It didnt take long. 'I dont get free gas'.

I attempted 4 years ago to speahead an effort to get plug in stations at UNC Chapel Hill. It went no where. When it was brought up at the Employee Council, I got emails about people saying 'the last thing we need to do is figure out a way to allow rich people to charge their cars'.

Followed up last February with the powers that be and told they were finally thinking about it. But nothing has been done to date.

Now that I have one, I quickly got approval to charge at the building, but its already creating jealousy. So much so that I may end up parking at a different business and paying to charge. And the person that is in charge of assessing the needs wants to buy a Leaf, and thinks I shouldnt get to charge at work during the day because I have a range extender!!!! :mad: Ignoring the fact that the Leaf owners have generally plenty of range to get to and from work without any 'range anxiety'. Some people are clueless.

Others have similar situations?

The goal of both Volt and Leaf drivers is to eliminate the use of gasoline. Are you competing for a single outlet?

First priority for the plug is the person who can't get home at all unless he plugs in.

Second priority is for the person who can't get home on electricity alone unless he plugs in.

Other than that it's first come, first serve.

If it's just a 110v outlet the Volt and Leaf are using, your company could set a fee per hour based on 1.3kW draw. Then no one would have reason to complain as nobody would be getting something for free.

I work in a small office, and the owner has said that he will look into getting a charger, but that might take a while.
The office has an office coffee maker, and buys coffee for the office. However, I hate coffee, I keep the fridge stocked with my softdrinks, but I have never complained that the company should provide me free soft drinks since they give coffee to everyone else. The company provides perks, if I don't want to take advantage of those then I don't have to. I am certainly not going to complain about it if the perks don't line up with my lifestyle.

If they are complaining about the free charging, are they also complaining about the car pool parking spaces that some companies reserve?

I was amazed when the director of facilities told me my company will search for bids on installing charging stations for EVs. Since I am the only person with a Volt and in the summer a Vectrix, I am the only one at this point that would benefit. It's like the chicken and the egg. Do you install charging staions with the hopes the cars will come or wait til the EVs come then install the charging stations. Needless to say one of my coworkers approached me saying "if they give you free electricity I want the company to buy me free gas." Uggg. I do like your response above about not drinking coffee....instead you buy your own softdrinks. Nice. Anyway if my compnay installed some charging stations we could be the first business in Maine to do so. Exciting.

I'd ignore the comments, personally. But if I felt the need to respond, I'd probably say something like "If gas were a dollar a gallon, we ran our own gas station, and you had a one gallon gas tank, I have absolutely no doubt that you'd get free gas".

I was amazed when the director of facilities told me my company will search for bids on installing charging stations for EVs. Since I am the only person with a Volt and in the summer a Vectrix, I am the only one at this point that would benefit. It's like the chicken and the egg. Do you install charging staions with the hopes the cars will come or wait til the EVs come then install the charging stations. Needless to say one of my coworkers approached me saying "if they give you free electricity I want the company to buy me free gas." Uggg. I do like your response above about not drinking coffee....instead you buy your own softdrinks. Nice. Anyway if my compnay installed some charging stations we could be the first business in Maine to do so. Exciting.

My Blink unit tracks the amount of money spent when you configure the Kwh rate. You could always offer to re-imburse the company for the amount you charged on that unit per month. It might shut the others up and puts you in good grace too. I doubt the company would take you up on the offer, too much paperwork, but it might be worth making it.

It didnt take long. 'I dont get free gas'.

I attempted 4 years ago to speahead an effort to get plug in stations at UNC Chapel Hill. It went no where. When it was brought up at the Employee Council, I got emails about people saying 'the last thing we need to do is figure out a way to allow rich people to charge their cars'.

Followed up last February with the powers that be and told they were finally thinking about it. But nothing has been done to date.

Now that I have one, I quickly got approval to charge at the building, but its already creating jealousy. So much so that I may end up parking at a different business and paying to charge. And the person that is in charge of assessing the needs wants to buy a Leaf, and thinks I shouldnt get to charge at work during the day because I have a range extender!!!! :mad: Ignoring the fact that the Leaf owners have generally plenty of range to get to and from work without any 'range anxiety'. Some people are clueless.

Others have similar situations?

Why don't you tell them that you also don't pay road taxes either. That should really get a rise out of them. But seriously, it's exactly the same kind of "perk" that handicapped folks get. Not everyone qualifies but if you do, you take advantage of it.

A full charge does not equate to a full tank of gas.....not even equal to a 1/2 gallon ...in the VOLT a full charge equals about the price of a chocolate chip cookie. That should be sufficient to quiet their concerns about inequity .........

A full charge does not equate to a full tank of gas.....not even equal to a 1/2 gallon ...in the VOLT a full charge equals about the price of a chocolate chip cookie. That should be sufficient to quiet their concerns about inequity .........

Or bring in donuts once a month.

