Everyone is talking about EV chargers. The state wants them. Tenants are asking for them. New legislation is requiring them in certain renovation and construction contexts. And the contractors who install them are happy to show up, mount the hardware, and hand you an invoice.

What those contractors are frequently not telling you — because it is either outside their scope, outside their expertise, or simply inconvenient to the sales conversation — is that the EV charger is the last step in a process that begins with your electrical panel.

In Los Angeles, the majority of residential and multifamily properties that are pursuing EV charging infrastructure in 2025 do not have the electrical service capacity to support it without an upstream upgrade. The charger is the visible piece of hardware on the wall. The panel, the service entrance, the feeder conductors, and the utility connection are the invisible infrastructure that either supports it or doesn't — and in most cases in LA's existing building stock, they don't. Not without work.

Property owners who buy the charger first and discover the panel problem second are paying twice: once for the charger installation that can't be completed or can't be safely operated on the existing service, and once for the electrical upgrade that should have been scoped and priced at the beginning.

Here is what EV charging infrastructure actually requires — from the utility meter to the wall-mounted charger — and what LA property owners need to understand before they commit to any EV charging project.

The EV Charging Basics: Level 1, Level 2, and DC Fast Charging

Before getting into the electrical infrastructure requirements, it helps to understand what EV charging levels actually mean in terms of electrical demand — because the level of charging you're installing determines the electrical capacity you need to support it.

Level 1 charging uses a standard 120-volt outlet — the same outlet that powers a lamp or a phone charger. It delivers approximately 3 to 5 miles of range per hour of charging. For most EV drivers, Level 1 charging is inadequate as a primary charging solution — an overnight charge on a depleted battery adds 30 to 40 miles of range, which is insufficient for drivers with longer daily commutes or larger battery vehicles. Level 1 is the charging solution for occasional users and short-range drivers. It requires no dedicated circuit beyond a standard 15 or 20-amp outlet.

Level 2 charging uses a 240-volt dedicated circuit — the same voltage as a clothes dryer or an electric range. It delivers 15 to 30 miles of range per hour of charging, making it the standard solution for residential and multifamily EV charging. A depleted battery can be fully charged overnight on Level 2. Level 2 chargers require a dedicated 40-amp or 50-amp circuit, a 240-volt outlet or hardwired connection, and a NEMA 14-50 outlet or a hardwired EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment) unit. This is the charging level that most property owners are implementing, and it is the level that creates the electrical infrastructure requirements we'll cover in detail.

DC Fast Charging uses direct current at high voltage and amperage — 480 volts, 50 to 350 kilowatts — to charge a battery to 80% in 20 to 45 minutes. DC fast charging is the technology at public charging stations and commercial truck stops. It is not typically installed in residential or multifamily settings because the electrical service requirements are commercial-scale and the cost is prohibitive for private residential use.

For the purposes of this discussion, we are focused on Level 2 charging — the standard that applies to residential and multifamily EV charging in Los Angeles.

What a Level 2 Charger Actually Draws — and Why the Math Matters

A Level 2 EV charger operating at 240 volts on a 40-amp circuit draws 9.6 kilowatts of power when actively charging. On a 50-amp circuit, it draws up to 12 kilowatts. These are continuous loads — the charger draws this power for the full duration of the charging session, which can be four to eight hours for a full charge on a modern EV.

Now apply that to a multifamily property.

A 12-unit apartment building where every tenant has an EV — an increasingly realistic scenario in Los Angeles as EV adoption accelerates — has a theoretical peak simultaneous EV charging demand of 12 chargers at 9.6 kilowatts each, or 115 kilowatts. Against a typical existing multifamily service entrance of 200 to 400 amps at 240 volts — which represents 48 to 96 kilowatts of total capacity — the math stops working before you account for any other electrical load in the building.

This is the fundamental infrastructure problem facing multifamily EV charging in Los Angeles: the existing electrical service was not sized for EV loads, and EV loads are large enough to overwhelm the existing service in a fully penetrated scenario.

The solution is not simply to upgrade the service entrance to a larger size — though that is often part of the solution. It is to design the EV charging infrastructure as a managed electrical system, with a load management controller that monitors total building electrical demand and allocates available charging capacity across active chargers dynamically. Load-managed EV charging allows a 200-amp service to support 12 chargers — because the controller ensures that the total simultaneous draw never exceeds the service capacity, by reducing the charge rate of active chargers when total building demand is high.

Designing that system requires electrical engineering. It requires load analysis of the existing building electrical demand profile. It requires controller selection and programming that accounts for the specific charger hardware, the service capacity, and the anticipated usage patterns. And it requires a permit submission to LADBS that documents the system design — because a load-managed EV charging system is a designed electrical system, not a collection of individual charger installations.

