What is that abbreviation? Home Power Wall Charger? Just guessing here. In concept, I charge at a friends’ house and I get billed for it? So the amount paid goes back to him somehow?That hasn’t actually been implemented yet. Maybe in two weeks.
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Apartment charging / metering question
- Thread starter Fyve
- Start date
Getting billed for using a normal looking wall connector? is where I got that from. Reading to the newest bitter end of the thread, it seems you are correct.That hasn’t actually been implemented yet. Maybe in two weeks.
rhumbliner
Member
This may be slightly off topic but is certainly relevant to this discussion:
EV Building Codes Threatened
tl;dr
Legacy energy companies are making it difficult for local communities to require electrical wiring for EV’s in new buildings.
EV Building Codes Threatened
tl;dr
Legacy energy companies are making it difficult for local communities to require electrical wiring for EV’s in new buildings.
HPWC stands for High Power Wall Connector, which is an 80-amp capable 2nd generation Tesla charging station. https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/ms_hpwc_installation_guide.pdf
They dropped that name and now call it a Wall Connector, which is capable of 48 amps. Wall Connector
HPWC is still a commonly used abbreviation here on TMC.
I doubt they'll ever implement billing/payment to individual residential users. Too much management overhead for one charger that gets only a visitor or two per month.
For commercial environments its far easier to justify. You'd plug in, tesla would bill your credit card on file, and the business would get the cash or at least a large portion of it from Tesla.
Think people will ultimately reassess.
If you purchase and get an electrician to install a wall charger then that's proba my not too far off, depending on what you assume for the life of the charger.
For a shared space like a condo/apt, ChargePoint is great. I was on the HOA when we installed a two head unit. We choose to buy and own the hardware and pay ChargePoint for a service fee to use their management software.
Reason we went with ChargePoint:
- it's a standard plug that any EV can use
- they handle the billing using their network
- the owner of the station sets the rates
- admin dashboard that shows utilization data
Reason we went with ChargePoint:
- it's a standard plug that any EV can use
- they handle the billing using their network
- the owner of the station sets the rates
- admin dashboard that shows utilization data
Hey there,
Saw this thread and I’m curious, what do people typically pay in an apartment/condo garage for charging?
My complex took down their Tesla chargers and replaced them with 10 EVBox chargers, using the EVOKE app as their billing platform. They charge $1 just to plug in, then $.50 per kWh. $3 idle fee after 20 mins unless it’s 12a-8a.
I can understand taking down the Tesla only chargers as there are a few other EVs in the holding. There are people in the building complaining about the price, and I agree this is steep (I pay $.22 including delivery from ConEd for the apartment).
Curious what others are paying. Not sure how to approach management, who brag about this price as being “eco-friendly” and “about $20 to “fill up”. Aka, they have no idea what driving and charging and EV means.
Saw this thread and I’m curious, what do people typically pay in an apartment/condo garage for charging?
My complex took down their Tesla chargers and replaced them with 10 EVBox chargers, using the EVOKE app as their billing platform. They charge $1 just to plug in, then $.50 per kWh. $3 idle fee after 20 mins unless it’s 12a-8a.
I can understand taking down the Tesla only chargers as there are a few other EVs in the holding. There are people in the building complaining about the price, and I agree this is steep (I pay $.22 including delivery from ConEd for the apartment).
Curious what others are paying. Not sure how to approach management, who brag about this price as being “eco-friendly” and “about $20 to “fill up”. Aka, they have no idea what driving and charging and EV means.
That’s actually a really effective rate scheme for this type of multi-tenant property. I agree that the price per kWh is high, but the $1 to plug in encourages charging only when you need it (maybe every third day instead of every day) and keeps things moving with high idle fees. If they dropped it to $0.25 or $0.30 per kWh, I think it would be right on.
As someone that thinks part of having an EV is always leaving with a full pack, I would drop the session fee as AC charging with a 5% or 80% pack has about the same charging speed. I would like to see $0.25/kWh and then a high per min idle fee. This will allow for shorter charge sessions where people will charge and then move. If you only have to charge for 30 minutes you will likely pay more attention.
Having a session fee and no idle fee from midnight to 8AM will make you game the system as it will encourage you to skip charging days. If you need to fill most of your pack you can pull in at 16:00 to set your charge speed to low to make sure that you will not be full until after midnight. You will then own the spot until you leave for work (before 08:00 when idle fees return).
