Charging at work. Yay or Nay?

[pasowino]

why don't they just charge you for the electricity you are using?

I offered, but I think it's still more the public perception that I am getting "free" electricity for my car. Also, there probably isn't any easy way to actually bill me for the usage since it's mixed in with the other vehicles (Chevy Volts) and such.

 

[tps]

I think it's still more the public perception that I am getting "free" electricity for my car.

Maybe they have a point. Some have stopped charging at home because they now do their charging at work.

 

[wishboneash]

We have about six 120V outlets at our company at one dedicated location with EV only parking placards. There are other 120V outlets strewn around the parking structure. Currently 4 LEAFs are using them. Word is getting around that these cars are great, so I expect more cars and jockeying for the charging spots!

 

[jwatte]

I think it's still more the public perception that I am getting "free" electricity for my car.

Maybe they have a point. Some have stopped charging at home because they now do their charging at work.

You're also getting "free" air conditioning, water, coffee, and probably office supplies.

If it's a problem, offer to pay for it. At $0.12 or $0.19 (PG&E commercial rates) it's still a LOT cheaper than gas, and cheaper than tier-5 consumption at home unless you're on TOS.

 

[tps]

I think it's still more the public perception that I am getting "free" electricity for my car.

Maybe they have a point. Some have stopped charging at home because they now do their charging at work.

You're also getting "free" air conditioning, water, coffee, and probably office supplies.

However you don't pipe their air conditioning and water into your house, whereas a few with at work charging have stopped charging at home. To me, the charge-at-work is there to supplement at-home charging, not to replace it. When Nissan gets their power-your-house-device finished, one could theoretically charge their car at the office, drive that stored power home and run his house using power his employer bought.

I probably wouldn't charge often if even if my employer offered it, becuase the LEAF has enough for my daily routine. But I might charge if, say for instance, I was going to the data center downtown, since the added distance would likely run the LEAF to its limit.

 

[pasowino]

Maybe they have a point. Some have stopped charging at home because they now do their charging at work.

I wouldn't stop charging at home, but since I have a 74 mile R/T commute, I was hoping to add a couple of KWH at work just to remove the range anxiety and be able to drive 65 or 70 instead of 60.

 

[davewill]

I probably wouldn't charge often if even if my employer offered it, becuase the LEAF has enough for my daily routine. But I might charge if, say for instance, I was going to the data center downtown, since the added distance would likely run the LEAF to its limit.

I wouldn't hesitate to top up (to 80%, anyway) at work simply because you never know when those extra side trips are going to come up. Skipping overnight charging at home, however, is being cheap and greedy and is the kind of behavior that will give EV drivers a bad name.

 

[malloryk]

Skipping overnight charging at home, however, is being cheap and greedy and is the kind of behavior that will give EV drivers a bad name.

This is what I've started doing since my employer install EVSEs. The way I look at it is, they've spent a lot of time and money to install these things (two of them). I'm not going to not use them now that they're in place. When other people at work start buying EVs, then I'll gladly let someone else use them since I live really close. But there's just me and one other person, and I've yet to see him use them. Plus I've worked for this company for 10 years. I think I've earned a few bucks of free electricity.

 

[TEG]

I probably wouldn't charge often if even if my employer offered it, becuase the LEAF has enough for my daily routine. But I might charge if, say for instance, I was going to the data center downtown, since the added distance would likely run the LEAF to its limit.

I wouldn't hesitate to top up (to 80%, anyway) at work simply because you never know when those extra side trips are going to come up. Skipping overnight charging at home, however, is being cheap and greedy and is the kind of behavior that will give EV drivers a bad name.

Another consideration - there tends to be "excess" power at night, but the utilities struggle to maintain daytime power output, particularly in the summer. So, basically, it is 'nicer to the grid' if you charge at night instead of day. The more people who charge during the day, the sooner they will need to build more power plants to handle increased peak hour utilization.

 

[jwatte]

I thought the real peak was actually at 10:30 pm, when everybody goes to bed and turns on the A/C to cool down the bedroom...

Anyway, my trickle charging was through a 100 foot extension cord (12 gauge, heavy duty, so at least as capable as the building wiring...). Sadly, somebody stole it from right in the parking lot the other day :-( I'll have to get a replacement and lock it with a padlock or something :-/

 

[ChipsLeaf]

There are two 120 volt outlets outside of our building in Hayward in the Bay Area. I figured that was all I needed to keep my car topped up for errands and local business trips to decrease the range anxiety.

Our company has free coffee, tea, soda, (a benefit that I don't utilize but probably costs the company a few dollars per person per day). So I asked our finance person to see what rates the company paid to PG&E. She got out the past billing statements and it was 8.5 or 9.5 cents/kWh depending on various factors (don't recall if it was seasonal or what). I figured my usage would be less than a dollar a day. So the cost to the company to plug in for a few hours of charging each work day was less than the cost of these perks that many of the employees are using. I took everyone out to lunch in my Leaf over a period of a few weeks and made sure that everyone knew the cost of the electricity that I was using so there would be no reason to moan about the special perk I am getting.