Yeah, I would suggest mentioning the actual cost of the electricity. Most people (without any reference point) assume that it costs similar to gas (when in reality it is only a very small fraction, and almost hard to believe). That's also a good fact to help educate on the benefits of EVs.
Hopefully more companies will also start to understand the employee and customer benefit to supporting this infrastructure. Charging at home and at work will probably meet the "90% of needs hurdle" for EV infrastructure.

When I convinced my work to put in a 120V outlet, the bitching started. I tried all the rational arguments, but the moron minority kept it up. So what I did was arranged to donate $1 a day to the company charity. When someone complains I state "the company is giving me 55 cents of electricity for my 8 hour charge. They are helping to save the planet. I donate $1 per day just to say thanks" It shuts them up even if it doesn't make them happy. I am lucky so far that no one else has purchased an EV yet. When they do I think I will have to set the charge to 8 amps and have then do the same just so we don't blow the breaker. I am working on getting them to install a couple of 240V but the cost is just too high for them. Hoping my province (I live in Canada) comes up with the rumored EV infrastructure funding to give homeowners and business money for 240V chargers.

I would also add that many companies provide incentives/reimbursements/perks for employees who take public transportation or carpool. When I worked in DC I never had to pay for my metro fare, which was a very nice perk for me ($100+/month) and certainly significantly more expensive than the cost to charge an EV for a month. Companies do this sort of thing all the time to promote good stewardship. It's not new and it's nothing to be ashamed of if you benefit.

All that personal in-fighting over what would eventually be $110 a year for Min Fuel's case. 200 work days times .55 (must be quite-low hydro rates in Ontario or you don't do a full charge).

Envy is quite hard to quell with reason.

A full charge does not equate to a full tank of gas.....not even equal to a 1/2 gallon ...in the VOLT a full charge equals about the price of a chocolate chip cookie. That should be sufficient to quiet their concerns about inequity .........

I guess it depends on what metric you use. If you use $'s, then that's about right; if you use miles, then a full charge is worth at least 1 gallon of gas. If you use cookies, then I'm not sure what a full charge is worth ;)

I prefer using the $ metric. I would have no problem paying a reasonable rate for electricity, but I'm not paying $1/hour for 110 service. I might consider that for 220 service, but there are people here thinking that $5/hour is reasonable. If that's the price, then I'm not plugging in and nobody else will, and they get $0/hour.

This all falls back to the economic model of public charging infrastructure - the cost of the supplied electricity has to be both reasonable and relative to other options. For the Volt, we have options; for BEVs, they have less options.

It's pretty easy to determine the cost of a charge. Even a $25 watt meter will do it if they dont trust math. I plugged my car into a watt meter for a 5 day work week, divided by 5, and got $1.30/day including taxes and fees (every day a full charge). Reimburse the company for their cost. Simple. Then your answer is, "I'm paying full price for it." End of argument, end of discussion.

My office building installed a charger (a Voltec 220V unit that I paid for) in my reserved parking place in the garage. Many people asked about the Volt and costs, and when they found out it was free electricity the complaining started. The building was going to put a meter on it, but the expense and monthly bookeeping was too much. We negotiated and came up with a flat $20/month charge. Since I am away several days a month and live close enough that I rarely use a full charge it is a fair deal for all. The bitching stopped when people understood that I was paying a monthly fee and had paid $500 for the charger.
I am now trying to get the building to install more charging stations to encourage people to buy electric vehicles. I think it will take $4.00+/gallon gas to really get people motivated.

I work for a large government organization. We have gas pumps on our campus for the fleet of vehicles we have. I've already had people say, "that's not fair he can plug in, I should be able to get free gas then". (even though I haven't yet). We do have provisions that allow employees to reimburse the organization for energy usage having mini-fridges in their offices. I sounds like they are going to be allowing me to plug in for a flat $10/mo. (110v). The only thing I'm worried about is how to notify people that I'm paying for it (which I think is sad).

When we start talking about these problems, it means electrification is well on its way.
It is about time!

In the days before EV's were made in factories, my outfit did consulting work for a well run mid size company that makes PA systems, PBX's and similar things. About the last real electronics factory in the US. About 450 employees, who really liked working there (no chance for a union - they were laughed out, the man took care of the people just fine).
One of the engineers did a moderately crummy EV conversion on a Geo Metro. Pretty lame (by our standards), low range, about 25 mph top speed. Lead acid batteries crammed into every space.

They let him plug in free...no complaints from anyone. That thing probably took more to charge it than a Volt does.
Of course, the only outdoor outlet he could use made for a longer walk to the door than most had.

Could the jealousy be from another cause? No one complained about Mark "sparks" car plugging in, which was basically proof that you can do it at all, but a real piece of junk otherwise.

