I work with someone who has a 15-year-old daughter that my wife and I know well - she babysits for our 3 and 5-year-old kids a few times per month. She is an old soul, a little too mature and responsible for her age - she’s working several jobs, aggressively saving for her first car (and also for college). We’ve given her rides home after babysitting in our EVs and she’s always seemed interested in them. Her mom is one of my co-workers.
As an EV evangelist and active member of a local EV club, I’m always looking for ways to promote the transition to electric driving. Today I was planning on selling our old Siemens Versicharge EVSE that we no longer use, and then I thought, why don’t I just give it to someone like our babysitter as an incentive to buy a plug-in car? And then I thought, what if I also offered a small “grant”, like $1000, to her (or maybe even a couple of my other co-workers’ teenage kids) for buying a plug-in car? I figure most teenagers saving up for their first car are looking at a used one that costs a few grand at most - taking most EVs and even PHEVs out of the question.
My question is, would a “grant” like this be condescending? I am a physician and the coworker in question (babysitter’s mom) is a nurse practitioner who works with me. We have a great working relationship, we work closely together in a hospital and sometimes hang out outside the hospital as friends (she and my wife in particular are getting to be great friends and work out together sometimes). As a nurse practitioner I’m sure she is financially comfortable but I obviously make a lot more than her as a physician. Would it be a faux pas to offer her daughter money to buy a certain type of car? I would try to frame it as an EV passion project rather than a charitable gift from a “rich” person to a subordinate, but the thought that it might be seen that way gives me pause.
As an EV evangelist and active member of a local EV club, I’m always looking for ways to promote the transition to electric driving. Today I was planning on selling our old Siemens Versicharge EVSE that we no longer use, and then I thought, why don’t I just give it to someone like our babysitter as an incentive to buy a plug-in car? And then I thought, what if I also offered a small “grant”, like $1000, to her (or maybe even a couple of my other co-workers’ teenage kids) for buying a plug-in car? I figure most teenagers saving up for their first car are looking at a used one that costs a few grand at most - taking most EVs and even PHEVs out of the question.
My question is, would a “grant” like this be condescending? I am a physician and the coworker in question (babysitter’s mom) is a nurse practitioner who works with me. We have a great working relationship, we work closely together in a hospital and sometimes hang out outside the hospital as friends (she and my wife in particular are getting to be great friends and work out together sometimes). As a nurse practitioner I’m sure she is financially comfortable but I obviously make a lot more than her as a physician. Would it be a faux pas to offer her daughter money to buy a certain type of car? I would try to frame it as an EV passion project rather than a charitable gift from a “rich” person to a subordinate, but the thought that it might be seen that way gives me pause.
