EV Charging Vendor Selection Criteria for Multifamily Properties

The charger bolted to the wall is just one piece of an EV charging deployment that typically lasts a decade or more. The vendor relationship behind it — who builds the unit, who runs the network software, who answers the phone when a charger goes offline at 9 p.m. on a Saturday — outlives the hardware. Boards that focus only on equipment specs and unit price often end up with chargers that work fine for two years and then become an expensive headache.

The EV charging industry has gone through a wave of consolidation and bankruptcies in the last few years. SemaConnect was acquired by Blink Charging in 2022. Volta Charging was acquired by Shell in 2023. Smaller manufacturers have shut down entirely, leaving customers with chargers that no longer receive firmware updates or warranty service. A vendor that disappears can leave a property with a parking lot full of expensive bricks.

Picking the right vendor is therefore a long-horizon decision. Boards should treat it less like buying appliances and more like choosing a property management company — judge the relationship, the service model, and the financial stability, not just the brochure.

EV charging is not a single industry — it is a stack of overlapping services, and most properties end up working with two or three vendors who cover different layers. Knowing the categories helps you ask the right questions of each one.

When boards talk to vendors, they should clarify upfront which roles each company plays. A charging-as-a-service company that handles everything looks simpler on paper but locks you into one provider. A separate hardware vendor and installer gives you more flexibility but requires more coordination on your end.

Most board members are not electrical engineers, and vendors know it. The technical questions below are not meant to turn property managers into specialists — they are meant to make sure the vendor cannot quietly lock you into proprietary technology that will be expensive or impossible to change later.

The single most important question is whether the chargers support OCPP, the Open Charge Point Protocol. OCPP 1.6J is the current widely-deployed version; OCPP 2.0.1 is the newer one. A charger that only speaks a vendor's proprietary protocol is one you cannot move to a different network operator without replacing the hardware. Demand OCPP compliance in writing.

A vendor with great technology and a shaky balance sheet is a risk. Boards should treat vendor evaluation the way they would treat hiring a roofing contractor for a major project — verify the company exists, has a history, and will plausibly still exist in five years to honor the warranty.

Ask the vendor for a list of three to five reference properties that match your size and configuration as closely as possible. A 60-unit garden-style condo has very different needs than a 400-unit high-rise, and a vendor whose references are all big commercial fleets may not understand HOA dynamics. Call the references and ask specifically about service response times and any surprise costs after installation.

For the vendor itself, request a Dun and Bradstreet number or a recent credit report. Check whether they are publicly traded — ChargePoint, Blink, EVgo, and Wallbox all file public financials, which makes their condition easy to look up. For private companies, ask about their funding history and runway. For CaaS providers, find out what happens to your equipment if they go bankrupt.

Once chargers are in the ground, the vendor relationship is mostly about uptime. A charger that is offline does not just frustrate residents — in some states, it can put the property at risk under right-to-charge laws if a resident has been told they have access. The contract terms around service and uptime are where vendors differ the most.

A standard manufacturer warranty for Level 2 commercial chargers is three years on parts and one year on labor. Better vendors offer five-year parts and three-year labor packages, sometimes bundled with a network service plan. Watch the labor coverage in particular — replacing a damaged charger is a $400 to $800 service call, and labor-only warranties tend to expire fastest.

Some warning signs are obvious in retrospect but easy to miss when a sales rep is friendly and the price looks good. Boards should pay attention to a vendor who refuses to put OCPP support in the contract, will not share a list of references, will not provide a W-9 or proof of insurance, or pressures the property to sign a long contract with steep early-termination fees.

The most reliable framework is to require at least three written proposals from different vendor types — for example, one CaaS provider, one major network operator, and one independent installer paired with a separate hardware brand. Score each proposal on the same criteria — total ten-year cost, warranty terms, uptime guarantee, OCPP compliance, references — and present the comparison to the board as a single matrix rather than reviewing one proposal at a time.

Finally, build a small advisory team before signing. The HOA's general counsel should review the contract, the property's electrical contractor should review the technical scope, and ideally a peer board at a similar property should weigh in. The cost of an extra month of due diligence is far smaller than the cost of replacing a failed system halfway through its expected life.