Charging at work. Yay or Nay?

[davewill]

...One grammatical comment:

All of the examples below are based on the Nissan LEAF, which I am most familiar, but the numbers presented below are typical for most electric vehicles.

That needs a "with" in the central clause, either "with which" or "familiar with".

This may be intentional, however I consider your numbers very conservative. 3 miles and 10 miles per charging hour may be close to right if you are topping off to 100% and driving fast, but in practice most people will do better than that. You may not be able to top off if your battery is almost completely empty, and if it isn't you probably won't need to need to top off completely to make it home.

You have one factual problem, but I'm not sure what you can do about it. It is not true, as you imply, that J1772 means L2. The L1 charging also uses the J1772 connector.

Ray

Thanks for the help. I'll fix that sentence. As far as the numbers, I did make them conservative, although driving in hilly San Diego much over 65 will come pretty close to that. I figure the masses will probably drive that way, and using more optimistic numbers (and carrying that optimism into the base range) makes day charging seem less needed. I also didn't care to use non-round figures like 3.5 miles per hour of L1 when the number is an estimate anyway.

Yah, I was aware of the J1772 = L2 implication. Looked at from their point of view, they would either be putting in J1772 EVSEs which would be L2 or they would be putting in standard outlets which would be L1. I could spend space explaining the nuance, but at this stage it just doesn't really matter. It also matches the way the public EVSEs end up using the terminology. I finally decided to leave it alone.

 

[jwatte]

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=3290&start=40

I'd use these numbers:
You'll consume about 1.4 kWh per hour, which in California with business rates is either 17 cents an hour (around 12 cent per kWh) or 28 cents an hour (around 20 cents per kWh) depending on specific rates.
Freeway commuting, you'll get about 4 miles per kWh.
However, most importantly: if you're not charging all the time, it won't draw anything once it's full.

 

[davewill]

I'd use these numbers:
You'll consume about 1.4 kWh per hour, which in California with business rates is either 17 cents an hour (around 12 cent per kWh) or 28 cents an hour (around 20 cents per kWh) depending on specific rates.

I went around on trying to address their costs, I decided I couldn't do it justice. Not knowing what they pay exactly, and not knowing whether it's even a concern...I left it out.

Freeway commuting, you'll get about 4 miles per kWh.
However, most importantly: if you're not charging all the time, it won't draw anything once it's full.

You'll only get 4 mpk if you you limit your speed to 60mph or maybe less. Remember, I'm not trying to get them to BUY a LEAF, I'm trying to get them to see that at the office charging is worthwhile. Inflating the range doesn't help the case.

 

[jwatte]

Freeway commuting, you'll get about 4 miles per kWh.
However, most importantly: if you're not charging all the time, it won't draw anything once it's full.

You'll only get 4 mpk if you you limit your speed to 60mph or maybe less. Remember, I'm not trying to get them to BUY a LEAF, I'm trying to get them to see that at the office charging is worthwhile. Inflating the range doesn't help the case.

I see. Meanwhile, I was trying to make the case that it's just not that much electricity!

The commercial rates for electricity are publicly available, and they are (of course) generally lower than residential rates...

You're right that the speed matters a lot. Driving 65, I average 3.7; driving 60 I average 4.5, and driving 55 I average > 5, according to the meter. Who knows how accurate it is, though. Slip-streaming behind a semi does wonders, too ;-)

Anyway, good luck on your quest!

 

[rainnw]

My employer removed free coffee, water, cups, cream, sugar, plates, plastic forks.
...
The joys of working at a fortune 10 company.

So... don't? True, for some people, that's not an option, but most employers do care about keeping their people.
I work in Mountain View, a couple of blocks from Google... (Btw: Google has built shade roofs for their parking lots, with PV solar cells!) Knowing that there are options for employment is important for any company. The whole point is to take away worries from knowledge workers, so they can worry about their job, rather than dodging out for 45 minutes to get a cup of coffee.

We can't put in a charger, because we sub-lease from a sub-lessee (that got bought by some large company), so the paperwork just won't work out, but there are 120V circuits on the outside I can plug into, and it works well enough for the days when I need to top up or run the A/C before leaving.

Some co-worker said "I love it that you're filling up on the company's dime" but given that the commercial rate is $0.12 per kWh, and our company already provides free coffee, lunch, clif bars, fruit, bagels, ice cream, ... it wasn't a problem when I asked.

