How Many EV Chargers Does a 200-Unit Florida Community Actually Need?

It is usually the second question a Florida board or asset manager asks, right after what it costs. How many chargers does the property actually need?

The usual answer is a ratio, and the ratio is a reasonable place to start. It is not an answer. It produces a range, and a range is not something a board can vote on or an owner can budget.

Short answer: a 200-unit Florida community typically starts at seven to ten Level 2 ports, using the multifamily planning ratio of roughly one port per 20 to 30 units. Most communities are better off energizing near the lower end of that range and sizing the trench, conduit, and electrical capacity for the full build, because adding ports later is a comparatively small job and digging the site up twice is not.

Start with the ratio, then stop treating it as the answer

Florida Chargers uses roughly one Level 2 port per 20 to 30 units as a multifamily starting point. For 200 units that is seven to ten ports. At $5,000 to $8,000 per port installed before incentives, that is a first phase somewhere between $35,000 and $80,000, a range covered in more detail in what EV charging actually costs a Florida apartment community.

The ratio is a planning baseline. It is not a code requirement, and it is not derived from the property. What moves it is unit mix, how much of the parking is assigned versus open, resident turnover, and how much spare electrical capacity the site already has. Two 200-unit communities a mile apart can land several ports apart for reasons that have nothing to do with unit count.

What one Level 2 port actually does in a week

This is the part most sizing conversations skip, and it is the part that decides whether seven ports or ten is right.

ENERGY STAR's Portfolio Manager technical reference for EV charging, which draws its usage assumptions from Argonne National Laboratory's AFLEET tool, puts an average public Level 2 charging station at 4.63 charging sessions per week at 2.38 hours per session. It puts annual site energy use at 8,663 kBtu per station, which converts to roughly 2,540 kWh a year.

Run that out. About 11 hours of actual charging per week, out of the 168 hours in a week. For something like 157 of them, the average station is not delivering power to anything.

That is not an argument for installing fewer ports. It is an argument that raw capacity is almost never the binding constraint at a residential property. A 48-amp, 11.5 kW Tesla Universal Wall Connector can move far more energy in a week than the average station is asked to. The question is not whether the ports can handle the volume. It is whether enough of them are free at the hour residents want them.

The constraint is overlap, not total hours

National averages describe how much charging happens, not when it happens. At a residential property the when is the whole question, because a port is only useful to a resident who can reach it at the hour they are home. How tightly those hours cluster is specific to the property, and it is what an actual site assessment looks at: how many spaces are in play, whether parking is assigned or open, and what the arrival pattern on that site looks like.

The practical consequence is that a community can have ports drawing no power for most of the week and still have residents who cannot find one on a Tuesday night. Sizing to the weekly average produces exactly that outcome. Sizing to the peak window is what keeps the amenity from generating complaints.

Phase the ports, size the infrastructure once

The expensive part of a Florida install is rarely the charger. It is the trench, the conduit, the panel work, and the distance from the electrical room to the parking stalls. Those costs are largely incurred once, and largely incurred again if the property has to go back and expand a run that was sized only for what it needed on day one.

So the two decisions should be made on different horizons. Energize the ports for the demand that exists now. Size the underground and electrical scope for the demand the property expects in several years. Adding connectors to conduit and capacity that were already sized for them is a small job. Re-trenching a parking lot is not.

Demand is also not static, and the direction is known. In a 2024 SWTCH Energy survey of 1,567 multifamily residents across Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami and Tampa, 62% said they plan to own or drive an EV within five years when charging is available at their property, against 25% when it is not, and 31% of non-EV owners named the lack of building charging as a barrier. Installing charging is part of what creates the demand it serves, which is a good reason not to size the infrastructure to today's resident survey.

Spare panel capacity is the other half of the ceiling. Tesla's Group Power Management links up to six Wall Connectors so they share the power allocated to them rather than each demanding its full draw, and Tesla states that the Universal Wall Connector supports it. That can add ports on a Florida property with tight capacity without a service upgrade, but it is not unlimited headroom: a bank larger than six needs more than one group, and when several connectors in a group are charging at once, each one delivers less power than it would alone. Whether a specific site can carry seven to ten ports on what it already has is an electrical question, not a rule of thumb. Florida Chargers covers how this applies to apartment communities on its Florida apartment EV charging page.

When to add the next bank

The trigger is contention, not average utilization. A bank that is consistently full during the same evening window needs expanding, even if its weekly average looks unremarkable. So does a bank residents have started queueing for, or quietly negotiating over. Those are the signals that show up before the complaints do.

Under Share the Revenue, Florida Chargers owns and operates the chargers, so running and monitoring the equipment is not something the property has to staff. Tesla Wall Connector hardware is included, and financing is available for qualified properties to cover the electrical infrastructure and installation with no money down. The property shares in net charging profit for the full term, which the ROI calculator runs against a specific port count.

When a bigger first phase is the right call

Phasing is the default recommendation, not a universal one. A few situations argue for building the full count immediately.

• The property already knows its EV population, because residents have been asking, running cords, or requesting spaces for months.
• A utility make-ready credit is available now and may not be at the next phase. The FPL EVolution Make-Ready Credit is first-come until its budget is depleted. Florida Chargers also works with Duke Energy Florida's Commercial Charger Prep Credit, which covers wiring, panel, and conduit rather than hardware or permits. Each program has its own eligibility rules and timing.
• The parking area is being resurfaced or reconfigured anyway, and the civil work can be absorbed into a project that is already happening.
• The property is competing directly with a comparable community down the road that already has charging, and the amenity is being used in leasing.

Outside of those, a smaller first bank on infrastructure sized for the full build is the lower-risk path. It gets the amenity live, it produces real utilization data from the actual residents, and it leaves the expansion cheap.

What to ask for

A board or asset manager evaluating a proposal should be able to get, in writing: the recommended first-phase port count and what it was derived from, the maximum port count the proposed electrical and underground scope will support, what a later expansion into that scope would cost, and which utility programs the property qualifies for. A proposal that gives a port count without giving the ceiling it was designed to is answering half the question.

Florida Chargers is a veteran-owned, Tesla Certified commercial EV installer serving condo associations, apartment communities, and asset managers across Florida. A property gets a first-phase port count, the capacity ceiling that scope supports, and an expansion path, instead of a ratio. Reach out for a no-pressure free site assessment. Call 321-475-2689 or visit flchargers.com.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. Pricing, third-party figures, and utility incentive programs are subject to change and to eligibility requirements. Consult a licensed Florida attorney for guidance specific to your association or property.