I Can Plug In My Tesla at Night in My Garage, But Queens and Bronx Apartments Can't, and Range Improvements Won't Fix It

A New York auto dealer board member just named the EV charging problem that 300-mile ranges cannot fix, and millions of apartment renters across America are living it right now.

Key Takeaways Before You Read:

• EV Range gains mean nothing without a place to plug in.
• 43% of Americans live in apartments with no home charging option.
• Real EV equity requires infrastructure, not just better batteries.
• Scroll to see the comments or be the first to voice your opinion.

Think about two people buying the same electric vehicle on the same day. One lives in a house in Los Angeles with a garage. The other rents an apartment in Queens, New York. The car is identical. The charging experience is not even close. That gap is the most important conversation the EV industry keeps skipping, and after 15 years of covering the automotive world at TorqueNews, I can tell you this problem has barely moved.

Brian Benstock, a board member at the New York State Automotive Dealers Association, raised this exact issue on LinkedIn this week. His post deserves to be read in full:

"A 300-mile range means nothing if you can't charge where you live. That's the part of the EV conversation that keeps getting skipped. Range anxiety? Largely resolved. The technology has moved. You can drive 300 miles on a charge. That's real progress and it deserves to be acknowledged. But here's what hasn't been solved. The family in a house with a garage plugs in at night. Wakes up to a full charge. The car works seamlessly inside their life. The person in an apartment in Queens? In the Bronx? In any major metropolitan area in this country? They don't have that option. And no amount of range improvement changes that reality. So who is the EV revolution actually serving right now? Because if the answer is people who already have the infrastructure to support it, people with driveways, garages, private parking, then we're not solving a transportation problem. We're solving a convenience problem for people who were already comfortable. Affordable transportation has to work for everyone. Not just the ones with the right living situation. The path forward is real. Charging infrastructure needs to scale. It needs to reach the people who need it most, not just the corridors where it's easiest to build. The car is ready. The grid isn't. And until it is, let's be honest about who gets left behind."

That is one of the most clear-eyed statements anyone in the automotive industry has put into words this year.

Brian's post resonated well with those who replied under it. Paul Salzman, an organizational adviser from Kirkland, WA, replied and wrote he has been writing about this same issue in the past three years.

"I've written about this very subject for over 3 years. I remember commenting on a post by CEO of VW Group with a dissertation about how they're moving heavily into EV with no system in place for multifamily dwellings; with the irony that EV's are better suited for urban environments that don't require lots of range. To me, it's the biggest chicken-and-the-egg blunder I've seen in my lifetime. All these smart people who simply willed this into place with "hope" as a strategy. Hope is not a strategy, ever. The market for EV's are homeowners, and luxury cars, because it's a luxury to never worry about filling up. I daily an EV for that reason," Paul wrote in his reply.

The Charging Divide That Keeps EV Ownership Unequal

The numbers confirm what Benstock describes. Research published in peer-reviewed literature found that disadvantaged communities have 64% fewer public charging stations per capita than other neighborhoods. That number climbs to 73% when you narrow it down to renters in multi-unit buildings. These are not fringe cases. About 43% of residences in America are apartments, condos, or multi-family homes. If you cannot install a Level 2 charger at home, you are forced into the public charging system for your daily needs. That system is still patchy, often expensive, and sometimes unreliable.

This is exactly why we covered the end of Electrify America's subsidized charging era here on Torque News. Public charging price hikes hit apartment dwellers hardest. Homeowners absorb those hikes only on road trips. Renters absorb them every single week.

Why a 300-Mile Range Does Not Solve the Problem

Battery range has genuinely improved. That is real progress. But Benstock is right that range is not the barrier anymore for most daily drivers. The barrier is access to the outlet itself. A 300-mile range on a car you cannot charge at home still means hunting for a public station every few days. That changes the math of EV ownership completely. We reported on this exact reality when covering why home charging is a must for electric vehicle owners, and the conclusion was stark. Studies showed 80% of all EV charging happens at home. That statistic only applies to people who have a home charger to use.

Meanwhile, a Level 1 standard outlet can take over 24 hours to add just 40 miles of range. That is not a meaningful solution for a Queens resident who parks on the street.

