How would you handle this...

[cdswm3]

There are two factors that I think drive this phenomenon.

1. Price. Free seems to bring out the worst in people. In fact, I think days like "black Friday" prove it doesn't even have to be free. I could just be a perceived "good deal" and people seem to lose their minds.

2. Convenience. Never underestimate the laziness of others. I could write an entire thesis on this topic but I am 100% convinced you could take away a good portion of group #1, if you put chargers in inconvenient locations. This is why I have always believed the chargers in shopping malls was a bad idea or putting them right next to entry doors. I am almost 100% certain the two worst offenders in my building are driven moreso by convenience than by price.

Unfortunately it is often very expensive if not impossible to but chargers away from convenient locations due to power supply availability.

 

[Tony_YYZ]

I understand your position. In my neighbourhood there is a relatively new community center. Others and myself campaigned to get EV chargers installed there since it was a brand new building going up and the town actually listened and did it! We have 8 Chargepoint level 2 units there.

But now, so many residents in the area use those chargers as their personal charging stations and leave their cars there all day/night. You see the same cars/license plates there day in/out. I’ve personally witnessed people driving over from the complete opposite end of the subdivision (~2kms) to leave their car plugged in there while someone else from their house followed them to drive them back home. They have become such pests. They are all Tesla owners as well.

A few of us have been suggesting to the town to do something to enforce the long term abuse of the stations but it mostly fell on deaf ears or just giving us a whole lot of: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But we have different events in that community center and people come from surrounding areas. They are rarely ever afforded the opportunity to charge when they visit because of the locals. I’ve suggested to the town to to turn on idle fees and make them more expensive than the local utility rates for homes so that people have an incentive to move their cars and also to limit free charging to an hour or two then start charging for it. They finally put up signage that fees are coming in 2024 but there’s no information published anywhere on what that will look like. They need to make it more expensive to charge there than at home so the locals will feel it in their wallets.

Bunch of nouveau Tesla owners who are too cheap to install home charging and just abusing free public stations. It’s pretty disgusting.

This gets clearly filed in the “no good deeds go unpunished” department. I hate saying things like this but 8 years ago when I got my first Model S you would see the same Model S owners over and over while charging. You’d waive at each other on the road. There was a real sense of community and etiquette. I remember meeting legacy owners who got their cars in 2012 and they were very courteous in explaining EV etiquette to new owners like me. This forum was also an excellent source of education on etiquette. Now, it’s just a free for all (which is good in one sense - but awful in the erosion of etiquette).

Well good news! I went to the community center this morning as I had a meeting there. I saw all of the chargers were empty and thought that was super odd. So I plugged my car into one to see if they were down or something but nope, they were working. What changed was they are now enforcing fees! I received an email from ChargePoint right after my session authenticated saying that the station is now charging $1/hr for the first two hours then $5-6/hr for each hour after that. Finally! I charged for 30 mins then the charger faulted, lol. I was out of there in an hour.

 

[Struja]

Well good news! I went to the community center this morning as I had a meeting there. I saw all of the chargers were empty and thought that was super odd. So I plugged my car into one to see if they were down or something but nope, they were working. What changed was they are now enforcing fees! I received an email from ChargePoint right after my session authenticated saying that the station is now charging $1/hr for the first two hours then $5-6/hr for each hour after that. Finally! I charged for 30 mins then the charger faulted, lol. I was out of there in an hour.

Boom! Perfect result (other than the fault).

 

[cdswm3]

Well good news! I went to the community center this morning as I had a meeting there. I saw all of the chargers were empty and thought that was super odd. So I plugged my car into one to see if they were down or something but nope, they were working. What changed was they are now enforcing fees! I received an email from ChargePoint right after my session authenticated saying that the station is now charging $1/hr for the first two hours then $5-6/hr for each hour after that. Finally! I charged for 30 mins then the charger faulted, lol. I was out of there in an hour.

Exactly how it should be. Stop the bottom feeders.

 

[MOE J]

I will start with a bit of background. The building where I work (and run my business) has increasingly tried to improve their LEED rating (as an environmentally friendly) building. When I saw they were doing this, I took the opportunity to really petition them to install an EV charger. So, about 2 years ago, they put in a Chargepoint charger. I was ecstatic. It is located in our parking garage and it is free (which is an even bigger score). Right now, we only have about 3-4 regular EV's in our lot and the charger gets very limited use. It's been ICED a few times, but not a huge problem. Our lot has both monthly parkers and day parkers. The day rate is $12 for the day and the monthly is $180. I have 4 monthly parking passes for myself and my staff.

So, in the past 3 weeks there has been a Model Y owner that has "parked" in the charging spot on 3 occasions, not plugged in at all. The charging spot is very conveniently located next to the elevators but even if you were forced to park in the worst spot on the garage, you're walk to the elevator would never bee more than about 50 meters. It is a small garage and well designed that yoiu never really have a long walk.

After the third parkedoccasion, (now the fourth time the car was parked in the spot not charging) I left (what I thought) was a very courteous note simply saying something like "as an EV owner it is important we keep these spots open for other EVs in case someone needs an urgent charge and the spot was not a parking spot". I don't know that the person got the note for sure, although I have no reason to believe they did not.

Unfortunately, my note didn't seem to work and the Model Y owner continues to use this as a parking spot. I went to the building security and management and they don't seem to have any interest in moving any vehicles from this spot that aren't charging. Do I just leave it alone and let is slide? My concern is that there are only two charging spots for the entire garage. I use it, only as I need to (as I still do most of my charging at home), but frankly it annoys me that a fellow EV owner has such poor etiquette. What would you do?

Tow the car….boom problem fixed

 

[SalisburySam]

I will start with a bit of background. The building where I work (and run my business) has increasingly tried to improve their LEED rating (as an environmentally friendly) building. When I saw they were doing this, I took the opportunity to really petition them to install an EV charger. So, about 2 years ago, they put in a Chargepoint charger. I was ecstatic. It is located in our parking garage and it is free (which is an even bigger score). Right now, we only have about 3-4 regular EV's in our lot and the charger gets very limited use. It's been ICED a few times, but not a huge problem. Our lot has both monthly parkers and day parkers. The day rate is $12 for the day and the monthly is $180. I have 4 monthly parking passes for myself and my staff.

So, in the past 3 weeks there has been a Model Y owner that has "parked" in the charging spot on 3 occasions, not plugged in at all. The charging spot is very conveniently located next to the elevators but even if you were forced to park in the worst spot on the garage, you're walk to the elevator would never bee more than about 50 meters. It is a small garage and well designed that yoiu never really have a long walk.

After the third parkedoccasion, (now the fourth time the car was parked in the spot not charging) I left (what I thought) was a very courteous note simply saying something like "as an EV owner it is important we keep these spots open for other EVs in case someone needs an urgent charge and the spot was not a parking spot". I don't know that the person got the note for sure, although I have no reason to believe they did not.

Unfortunately, my note didn't seem to work and the Model Y owner continues to use this as a parking spot. I went to the building security and management and they don't seem to have any interest in moving any vehicles from this spot that aren't charging. Do I just leave it alone and let is slide? My concern is that there are only two charging spots for the entire garage. I use it, only as I need to (as I still do most of my charging at home), but frankly it annoys me that a fellow EV owner has such poor etiquette. What would you do?

Another approach is to get there before the offender does and take the spot and the charging. When you’re done, notify one of the other EV owners and then swap your vehicle for theirs. Lather, rinse, and repeat as needed.