Oh, and if you're a kick-ass software engineer, entertainment software product manager, linux sysadmin or QA engineer, and want to work at a place like this, drop me a line with your CV, because we're hiring ;-)

Well, I have only had the car for barely a month now, and changing jobs that quickly is irritating.

There are plenty of companies in redmond that have better fringe benefits (not to mention actual L2 stations), so we'll see who does the better job on EV support before i jump ship.

 

[rainnw]

hmmm do you work for Xerox (oops!! that was a slip!!) because i work for a company that has done the same thing slowly over the past 3 years. when the gas price spike hit in 2008, they cut out almost everything

No, but i suspect that the HR dept from my company and Xerox visits the same seminars.

The sum of it is that HR depts figured out that no matter what you take away, people won't care, and you can pocket the savings. I am sure it was some idiot's performance goal for the year: "save $100,000 in costs company wide".

 

[malloryk]

I work at Belkin and today they installed two Level 2 chargers! The founder of my company owns a Tesla and a Leaf so it was bound to happen. I pressured them a little bit to get it done last year but I'm excited. I guess I'll be charging at work and giving my EVSE at home a rest during the week. I'll upload a couple pics tomorrow.

 

[malloryk]

Here's a couple pics of our EVSE at Belkin:

 

[davewill]

Nice to see a company going the budget route rather than signing up with one of the big networks.

 

[Devin]

Here's a couple pics of our EVSE at Belkin:

I thought Belkin of all companies would make their own cables! :lol:

 

[malloryk]

I thought Belkin of all companies would make their own cables! :lol:

you mean use our own cables? We're not in the EVSE business..... yet

 

[mitch672]

thats SPX unit appears to be a good choice, and a lot less money than most of the commercial offerings: https://www.homecharging.spx.com/volt/Display.aspx?id=25&menu=13

Good to see there are some progressive companies out there.

 

[smkettner]

Nice to see a company going the budget route rather than signing up with one of the big networks.

Yes, I tried to explain a dumbell evse such as Leviton 160 could provide two connectors for the three of us on the same 40a circuit and for less money than the fully networked Chargepoint single. Not sure what will happen. It seems hard for the non EV folks to understand this stuff. Nice to know that something is in the pipeline.

 

[mwalsh]

I work at Belkin and today they installed two Level 2 chargers! The founder of my company owns a Tesla and a Leaf so it was bound to happen. I pressured them a little bit to get it done last year but I'm excited. I guess I'll be charging at work and giving my EVSE at home a rest during the week. I'll upload a couple pics tomorrow.

Nice! Now, Mallory, your next task, should you choose to accept it, will be persuade the boss to add them to Plug Share. Or at least convince him to open them up to the LEAF community on an emergency-need basis!

 

[malloryk]

I work at Belkin and today they installed two Level 2 chargers! The founder of my company owns a Tesla and a Leaf so it was bound to happen. I pressured them a little bit to get it done last year but I'm excited. I guess I'll be charging at work and giving my EVSE at home a rest during the week. I'll upload a couple pics tomorrow.

Nice! Now, Mallory, your next task, should you choose to accept it, will be persuade the boss to add them to Plug Share. Or at least convince him to open them up to the LEAF community on an emergency-need basis!

not sure the proprietor would go for that since it's a closed building and you would need a pass card to get in. And our parking lot is shared with other companies so it's not just us. But I'm hoping the good people in Playa Vista where we're located will install a couple public chargers.

 

[rainnw]

My charging at work decision is still in committee.

 

[LEAFAGE]

I work in Sacramento, CA and the City of Sacramento offers a free global parking pass to city parking lots, where I park and charge during work....sort of makes the $2000 charger I installed at home obselete. I rarely charge at home any more. Charging at work is all I really need.

 

[rawhog]

.

 

[pasowino]

I've been trying to get my work (PG&E) to allow personal vehicles to use the charger, but (for now) it's company fleet EV's only. I think that they're concerned (and rightfully so) that allowing employees to charge puts the cost of that on other electric rate payers. So, I will probably have to convince my wife's company to let her charge and she can have the car during the day.

 

[Stoaty]

I've been trying to get my work (PG&E) to allow personal vehicles to use the charger, but (for now) it's company fleet EV's only. I think that they're concerned (and rightfully so) that allowing employees to charge puts the cost of that on other electric rate payers.

If they are really concerned about the cost being put on other electric payers, why don't they just charge you for the electricity you are using?