to replenish an EV battery with a standard outlet or a faster “Level 2” home charger. Besides convenience, recharging at home also unlocks steep cost savings, allowing EV owners to avoid the high price of visiting the gas pump or fast charger once or twice a week.
A new initiative aims to bring the same benefits to Denver’s less wealthy apartment dwellers. On Thursday, Mayor Mike Johnston joined a ribbon-cutting for a bank of six chargers outside Sienna at Sloanes Lake, a former 1940s-era dorm for nurses converted into an affordable apartment complex.
“It used to be that if a vehicle was electric, only some folks could afford it,” Johnston said. “No one is more likely to want to use an electric vehicle than someone who's living in affordable housing.”
The average price of a new EV is around $58,000 in the U.S, which remains far out of reach for most low-income families. Colorado, however, offers programs to help less wealthy residents afford EVs. And since plug-in cars quickly lose value, pre-owned electric cars and trucks are now almost as cheap as used cars powered by fossil fuels, according to recent sales figures published by Cox Automotive.
Apartment chargers could unlock a new category of potential EV buyers. It could also help places like Denver reach closer to its climate goals as the federal government withdraws support for climate-friendly technology.
The project, however, wasn’t financed by the city. Koelbel and Co., the developer behind the affordable housing project, built the chargers by contracting Buzze, a company focused on installing EV plugs at commercial and multifamily properties. Xcel Energy also offered rebates to subsidize the plugs.
The same collaboration has plans for similar charging setups across the Mile High City. Over the next year, Buzze plans to install 600 chargers in Denver, putting a majority at or near affordable housing projects, according to Aaron Lieberman, the company’s founder and CEO.
Lieberman started the company after buying his own electric car. At first, he didn’t own a garage charger, which left him planning errands around unreliable and expensive public fast chargers, where recharging can cost $20 to $45 per session. Once an electrician installed a plug at home, he said EV ownership became “a dream.”
“That's the dream that's being made possible for everybody who lives in this development,” Lieberman said.
Colorado is an especially favorable environment for EV charging companies
It’s clear there are plenty of Colorado drivers willing to at least try all-electric driving.
On Wednesday, Gov. Jared Polis’ office announced that 32% of new vehicles registered in the state in the last quarter were electric, according to the latest report from the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association.
Sales surged nationwide as drivers rushed to claim the federal EV tax credit before it expired on Sept. 30. Colorado, however, not only set the pace for the highest EV adoption rate in the nation between July and September, surpassing California. It also set the highest single-quarter EV adoption rate ever recorded in any state.
Colorado drivers have now registered more than 210,000 EVs, according to state data. More than 55,000 are plug-in hybrids, which can drive short distances on a battery before switching to a gas- or diesel-powered motor. The other 155,000 are battery-electric vehicles demanding either overnight charging or visits to public fast chargers.
Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest power provider, has also made EV adoption a priority. In 2024, it won approval for a $264 million plan to offer EV purchase rebates and subsidize EV infrastructure. The utility now offers up to $20,000 to offset the cost of each charging port at an apartment, with additional support available in less wealthy communities.
Robert Kenney, the president of Xcel Energy’s Colorado division, said the utility is investing more than $80 million to help commercial customers, like apartment complexes, design and build EV charging stations.
“The future of transportation is electric, and that future has to be accessible to everyone,” Kenney said.
It’s still way cheaper to charge an EV in a privately-owned garage
Residents using the new Buzze charging station will pay between 35 cents to 40 cents per kilowatt hour. Since most standard EV batteries hold between 60 to 100 kWhs, recharging a car to full capacity should cost roughly $30.
That’s far more than it costs to recharge an EV in a garage. In Colorado, Xcel Energy currently charges residential customers around 15 cents per kWh, so topping off a battery would cost roughly half as much as using one of the Buzze chargers installed at the apartments.
Lieberman said the extra cost helps pay for physical infrastructure and software behind the charging system. Even though it’s more expensive than home charging, it’s still cheaper than high-powered fast chargers owned by companies like Tesla and Electrify America.
“And all of it beats gas without the oil changes and everything else,” Lieberman said.