What Urban Charging Actually Looks Like Today

Urban apartment residents who do own EVs have to work far harder to manage charging. We covered how one EV owner in metro Boston relied on urban public charging, and the story required real creativity. The owner planned every trip around charger availability, location, and timing. That is a full-time secondary job on top of owning a car. Most people will not take on that burden if a gas car sits right there in the dealership lot next to it.

The dangerous ways EV owners misuse mobile chargers in apartments and condos tells you even more. Owners plug into shared building circuits that are not rated for overnight EV loads. Automakers prohibit this practice in their own manuals. People do it anyway because they have no other option. That is not a charging solution. That is a workaround that carries real safety risk.

Who Gets Left Behind When We Only Build for the Comfortable

Benstock asks the right question. Who exactly is the EV revolution serving right now? The honest answer is people who already had the infrastructure advantage before the revolution started. Homeowners. People with driveways. People with disposable income to install a dedicated Level 2 circuit. Those are not the people who need affordable transportation the most. They are the people who needed it the least.

This connects directly to why affordable EVs remain out of reach for so many Americans. Price is one barrier. Charging access is a second barrier. Both hit the same demographic at the same time.

The good news is that some cities are beginning to act. Washington, D.C., recently partnered with a company called Voltpost to install chargers on existing street light poles in neighborhoods across all eight wards, as Electrek reported about a week ago. Philadelphia just announced plans for up to 1,000 curbside chargers targeting neighborhoods without off-street parking. Voltpost's CEO called expanding charging access critical to accelerating EV adoption. These are genuine signals that the problem has a solution path, but the scale is still far too small.

We wrote about a British startup years ago that tackled this exact same problem in London, putting EV chargers on street lampposts so urban residents could charge at the curb overnight without tearing up sidewalks. That concept has reached American cities only slowly. The technology has existed for years. The political and financial will to deploy it at scale has not kept pace.

The Solution Requires Policy, Not Just Hardware

Here is what actually needs to happen. Building codes must require EV-ready circuits in new multifamily construction. Existing apartment buildings need financial incentives to retrofit parking structures with charging infrastructure. Cities need to mandate curbside charging pilots in every high-density residential ward, not just the neighborhoods with political visibility. And federal programs like NEVI need to direct funds toward urban density, not just highway corridors.

We covered how Tesla's Supercharger for Business program now aims at charging ubiquity in hotels, grocery stores, and office parks. That goal matters for the apartment dweller who can charge while shopping or working. It is not a complete answer, but it is a piece of the puzzle.

The EV industry cannot keep declaring victory on range and charging speed while ignoring who gets left behind. Electrek recently noted that for renters, chargers are often farther away than the nearest gas station, with very little Level 2 charging at apartment complexes. That is a damning summary of where things stand right now.

The Moral of This Story

A technology that only serves people who are already comfortable is not a transportation solution. It is a premium product dressed up as progress. If the EV transition is genuinely about cleaner air, energy independence, and affordable mobility, then it must reach the person who rents a two-bedroom apartment in the Bronx just as surely as it reaches the homeowner in the LA suburbs. Real progress is not measured by the best-case scenario. It is measured by what works for the hardest case.

The car industry and policymakers have a choice. They can keep optimizing the ownership experience for people who already have garages, or they can do the harder work of building the infrastructure that serves everyone. Benstock put it simply. The car is ready. The grid is not. And until it is, the EV revolution is only a revolution for some.

Do you live in an apartment or a home without a dedicated garage charger, and how has that affected your decision to buy or avoid an EV? And if you already own an EV without home charging access, what does your daily charging routine actually look like? Share your experience in the comments below.

Image by Brian Benstock.

About The Author

Armen Hareyan is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Torque News and an automotive journalist with over 15 years of experience writing car reviews and industry news. Now based in the Charlotte region (Indian Land, SC, he founded Torque News in 2010, which since then has been publishing expert news and analysis about the automotive industry. He can be reached at Torque News on X, Linkedin, Facebook, and Youtube. Armen holds three Masters Degrees, including an MBA, and has become one of the known voices in the industry, specializing in the landscape of electric vehicles and real-world stories of actual car owners. Armen focuses on providing readers with transparent, data-backed analysis bridging the gap of complex engineering and car buyer practicality. Armen frequently participates in automotive events throughout the United States, national and local car reveals and personally test-drives new vehicles every week. Armen has also been published as an automotive expert in publications like the Transit Tomorrow, discussing how will autonomous vehicles reshape the supply chain, and emerging technologies in vehicle maintenance.