Sizing is really two questions: how many chargers to install now, and how much electrical infrastructure to build now. Install conservatively for current plus near-term demand; build infrastructure for a larger future. As a rough starting point most commercial properties install chargers at a few to 15 percent of spaces and size conduit and panel capacity for 20 to 40 percent. The make-ready approach almost always wins.
Future-proofing a commercial EV install means sizing conduit and panel capacity for several times your initial charger count, using load management to add chargers within existing service, requiring OCPP-compliant hardware to avoid vendor lock-in, and planning for the NACS connector transition. The incremental cost of doing this right the first time is small next to retrofitting later. The federal 30C credit has ended, so build timing now rests on your own economics rather than a tax deadline.
Site selection drives the cost and success of a commercial EV charging project as much as equipment choice does. Five factors matter most: proximity to electrical service (the dominant cost driver), parking flow and visibility, ADA compliance, future expansion capacity, and dwell-time alignment. Decisions made here are expensive to reverse once conduit is in the ground, so a physical site walkthrough beats any CAD drawing.
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