The Panel Assessment: What Has to Happen Before a Single Charger Is Mounted

Every EV charging project in a Los Angeles residential or multifamily building should begin with a comprehensive electrical panel and service assessment. This is not a sales step or a formality. It is the engineering work that determines what EV charging infrastructure is possible, what it will cost, and what upgrades are required to support it safely and legally.

The assessment covers several interconnected elements:

Service entrance capacity — The total amperage of the service entrance — the connection between the LADWP utility and the building's electrical system — is the hard ceiling on total electrical demand. A 200-amp service at 240 volts provides 48 kilowatts of capacity. A 400-amp service provides 96 kilowatts. A 600-amp service provides 144 kilowatts. The assessment identifies the existing service entrance capacity and compares it to the existing electrical demand plus the proposed EV charging load to determine whether a service upgrade is required.

Panel condition and capacity — The main distribution panel or panels serving the building must have available capacity — both in terms of rated amperage and in terms of available breaker positions — to support the new EV charging circuits. An older panel with all breaker positions occupied, or a panel that has been derated due to age or condition, cannot simply receive new circuits without modification. The assessment identifies the panel condition and available capacity.

Feeder conductor condition — The conductors between the service entrance and the panel, and between the panel and the locations where chargers will be installed, must be sized for the EV charging loads. Undersized feeders are a safety issue and a code compliance issue — not just a performance issue.

LADWP transformer capacity — This is the assessment step that surprises most property owners, because it involves LADWP's infrastructure rather than the building's. LADWP's transformer serving your address has a rated capacity that limits the total electrical demand of all buildings it serves. If a significant service upgrade — adding 200 amps of EV charging capacity to a building currently drawing 200 amps — would exceed the transformer's available capacity, LADWP must upgrade the transformer before the building upgrade can be completed. This assessment requires a LADWP pre-application consultation, and it should happen before the electrical upgrade scope is finalized.

Parking configuration and conduit routing — The physical path from the panel to the EV charger locations must be assessed for conduit routing feasibility. In a multifamily parking structure, the conduit run from the electrical room to individual parking spaces may require penetrations through fire-rated assemblies, navigation around structural elements, or surface-mounted conduit that affects the aesthetics and security of the parking area. The routing assessment determines the most efficient and code-compliant path for each charger circuit.

California's EV Charging Requirements — What the Law Currently Mandates

Los Angeles property owners are not just responding to market demand for EV charging. In many cases, they are responding to legal requirements that make EV charging infrastructure mandatory in specific construction and renovation contexts.

California Title 24's EV charging requirements — updated in the 2022 code cycle and currently enforced by LADBS — mandate EV charging infrastructure in new residential and multifamily construction, and in certain renovation contexts where a building permit triggers EV-ready or EV-capable requirements.

The specific requirements depend on the project type and scope:

New single-family construction requires EV-capable infrastructure — a dedicated 208/240-volt branch circuit in the garage — as a baseline. Some local amendments require full EVSE installation rather than just conduit and wiring.

New multifamily construction requires a percentage of parking spaces to be EV-capable, EV-ready, or EVSE-installed, depending on the total number of parking spaces and the building type. The percentages have increased in each code update and continue to increase in the 2025 cycle.

Renovation projects that involve electrical panel upgrades — which includes soft-story retrofits, ADU additions, and significant remodels — may trigger EV-ready requirements for the parking spaces serving the renovated building. This is the provision that most surprises property owners who are initiating panel upgrades for other reasons: the panel upgrade itself can trigger an obligation to provide EV infrastructure in the associated parking.

SKS identifies applicable EV charging requirements at the beginning of every project that involves electrical work — not as a change order discovery after the permit is in plan check. Understanding the EV obligations that flow from a given project scope allows the property owner to make informed decisions about the project budget and to integrate the EV infrastructure into the electrical design from the beginning, rather than treating it as an afterthought.

The LADWP Coordination Nobody Plans For

We have covered LADWP coordination in the context of electrical service upgrades and ADU permitting, and it is worth addressing again here specifically in the EV charging context — because the LADWP coordination failure is the single most common source of EV charging project delays in Los Angeles.

The pattern is predictable: a property owner contracts with an EV charging installer, the installer submits an LADBS permit for the charger circuits, the permit is issued, the charger hardware is installed, and the system is ready to energize. Then the call to LADWP reveals that the upgraded service entrance — which the EV charging system requires to operate — needs a transformer upgrade that will take four to six months.

The chargers are mounted on the wall. They are permitted. They are fully installed. And they cannot be turned on because the utility has not energized the service upgrade that supports them.

This sequence is not a LADWP failure. It is a project management failure — specifically, the failure to initiate LADWP coordination early enough to identify transformer requirements and sequence the utility work in parallel with the building work rather than after it.