The best paid-for L2 charger I used was next to a hotel. It was a dual head 6.6KW(each) Chargepoint charger at ~$1.50/hr no matter your use or idle. I ended up being the only person charging. It worked well, pulled in with ~10% charged to 90%, and moved when full. (I did set an alarm to get up and move the car). If the location was having issues with people not moving a $10/hr idle fee might help.
RTPEV
Active Member
I'm with @Big Earl on this one. Very reasonable pricing structure, but $0.50/kWh seems ridiculously high (of course, I have no idea what the cost of electricity is in your area). Seems like the connection fee ought to recoup the operating costs of the station and the electricity should be sold at or near cost. As more complexes start to provide charging in your area, hopefully competitive pressures will force your complex to reassess.
As for @kayak1 's strategy, the problem I have with that is that in the event of a limited number of stations, it could become a hassle for residents to manage queuing up for their 30-60 minute slots every day, versus managing a more leisurely queue where you don't have every resident trying to get a 30 minute charge every day.
Granted, there are plusses and minuses with both approaches (in the other approach, you may wind up with a bottleneck and some people that need a charge may not be able to get one).
I think the only long term solution to this is the large scale load sharing systems that allow for plenty of charging station heads with a controller that shares the load among them all so that you can get a lot of cars charging relatively slowly all night long (just like charging is meant to be!) It may be more upfront cost, but will support more users conveniently. Probably well worth the higher cost to use for the convenience factor.
As for @kayak1 's strategy, the problem I have with that is that in the event of a limited number of stations, it could become a hassle for residents to manage queuing up for their 30-60 minute slots every day, versus managing a more leisurely queue where you don't have every resident trying to get a 30 minute charge every day.
Granted, there are plusses and minuses with both approaches (in the other approach, you may wind up with a bottleneck and some people that need a charge may not be able to get one).
I think the only long term solution to this is the large scale load sharing systems that allow for plenty of charging station heads with a controller that shares the load among them all so that you can get a lot of cars charging relatively slowly all night long (just like charging is meant to be!) It may be more upfront cost, but will support more users conveniently. Probably well worth the higher cost to use for the convenience factor.
I'm looking into this for my building in Chicago too. Some options not in this thread already:
1) Orange outlet: No markup of any kind on power, $12/month to each user to have the app and connect to/power up the outlets.
www.orangecharger.com
This is the current "best" paid solution as I see it.
Pro: use any charger you want, 120v and 240v options
Con: still yet another recurring fee whether you are plugging in or not, but far less expensive than any other paid alternative
2) OpenEVSE "advanced" series units with OpenOCPP or EmonCMS monitoring
Completely open hardware platform with ready-made units and active software development
Opensource software requires someone technical to setup a dashboard for the building manager to monitor and manually charge users for power consumed from the charger installed in each user's assigned spots (my building situation). A nice second option is I believe the display can simply act as an energy meter, so a manual alternative to the web dashboard could be simply walk up to each unit and bill for the kwh used in the delta since the last time they checked the meter usage.
Pro: continual development on the hardware and software.
Con: it requires messing around and technical skills to setup, no voltage meter (has power meter, exact voltage is assumed ie:240v but can be changed to typical ie:236v )
3) Supposed Tesla Wall Connector Gen3 billing platform solution for building managers
electrek.co
This is a rumored upcoming solution which would make all of this "stupid easy" for Teslas in this situation. But, due to the fact that Tesla is currently recommending people who ask for a status update to use evercharge, this may have been abandoned or isn't anywhere near ready.
Thanks for the great discussion on this topic especially @RTPEV , lets keep it going!
1) Orange outlet: No markup of any kind on power, $12/month to each user to have the app and connect to/power up the outlets.
Orange Outlet - Affordable, Profitable EV Charging
Orange Outlet is the most cost-effective way to turn charging from an expensive amenity to a revenue-generating profit center at any multi-unit property.
www.orangecharger.com
Pro: use any charger you want, 120v and 240v options
Con: still yet another recurring fee whether you are plugging in or not, but far less expensive than any other paid alternative
2) OpenEVSE "advanced" series units with OpenOCPP or EmonCMS monitoring
Opensource software requires someone technical to setup a dashboard for the building manager to monitor and manually charge users for power consumed from the charger installed in each user's assigned spots (my building situation). A nice second option is I believe the display can simply act as an energy meter, so a manual alternative to the web dashboard could be simply walk up to each unit and bill for the kwh used in the delta since the last time they checked the meter usage.
Pro: continual development on the hardware and software.
