Sorry, @mknow, I jumped to a conclusion because there is a Michael Knox in middle management at Hydro One.
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Politics of Charging at Work
- Thread starter mknox
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- Energy Environment Policy
Same here. I sit near a couple of the EV drivers and I hear them complain quite often about having to move their cars at lunch, or being unplugged early.
My company advertises EV charging as a perk, but my office has 9 (soon to be 10) EVs and only two chargers. The so-called "low rangers" like the Leaf get priority over the Teslas, since they need to be charged for the owners to get home. I don't think I'll be charging at work very often, if ever.
Consider a company policy and also work with a company like Blink or Chargepoint. There are others out there too. I understand that the software for these charging stations allows the company who these are installed for to configure what cards can be used and to charge (if they wish).
I work at Cisco in San Jose. They installed a number of Blink chargers around the campus. To use the chargers one must register their card with the company to be able to use the chargers. Cisco makes them free to us, but they may be getting some sort of incentive to install and provide them. There is also a guest account that visitors can use, but they have to get a card from the "lobby ambassadors". There's a full blown company policy and there is no priority for any given vehicle. They do ask though that you move your car when charging is complete as demand is greater than the number of chargers.
I know ChargePoint has a "allow us to contact your employer" element that you can add information to when you sign up. I think that it is an arm of their marketing so they'll call and market the solution.
I work at Cisco in San Jose. They installed a number of Blink chargers around the campus. To use the chargers one must register their card with the company to be able to use the chargers. Cisco makes them free to us, but they may be getting some sort of incentive to install and provide them. There is also a guest account that visitors can use, but they have to get a card from the "lobby ambassadors". There's a full blown company policy and there is no priority for any given vehicle. They do ask though that you move your car when charging is complete as demand is greater than the number of chargers.
I know ChargePoint has a "allow us to contact your employer" element that you can add information to when you sign up. I think that it is an arm of their marketing so they'll call and market the solution.
Saw this article today: 'Charge rage': Too many electric cars, not enough workplace chargers - San Jose Mercury News
At work, we have a rule that chargers aren't dedicated to anyone, first come first serve, and if you can't get home without charging at work, then you shouldn't have an EV. We're trying to avoid situations where people need to have a spot for X amount of time, because we'll never be able to keep up with demand.
At work, we have a rule that chargers aren't dedicated to anyone, first come first serve, and if you can't get home without charging at work, then you shouldn't have an EV. We're trying to avoid situations where people need to have a spot for X amount of time, because we'll never be able to keep up with demand.
strider
Active Member
We're doing a similar thing but there is an informal 3-hour limit. The idea is that you should do the bulk of your charging at home and that 3 hours is plenty of time to get you enough juice to get home if you have a Leaf and ran some errands or whatever. But if you choose to buy an EV that has less range than the round trip from home to work you need to be ready to get to work early or stay late. No favoritism between BEVs, PHEVs, large or small pack sizes. In general everyone has been good about moving their cars.
We also worked with facilities to have slightly more parking spaces than chargers. For instance we have 3 spaces for each dual-head charger. So if the chargepoint station says the person is not drawing any power you can unplug them and plug your own car in. That gives folks some flexibility if their car finishes charging while they're in a meeting or otherwise doing the work the company pays them to do.
We also worked with facilities to have slightly more parking spaces than chargers. For instance we have 3 spaces for each dual-head charger. So if the chargepoint station says the person is not drawing any power you can unplug them and plug your own car in. That gives folks some flexibility if their car finishes charging while they're in a meeting or otherwise doing the work the company pays them to do.
That's how charging is set up in my office's garage, too, but even more extremely: dual-head Chargepoint chargers are located between two slots in a double row, so there is a 2:1 ratio of parking spots to charging heads. So far we're up to 3 Model Ss and 1 Volt charging regularly.
My office is in an old professional bldg and the landlord put in a 15 Volt outlet for me with a sign reserving the sport for an EV only. At present I am the only EV owner at the bldg and there are many days when I don't have the Roadster due to bad weather or having it at the SC. I've been told that there is some scuttlebutt around the bldg
Did you have any issue justifying the cost of the chargepoints? They are pretty expensive.
AmpedUP
EV Nut
I think we're rapidly heading towards a time in which any Model S owner who is seen charging at a regular/public charger will be seen as taking resources from Leaf, Spark, etc owners who would otherwise be stranded without a charge. Let the charging wars begin ! (Because it will mean the whole EV thing has really taken off!)
No, the garage management did that entirely on their own. Many of the Boston garages installed charging when the tax breaks were in place, so I think they each view it as a "must have" feature to compete. My garage also has loaner umbrellas, books on CD, and jumping service. Since I can't use the latter two, I feel fine using the chargers!
^^ This.
I was at an electric vehicle club meeting last night. The facility had 10 charge spots, but the snow plow had pushed huge banks of snow up in to that area blocking 4 or 5 of the 10 spots. They were literally ICEed! I got there early and plugged in. Later, a Leaf owner was telling me how he has to run with no heat (it's -15 F this morning), suffer severe window fogging and is still not sure he'd make it home. We had to make sure he had a spot to plug in.
Jaff
Active Member
I hope someone contacts the arena management about this...the poor snow removal job probably was sans malice and completely innocent, but we do have to make them aware of the incident so it does not happen again...
gg_got_a_tesla
Model S: VIN 65513, Model 3: VIN 1913
Just posted the link to our internal mailing list here at work. We have 5 (soon to be 6) ClipperCreek 30A stations and 15 110V outlets (to be increased soon) for 43 EVs that we are aware of! Facilities and Security have been actively looking out for new EVs on campus and making the owners aware of our mailing list and a spreadsheet (with contact numbers and email addresses) to back that. So far so good in that folks actively move their cars when done charging and post to the mailing list. There are exceptions at times when folks get stuck in meetings and such but, they atleast try to send an email indicating that their plug can be taken if it's within reach of a waiting car.
I usually try to avoid the L2 stations till later in the afternoon when the LEAFs and Volts start moving out and if no one else posts a note saying that they are desperate for a charge. I get almost all of my daily commute back from the 110V, 16A outlets so, I usually don't need the L2s. Yes, there's definitely a risk of non-Tesla owners not being too happy about the Model Ss occupying L2s for long stretches but, I haven't seen a glaring example of that here at work so far.
I usually try to avoid the L2 stations till later in the afternoon when the LEAFs and Volts start moving out and if no one else posts a note saying that they are desperate for a charge. I get almost all of my daily commute back from the 110V, 16A outlets so, I usually don't need the L2s. Yes, there's definitely a risk of non-Tesla owners not being too happy about the Model Ss occupying L2s for long stretches but, I haven't seen a glaring example of that here at work so far.
strider
Active Member
I pushed through Facilities and our HR dept to get chargers in place. HR viewed it as a recruiting tool. Facilities liked the chargepoints because they are maintenance free. They would rather pay chargepoint than to have someone on staff trained on how to work on EVSE's.
Our chargers are employee-only so Facilities has to authorize your CP account to use them. At the same time they make sure IT adds the new user to the internal mailing list.
As I posted earlier, we have informal 3-hour time limit for charging. That is plenty of time to get you home in any model of EV. If you forget to charge your Model S for 3 days and expect to sit on a charger all day you will be publicly shamed.
It's working well so far.
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