SKS initiates LADWP pre-application consultation at project inception on every electrical upgrade project that involves a service entrance change. For EV charging projects that require a service upgrade, we identify the transformer capacity situation before the project is scoped and priced — so the LADWP timeline is a known variable in the project schedule, not a surprise after the chargers are already on the wall.

Load-Managed EV Charging: The Engineering Solution for Multifamily Buildings

For multifamily property owners who want to provide EV charging to all or most tenants without upgrading to a service entrance large enough to handle simultaneous full-rate charging across all spaces, load management is the engineering solution.

A load-managed EV charging system consists of networked chargers — EVSE units that communicate with a central controller — and a load management controller that monitors the building's total electrical demand and allocates available charging capacity across active chargers in real time.

When the building's total electrical demand is low — typically late at night, when tenants are sleeping and major appliances are idle — the controller allocates maximum charging capacity to active chargers. Each EV charges at close to its full rated rate. When building demand rises — during morning peak hours, when HVAC, laundry, and kitchen loads are high — the controller reduces the charge rate of active chargers proportionally, keeping the total building demand within the service capacity.

The tenant experience is that the car is charged by morning — regardless of when during the night the controller allocated the charging capacity. The building's service entrance is never overloaded. And the cost of the service upgrade is sized for the managed peak demand, not the theoretical simultaneous maximum demand — which is significantly lower and therefore significantly less expensive to achieve.

The design of a load-managed system requires several engineering decisions: the selection of networked charger hardware compatible with the chosen controller platform, the sizing of the controller for the number of active chargers and the service capacity, the integration of the controller with the building's metering infrastructure, and the programming of the load management algorithm for the specific usage patterns of the building.

This is electrical engineering work, not charger installation work. It requires an LADBS permit with load calculations that document the managed demand profile. And it requires a firm with both the engineering capability to design the system and the electrical contracting capability to install it under a coordinated permit — not a charger installer who subcontracts to an electrician who has never designed a load management system.

The LADBS Permit Process for EV Charging — What Most Installers Skip

EV charger installation in Los Angeles requires a building permit from LADBS for any installation that involves a new dedicated circuit — which is every Level 2 charger installation. The permit is not optional. It is required by the California Electrical Code, adopted in Los Angeles by reference, and enforced by LADBS.

An unpermitted EV charger installation is not just a code violation. It is a condition that creates insurance exposure — your property insurance may not cover a fire or electrical fault traced to an unpermitted charger installation — and a title issue if discovered during a property sale.

Many EV charger installers do not pull permits. They mount the hardware, make the electrical connection, and leave. The homeowner or property owner assumes the installation is legal because a licensed contractor did the work. The permit is a separate obligation that the installer did not fulfill — and that the owner now carries as an unpermitted condition.

SKS pulls LADBS permits for every EV charging installation we perform. Every installation is inspected at rough and final stages. Every permit is finaled before we consider the project complete.

What SKS Brings to EV Charging Projects in Los Angeles

SKS Construction handles EV charging infrastructure as an integrated electrical engineering and construction project — not as a charger installation with an electrical hookup. Our in-house team manages the panel assessment, the LADWP pre-application coordination, the load management system design, the LADBS permit, and the complete installation under one fixed-price contract.

For single-family homeowners, we deliver a permitted, inspected, fully operational Level 2 charging solution sized for the existing or upgraded panel capacity — with LADWP coordination completed before the charger goes on the wall.

For multifamily property owners with 4 to 50-plus units, we deliver a load-managed EV charging system designed for the building's specific service capacity, parking configuration, and tenant usage profile — engineered to support full EV charging penetration without requiring a service upgrade sized for simultaneous worst-case demand.

Thirty-nine years of electrical service work in Los Angeles. Direct panel supply relationships. In-house licensed structural and electrical engineering. Fixed-price bids with no subject-to-change clauses. Direct owner access to Shahab and Sam Shaolian on every project.

The charger on the wall is the easy part. We handle everything behind it.

Get a FREE EV Charging Infrastructure Assessment

SKS Construction offers FREE EV charging infrastructure assessments for property owners and managers across Los Angeles County — single-family, multifamily, and mixed-use. Our team will evaluate your existing panel and service capacity, identify any LADWP coordination requirements, assess the applicable California Title 24 EV obligations for your property, and provide a fixed-price proposal for a complete, permitted EV charging installation.

If you're planning an ADU, a panel upgrade, a soft-story retrofit, or any other electrical project — ask us about integrating EV charging infrastructure at the same time. The coordination savings are significant, and the LADWP queue is the same either way.

Call (818) 855-1181 or email info@sksconstruction.com to schedule your FREE EV charging assessment today.