The problem is who is paying the bill. If a builder can get away with saving a few bucks by not installing something more expensive, they always will. Since most buyers aren't thinking of electric car charging, most don't think to ask about this. So they learn the hard way later.
And the electrician gets hired a second time to do the upgrade. Win win!
Very true. My dad was a custom housing contractor, and he was constantly astonished by how few questions or how many design issues had been thought through by home buyers both during the planning and the construction phase. I used to work as a trim carpenter for him during school summers, and I can't tell you how many times I've seen him press a buyer for a decision about tile and cabinetry orientation, hearths and mantels, trim details, door swings,
etc., only finally to be told to "do whatever most people do", or something to that effect.
This post surprises me. If the homes under construction were in Levittown I would understand the amperage limitations. But Naples is a very high end community and I would expect that the new houses there would have ample electrical power.
I think the answer lies in joec's post. The builders will shave as much off the project as the market will tolerate. While the $10-100MM housing market in Naples is certainly cooking, the great bulk of building is going on in the $750K-$3MM segment, mostly in gated developments. With each new wave of development, the lot sizes get smaller, with many homes now being built 15 feet from adjacent houses. With this trend has come a constant shrinkage of garage sizes. 20' x 20' is now the standard double-car garage size in new construction, and I've seen sizes as small as 18' x 20' advertised as "double". (I'm a hobby architect, and I often pore over the house plans posted on these developments' websites.) At the same time, the SUVs and pickups Floridians so love have become gargantuan.
When we bought our first vacation home here over 15 years ago, a prevalent homeowner association rule was that vehicles could not be left outside of garages overnight. But these rules have disappeared in newer developments, as the garages are used for storage (no basements here due to ground conditions, and attics can be too hot), and many of the vehicles won't fit in the garages, anyway. You ride through the newer communities and see multiple cars parked in driveways at all times of day and night, and sometimes the driveways are so short that a second or third car is sometimes parked perpendicular to the driveway axis to keep it from blocking the sidewalk.
A builder who can pass off a 20' x 20' garage to a buyer as space for two standard-size vehicles is certainly not going to worry about making sure they have the current needed to charge EVs there.
One of the reasons I wanted to design and build my own home in a more open area was to build a garage that suited my need to park multiple cars, to charge EVs, and to get my since-deceased handicapped partner in and out in bad weather. So I installed 400-amp service with two EV charging circuits in an almost 2,000 sq ft garage. But I know of no other house in the same price range that has similar accommodations. It's just something that few buyers and no builders on spec think about.