And yes, I truly believe people think the electricity costs similar to their gasoline - most people don't know what electricity costs, and there's a good reason for that. The power company doesn't make it all that easy to find out! For example, in our area, when a bill was passed that said they had to buy our excess from solar systems, all of a sudden - electricity is almost free, it's all system charges and wire maintenance and taxes. People put in dual Jacuzzis and didn't notice the bill going up. But as soon as the power company lobbyists got that law tossed out - suddenly the wires and system were free, but man, those KWH are really expensive - as long as only they could sell them. During that time, electricity here went from 12c a kwh, to 7c, now back up to 15c. Price of coal, they say. Too bad the coal companies I sometimes invest in don't seem to be making extra profits. So, we're getting slammed due to another power trip game going on...Abuse of power by the aptly named power company.

A full charge does not equate to a full tank of gas.....not even equal to a 1/2 gallon ...in the VOLT a full charge equals about the price of a chocolate chip cookie. That should be sufficient to quiet their concerns about inequity .........

NICELY stated.
I also strongly believe in working with your workplace (this depends on your value to the company / degree of clout / connections you have) to get SOLAR charging stations installed. Suddenly nobody cares any more. Yes, it's going to cost a lot. But it's "free."

I donated the SPX charger, they installed it where I work and made it available to people with EV's that work there. This eliminates any jealousy issues. If someone says its not fair I just would say they are welcome to share the charger if they have an EV. If a second person gets an EV we'll just rotate days to charge.....If 10 people have EV's, they'll add more chargers... I think this is the best way to do it.

Another option is to have you pay a small fee for reserved parking in that spot just like people pay already for special spots close to the entrance at some places etc...

MrEnergyCzar

You might tell the powers that be that the University of Maryland College Park has charging stations in every one of its public lots. You might also point out that it's not very progressive for Chapel Hill to be lagging behind College Park on an important environmental development. It might embarrass them into doing something.


It didnt take long. 'I dont get free gas'.

I attempted 4 years ago to speahead an effort to get plug in stations at UNC Chapel Hill. It went no where. When it was brought up at the Employee Council, I got emails about people saying 'the last thing we need to do is figure out a way to allow rich people to charge their cars'.

Followed up last February with the powers that be and told they were finally thinking about it. But nothing has been done to date.

Now that I have one, I quickly got approval to charge at the building, but its already creating jealousy. So much so that I may end up parking at a different business and paying to charge. And the person that is in charge of assessing the needs wants to buy a Leaf, and thinks I shouldnt get to charge at work during the day because I have a range extender!!!! :mad: Ignoring the fact that the Leaf owners have generally plenty of range to get to and from work without any 'range anxiety'. Some people are clueless.

Others have similar situations?

/snip
And yes, I truly believe people think the electricity costs similar to their gasoline - most people don't know what electricity costs, and there's a good reason for that. /snip

It's funny you should say that. I just got back from the UK where I was talking to some friends of the family about the Volt. They were really interested and when I said I don't understand why the UK doesn't have more interest in EV's, the response was a kinda shocked look and the comment of: "well electricity here is REALLY EXPENSIVE, so it's probably not worth it".

I was stunned, I looked at them all and said, if you think the costs of electricity could EVER be more than the costs of petrol you have to be smoking something. This was just after I got done filling up the diesel rental car, about 2/3rds of a tank of gas for $100. I just checked and the electrical rate in the UK is around 12-15c per Kwh, so not much different to here but the gallon of gasoline there is somewhere around $8-9/gallon.

Yeah, no kidding people don't know the costs!

You might tell the powers that be that the University of Maryland College Park has charging stations in every one of its public lots. You might also point out that it's not very progressive for Chapel Hill to be lagging behind College Park on an important environmental development. It might embarrass them into doing something.

I basically did. My email was that the leading public university in the country which already has a lot of green initiatives needs to lead on this.

Unfortunately, since NC got the volt late, we are behind in seeing them on the road.

I basically did. My email was that the leading public university in the country which already has a lot of green initiatives needs to lead on this.

Unfortunately, since NC got the volt late, we are behind in seeing them on the road.

Luckily the City of Raleigh is being proactive with 20+ EVSEs installed with more to come.

When I asked my employer if I could charge my Volt at work I offered to pay double the cost of the electricity knowing that it would still be cheaper than gas. My employer refused to take any money and put in a reserved parking spot with a dedicated 120v circuit.
When other employees found out I was charging my Volt for free I was constantly bombarded with comments like "it must be nice to get free fuel for your car", "maybe I should ask for a gas card because your getting free fuel for your car", "I should get free gas because you get free electricity" etc. I managed to stop the comments by telling them that I offered to pay double the cost of my electricity.

At our workplace, we have 3 L2 chargers shared by 4 Leaves and myself. We have a Distribution List and go out of our way to be courteous. People move their cars out of their spots in the middle of the day. I know that two of the Leaves can't make it back home without the charge and I've made a blanket offer to both of them that they can have my spot any time. If I happen to take the last spot, I promptly send an email to the list advising them when I'll be done.

And nobody else complains about the free stuff. We all got Blink cards from the company, so even if Blink starts charging, it is an employee perk that the company pays for going green.