Our company only has a dozen employees but we share the building with a larger tenant. What was interesting is that I have had all kinds of positive comments from people who work for the other company in our building who think it is pretty cool and said -"Oh you are the one who is drivign the Leaf. Tell me all about it."

I'll be curious to see what happens when more than four people have a Leaf and there are not enough chargers.

 

[EricBayArea]

I just wrote the facilities manager and she is fine with me using any existing electrical outlets to charge the Leaf - though there won't be any reserved parking. She wanted more information on L2 charging so I wrote something up based on information I found here and sent it over.

I don't need L1/L2 when going to either office. However, when traveling to the further one, it'll be nice to top-off for unexpected driving.

 

[rainnw]

After a couple months (since 6/23) of processing my request through the chains of facilities management, meetings, etc. level 1 charging in parking garages has received a big fat NO.

The gist of the memo:

"The response received is no, its looked at in the same way as a charging station [re: last year they met to decide if they wanted to install Level 2 stations]. I fully understand the situation you are in however our company must maintain an equitable approach to benefits and to authorize this use may open the door for other requests and other compensation and tax issues. At this time the company's position is that we are currently not offering this as an option"

 

[smkettner]

Cost to install a Chargepoint is almost as much as a car. Decision still pending. :|

 

[veeoo]

A few weeks before I took delivery of my Leaf, my work installed three combo L1/L2 Chargepoint stations in the parking lot. My company is fairly large and they view it as promoting clean energy and wider adoption of EV's. Sorry to hear that many employers are not so accomodating.
I've been happily charging up while at work and I skip charging it at home unless I have some extra driving to do. Right now we have 3 Leafs at our building using up all 3 L2 charging connections. I'm secretly hoping we don't get any more and end up fighting for the L2 connections. Current policy is first come first served.

 

[mwalsh]

I'm secretly hoping we don't get any more and end up fighting for the L2 connections. Current policy is first come first served.

Well I would hope you would get some kind of charger sharing going, based on need (AB475 notwithstanding).

I do the opposite - charging at home all the time and only charging at work when I have the extra driving to do. I've really only been using the 120v outlet there, since my extra driving is usually an after-hours affair, and I get a return of around 5% SOC for every hour charged (so the 6 hours I'm at my desk nets ~30% SOC). If my needs exceeded that, we have 240v outlets for various pieces of shop equipment, and I can pull my car into the warehouse under extreme circumstances, using my ingineer modded EVSE to charge. Above all I don't want to abuse the privilege, and always stand ready to pony up the cost of electricity if asked.

 

[evenoelle]

I work for a large company in Miami. They recently built a new parking lot to accommodate the excess of employees to the number of parking spaces. I had heard that they had gotten some grant or money from somewhere to build this new parking lot based on a promise that they would install chargers to encourage people to buy EVs. I asked around and just heard that they are discussing the chargers and how much they are going to charge to use them. Uh??? Really? :shock:

I think I'll just stick with letting my home PVs provide free solar power for my home charger before I pay at work. Luckily it's only a 10 mile commute.

 

[davewill]

... I had heard that they had gotten some grant or money from somewhere to build this new parking lot based on a promise that they would install chargers to encourage people to buy EVs. I asked around and just heard that they are discussing the chargers and how much they are going to charge to use them. Uh??? Really? :shock: ...

Assuming they use one of the commercial networks (and even if they don't) there are costs to be defrayed. Anyway, it really depends on the how much they intend to charge, doesn't it? 10 bucks a month, and I'd probably pony up gladly... $10 a day and I'd tell 'em to forget it. See if there's any way to get some input to the decision process. After all, they should consult the EV owners in the company.

 

[evenoelle]

Assuming they use one of the commercial networks (and even if they don't) there are costs to be defrayed. Anyway, it really depends on the how much they intend to charge, doesn't it? 10 bucks a month, and I'd probably pony up gladly... $10 a day and I'd tell 'em to forget it. See if there's any way to get some input to the decision process. After all, they should consult the EV owners in the company.

As far as I know, the costs were covered by the grant so it is not costing the company anything for the equipment. Yes - it would cost for the actual electricity but there has already been jokes that I will be the only EV in a parking lot of over 1,800 cars - many of which are high end luxury cars. :roll: They know that my Leaf is on the way so hopefully I'll have a chance to put in my two cents. Time will tell.

 

[Yodrak]

Agreed that there likely isn't any practical way to bill, even without the complication mentioned. It's likely that the cost of doing the special billing would be more than the amounts billed.

I offered, but I think it's still more the public perception that I am getting "free" electricity for my car. Also, there probably isn't any easy way to actually bill me for the usage since it's mixed in with the other vehicles (Chevy Volts) and such.

why don't they just charge you for the electricity you are using?