Takeoff Software for
EV Charging Infrastructure

Counting chargers and stalls

The charger count is the anchor for everything else in an EV takeoff. Each EVSE unit drives its own circuit, its own feeder run, its own mounting hardware, and its own concrete base — so an under-count in the equipment schedule propagates across every downstream trade. On a commercial parking deck with 60 stalls, a miss of even four or five chargers distorts material quantities enough to erode margin.

AI takeoff reads the site plan and auto-counts repeating charger pedestals and stalls, including those tucked into corners or spread across multiple drawing sheets. That automation is most valuable on large-footprint projects — fleet depots, municipal lots, retail centers — where manual counting across dozens of parking bays is both slow and error-prone.

One distinction matters at count time: Level 2 EVSE and DC fast chargers are not interchangeable. Level 2 units typically run on 208V or 240V circuits at 30–80A. DC fast chargers (DCFC) operate at 480V three-phase and routinely pull 100–350A or more per unit. Separating them in the takeoff at the count stage avoids a cascade of wrong feeder sizes and equipment specs downstream.

• Charger/EVSE count drives equipment, mounting, and circuit quantities
• AI auto-counts repeating charger pedestals and stalls across the site plan
• Distinguish Level 2 from DC fast chargers; they differ in feeder size and equipment

Feeders, conduit, and wire

After the charger count, the longest part of an EV takeoff is usually the feeder runs. Underground conduit from the distribution panel to the charging stalls can stretch hundreds of feet on a large parking lot, and the wire inside those conduits is where copper cost concentrates. Feeder footage accuracy matters more in 2025 than it did two years ago: copper wire rose 14–17% in early 2025, and a 5% measurement error on a 400-foot DCFC feeder run translates directly to a real dollar miss at current commodity prices.

The standard formula for wire footage is conduit length plus termination allowances, then multiplied by conductors per circuit. Termination allowances run 2–3 feet at panels and 6–12 inches at the device end. A 3-conductor plus ground circuit on a 200-foot run with standard allowances gives you roughly 810–820 feet of wire. AI takeoff measures the conduit run from the drawing and applies the conductors-per-circuit multiplier automatically, so the estimator is reviewing numbers rather than scaling every run by hand.

DC fast charger feeders are a different category of problem. A 150 kW DCFC might require 350 kcmil conductors over a 300-foot run — that is expensive copper in large diameter, and it demands a larger conduit (often 3-inch or 4-inch trade size) than a Level 2 circuit. Getting those quantities right early is the difference between a sharp bid and a painful change order.

• Wire footage = conduit footage plus terminations (2-3 ft at panels, 6-12 in at devices) × conductors per circuit
• DC fast chargers pull large feeders; size and length drive copper cost
• Copper wire rose 14-17% in early 2025, so feeder footage accuracy matters

Civil and trenching

EV charging projects are unusual among electrical scopes in that they carry significant civil work — trenching for underground conduit, concrete pads for charger bases, bollards for vehicle protection, and sometimes extensive paving restoration. Estimators who specialize in electrical work need to be careful not to undercount the civil scope, because it often represents 20–30% of the installed cost on a large parking lot project.

Trenching quantities are straightforward to compute once you have the conduit run lengths: multiply the run length by depth and width to get cubic yards of excavation, then apply a swell factor for removal and a compaction factor for backfill. A standard swell factor of 25% means 1 BCY (bank cubic yard, in situ) becomes approximately 1.25 LCY (loose cubic yards) for hauling. On preliminary drawings where exact routing is uncertain, add a 10–15% contingency on top of that to account for undocumented obstructions or field-adjusted routes.

Concrete scope repeats per charger. Each pedestal typically sits on a concrete base slab, and every charger location may require bollards — both the post and its own concrete footing. On a 50-stall installation, that can add up to 50 base pads and 100 or more bollard footings. AI takeoff counts those repeating elements from the site plan layout, which prevents the tedious per-stall manual count that eats estimator hours on larger commercial jobs.

• Trenching length and depth drive excavation and backfill quantities
• Bollards, pads, and concrete bases repeat per charger; count and quantify concrete
• Earthwork: 1 BCY becomes ~1.25 LCY at a 25% swell factor; add 10-15% contingency on preliminary volumes

Service and switchgear

The single-line diagram is where the real cost surprises live on EV charging jobs. A 50-stall DCFC installation can demand two to four megawatts of new service capacity. That means transformers, switchgear, service entrance equipment, disconnects, meters, and protective devices — all of which must be counted and priced before the bid can close. Many estimators focus on the chargers and the field wiring and leave the service scope underspecified until late in the bidding process.

Utility service scope also carries the project's longest lead times. Transformer procurement, utility coordination, and switchgear fabrication can run 16–52 weeks depending on the equipment specification and the utility's queue. Flagging the service upgrade quantities early — with specific equipment counts from the single-line — allows the project team to start utility coordination and procurement before the project is even awarded, which can compress the overall schedule significantly.

When taking off the service scope, count beyond just the main breaker: disconnects, sub-metering panels (common on fleet depot projects for energy cost allocation), surge protective devices, and any energy management system panels that integrate with the charger network. Each is a countable line item on the single-line that belongs in the bid.

• Service upgrades, transformers, panels, and switchgear come from the single-line diagram
• Count disconnects, meters, and protective devices, not just the chargers
• Utility service scope is often the long-lead, high-cost item to flag early

Per-trade pricing for hybrid scope

EV charging projects span at least two trades — electrical and civil/sitework — and often a third if concrete is broken out separately. The per-seat pricing model that dominates legacy takeoff software creates friction here: if the electrical estimator and the civil estimator use separate seats on different tools, the quantities don't reconcile easily and the total project cost gets assembled piecemeal.

Pilars is priced at $100 per trade per plan with no per-seat fees. That means an electrical sub and a civil sub can both work from the same set of plans on the same project for $200 total, and the quantities are produced from the same source drawing at the same scale. For a general contractor assembling an EV charging bid from multiple specialty subs, a consistent set of underlying quantities reduces scope gap and overlap disputes before the bid is even submitted.

The no-per-seat structure also matters for small estimating teams. A two-person electrical shop bidding an EV charging retrofit doesn't pay more because both estimators need to review the numbers — the cost is tied to the plan and the trade, not to how many people look at the output.

• PILARS is $100 per trade per plan with no per-seat fees
• Estimate electrical, concrete, and sitework per trade as the scope requires
• No per-seat fees lets the estimating team share one set of numbers

Questions estimators actually ask