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Comment by sparkling | Hacker News Reader

About 50% of the population in germany are renters, not owners. And for the other 50% owners, obviously many just own a unit in a multi family building, not the whole propery.

For manyyyyy of these people there simply is no option to conveniently fast charge their electric vehile at home. No renter will want to invest in a pricy wallbox at a property that they don't own - even if the landlord would allow such a wallbox to be installed (most don't want any modifications to their building). And for the apartment/unit owners, a german court has decided that all the other unit owners must agree to such a wallbox being installed, so thats another obstacle.

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That's a valid point - charging EV's in multi-family buildings is an issue although there are many public charge stations now and with the range of new EV's a bi-weekly charge or so might be enough for most people.

You don't have to fast charge a car at home. Even at a standard wall outlet, over night you can easily charge 100-150km of range, that is way about the average driving distances. Compared to the value and cost of a parking space, the investment into electric outlets at each spot is really negligible. As soon as there is enough public interest, equipping them even for rended places shouldn't be a big deal.

The bigger problem is actually the one he just mentioned on the side. Most places you are legally not allowed to add charging stations to your rented place. It's not just the landlord giving permission, it goes on with billing.

This stuff doesn't just go away and I would suspect even politics would have trouble changing the law for this. There is a lot of supreme court control involved when it comes to property.

The legal problems are easy to solve - unfortunately a corresponding law was proposed as early as 2016 and is stuck in bureaucracy since. Passing it would be the easiest way to boost electric cars. Otherwise, the home owners just have to agree to such an installation, this shouldn't be impossible either. I am living in a multi-unit house and we have the electricity meters right besides the garage - drawing cables from there would be easy. Otherwise one would install additional meters for the garage, which isn't a to large effort either.

You underestimate German landlords.

They are just waiting until the government makes the costs for charging outlets tax deductible. After that, they will everywhere as quickly as you can say "Elektrizität" :)

> Even at a standard wall outlet, over night you can easily charge 100-150km of range

I live on the third floor of an apartment block. Am I supposed to throw a 30-meter extension cord down the balcony every evening?

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