So you’ve just brought home that fancy new EV, only to find that to charge it quickly, you’ll need to install an at-home charger. Unfortunately, these units can often run thousands of dollars with installation. That’s not counting if you need to re-wire your house. Buying a car isn’t quite the same when your home is also your gas station.
Bank of America announced Thursday that it will now allow car buyers to finance the cost of an EV charger along with the car loan. It’ll work with the financing arms of dealers and manufacturers to do so, becoming the first major bank to include the cost of the charger into an EV loan. The lender estimates that at-home chargers typically add between $200 to $2,000 to the price of an electric car.
Like many companies, Bank of America has made a pledge to reduce its carbon footprint. It promises to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in its financing, operations and supply chain by 2050. The EV charger financing, though, seems to be as much a practical move as it is serving the greater good.
Bank of America estimates that the number of at-home chargers in the United States will balloon to nearly 27.5 million by 2030. In 2021, that total was 1.3 million. Similarly, by the end of the decade it’s expected that 26.4 million EVs will be on American roads, compared to the current 2.4 million counted in 2021.
Bank of America has experience with EV automakers. It backs the in-house financing for both Lucid and Polestar. It’s also installing charging stations at its banks in partnership with Electrify America. We’ve actually used one.
It’s a logical move and we expect other institutions to follow suit. After all, you aren’t reaping one of the major conveniences of an EV if you aren’t charging it at home.