Con: it requires messing around and technical skills to setup, no voltage meter (has power meter, exact voltage is assumed ie:240v but can be changed to typical ie:236v )
3) Supposed Tesla Wall Connector Gen3 billing platform solution for building managers
Tesla is adding automatic payment at chargers to facilitate apartment charging and more
Tesla has recently been making moves to enable payments at charging stations in its Destination Charging network, but it also...
electrek.co
Thanks for the great discussion on this topic especially @RTPEV , lets keep it going!
swaltner
Active Member
WattZilla makes a system based on OpenEVSE with an onboard credit card billing option. As I remember, their billing system is based on a generic credit card reader from Nayax that is designed for a vending machine, so the extra billing fees are negligible.
I do like the 6-20 version of the Orange Outlet mentioned above. That’s pretty cool! I hadn’t seen that product before. Edit: But, UGH on their web site saying “is an the outlet that delivers 4.8 kWh of power”. That should be kW and a commercial vendor should should have their product specs using valid units! I can partially excuse it for people new to electric vehicles, but not a vendor for EV products!
I do like the 6-20 version of the Orange Outlet mentioned above. That’s pretty cool! I hadn’t seen that product before. Edit: But, UGH on their web site saying “is an the outlet that delivers 4.8 kWh of power”. That should be kW and a commercial vendor should should have their product specs using valid units! I can partially excuse it for people new to electric vehicles, but not a vendor for EV products!
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It’s double wrong since the 6-20 is 3.8 kW.
Hey OP
Any progress with this?
I just took responsibility to set up about 2-3 parking spaces for charging in my small condo building.
The issue is charging the individual units.
Currently 21 units in our building but only two Tesla owners but i think there will be 5 more soon hahaha
Im trying to get started….but I don’t know where to even start! I’ve contacted a couple companies and also a couple local electricians to see what solutions they may have. Btw im in studio city CA.
Thanks!
Any progress with this?
I just took responsibility to set up about 2-3 parking spaces for charging in my small condo building.
The issue is charging the individual units.
Currently 21 units in our building but only two Tesla owners but i think there will be 5 more soon hahaha
Im trying to get started….but I don’t know where to even start! I’ve contacted a couple companies and also a couple local electricians to see what solutions they may have. Btw im in studio city CA.
Thanks!
Looks like they are reading the thread and have updated the site. That said they don't even have the full manuals online. The site looks like it's still in Alpha mode.It’s double wrong since the 6-20 is 3.8 kW.
I've done more research and it seems the current ideal solution is using the Emporia Energy product line for this use case.
Home - Emporia: Revolutionizing Home Energy
Emporia Energy offers smart solutions for your home energy needs, including EV chargers, solar panels, and energy monitoring systems. Embrace sustainability and savings with Emporia.
www.emporiaenergy.com
Either the Vue(2) in the breaker panel or just by utilizing their EV chargers.
I will be investigating both in my building. I just bought some of their (sadly 10A continuous limited) outlet adapters on amazon (<$10 each) to check out their ecosystem. It would be nice if they made 15 and 20A receptacle style outlets like connnectsence ( Amazon.com ). Except the connectsence hardware and software are basically unusable (don't waste your time). It looks like emporia has much more investment in their hardware and software solutions. I think between their EV charger dashboard monitoring or the vue with current sensors in the panel, Emporia might be the ticket. I just need to find out if there are any hidden costs with the Emporia solution.
I've done more research and it seems the current ideal solution is using the Emporia Energy product line for this use case.
Home - Emporia: Revolutionizing Home Energy
Emporia Energy offers smart solutions for your home energy needs, including EV chargers, solar panels, and energy monitoring systems. Embrace sustainability and savings with Emporia.
Either the Vue(2) in the breaker panel or just by utilizing their EV chargers.
I will be investigating both in my building. I just bought some of their (sadly 10A continuous limited) outlet adapters on amazon (<$10 each) to check out their ecosystem. It would be nice if they made 15 and 20A receptacle style outlets like connnectsence ( Amazon.com ). Except the connectsence hardware and software are basically unusable (don't waste your time). It looks like emporia has much more investment in their hardware and software solutions. I think between their EV charger dashboard monitoring or the vue with current sensors in the panel, Emporia might be the ticket. I just need to find out if there are any hidden costs with the Emporia solution.
I've been running two Emporia monitoring systems in two homes and have been very happy with it. I haven't gone beyond the ones that connect in the circuit breaker panel, as I'm not really interested in their individual outlets. So far, so good, with no hidden costs.
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