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Redmond/Bellevue Apartments/Townhomes with charging
- Thread starter SBPNW
- Start date
ChadS
Last tank of gas: March 2009
I took a brief look in Redmond 2-3 years ago. The only apartments I remember with charging were Red160 and Milehouse. I think Red160 was just a couple of shared pay chargers. I think Milehouse had more, and some of them you could reserve parking for.
Sorry, I didn't look elsewhere (or more recently) and I didn't actually try charging at either place. But at least it's a couple of places to check out.
Sorry, I didn't look elsewhere (or more recently) and I didn't actually try charging at either place. But at least it's a couple of places to check out.
I live in one of the apartment buildings in downtown Bellevue and we have several ChargePoint stalls on the first level that I regularly use. I haven't had any problems with it - there's always a few stalls available, even on the weekends, and it caps at 9$/day at ours for a full charge so its relatively reasonable cost-wise.
If you go on PlugShare and search for J1772 charging stations in the area you're looking at its pretty easy to find charging stations in apartment complexes. They're usually in the public section of the garage on or around the first level. Buildings like Lincoln Square, Bravern, Ashton, Ten20, Soma, Venn, Mayden, etc. in downtown Bellevue all have public access stations. Other buildings like Lux have charging stations, but they aren't publicly available (at least as far as I know).
Good luck!
If you go on PlugShare and search for J1772 charging stations in the area you're looking at its pretty easy to find charging stations in apartment complexes. They're usually in the public section of the garage on or around the first level. Buildings like Lincoln Square, Bravern, Ashton, Ten20, Soma, Venn, Mayden, etc. in downtown Bellevue all have public access stations. Other buildings like Lux have charging stations, but they aren't publicly available (at least as far as I know).
Good luck!
Yup, I'd much rather have my own charging station or a NEMA 14-50 outlet at my parking stall so I don't have to move my car up and down a few levels when charging... but I'll take what I can get.
Thanks. One of the difficulties has been the variability in knowledge about ev charging among the leasing personnel at various rental apartments. We are planning to be a one car family with a commute everyday so finding a place that has dedicated charging would be necessary.
Since I live in an apt as well I was worried about charging prior to getting my M3 (picked it up ~month ago). While my building does not have dedicated chargers ~10% of the spaces happen to have access to a standard NEMA 5-20 outlet so my building's management gave me the go-ahead to just charge off of those for free which has actually worked perfect so far. I live in a Equity Residential building in Belltown so you may want to check with their buildings in Redmond/Bellevue since they have quite a few. Of course, for $220/month for parking the added cost of electricity for them I'm sure is small potatoes :/
How long is your commute? I've been driving a Tesla while renting in Seattle for 4.5 years and I've done it with a 110V outlet. It's more than sufficient during the pandemic and it was a bit of a struggle back when I was driving 40-60 miles a day, but with some L2 charging at places I was going anyway and the occasional supercharge (in winter when range isn't as good), I was able to get by just fine. There are many more superchargers in the area now, so having to supercharge on occasion would be much less inconvenient. When I got my first Tesla in 2016, the nearest supercharger was in Burlington! Now I have one a mile from where I live.
Anyways, there's no doubt that having L2 charging at home is preferable but it might be easier to find a place that has a parking space with a 110V outlet. In some cases, having your own 110V outlet may be better than having an L2 charger that you have to share with other residents and/or the public. An added benefit is that you might get FREE electricity with the 110V outlet. The apartment I lived at for 4 years never charged me for it, so it was like getting a ~$40 discount on their exorbitant monthly parking fee
If you do go the 110V route, be sure to plug something in to the particular outlet to be sure it works! Sometimes parking garage outlets can be dead for whatever reason. Also, I would suggest tracking how much you are driving now so you can get daily and weekly numbers. This will give you a good estimate to figure out if the 110V outlet can be a solution or not. Of course it depends on the type of Tesla you are driving, but generally speaking if your weekly commuting miles are <200 with some consistency, you can get by with the 110V outlet.
Of course if you make the occasional longer weekend trip, you will just have to plan to stop at a supercharger along the way. That was actually the most frustrating thing about having just a 110V outlet for me, having to top off heavily at the last supercharger on the way home from a long road trip. Of course you'd just want to get home at that point, but I always had to be patient and make a 30-60 minute stop at Ellensburg or Centralia or whatever so I had a >50% SOC when I got home. The day to day stuff wasn't bad at all. You just get in a habit of being absolutely sure you plug in every night and then take the occasional L2 opportunity charge out in public when it presents itself.
Unfortunately, we will have a 70+ mile commute at least 3 days a week so will ideally need more than a 120V outlet (unless we get a gas car on the side and we have been gas free for 4 years). We would also prefer to be a one car family if we can.How long is your commute? I've been driving a Tesla while renting in Seattle for 4.5 years and I've done it with a 110V outlet. It's more than sufficient during the pandemic and it was a bit of a struggle back when I was driving 40-60 miles a day, but with some L2 charging at places I was going anyway and the occasional supercharge (in winter when range isn't as good), I was able to get by just fine. There are many more superchargers in the area now, so having to supercharge on occasion would be much less inconvenient. When I got my first Tesla in 2016, the nearest supercharger was in Burlington! Now I have one a mile from where I live.
Anyways, there's no doubt that having L2 charging at home is preferable but it might be easier to find a place that has a parking space with a 110V outlet. In some cases, having your own 110V outlet may be better than having an L2 charger that you have to share with other residents and/or the public. An added benefit is that you might get FREE electricity with the 110V outlet. The apartment I lived at for 4 years never charged me for it, so it was like getting a ~$40 discount on their exorbitant monthly parking fee
If you do go the 110V route, be sure to plug something in to the particular outlet to be sure it works! Sometimes parking garage outlets can be dead for whatever reason. Also, I would suggest tracking how much you are driving now so you can get daily and weekly numbers. This will give you a good estimate to figure out if the 110V outlet can be a solution or not. Of course it depends on the type of Tesla you are driving, but generally speaking if your weekly commuting miles are <200 with some consistency, you can get by with the 110V outlet.
Of course if you make the occasional longer weekend trip, you will just have to plan to stop at a supercharger along the way. That was actually the most frustrating thing about having just a 110V outlet for me, having to top off heavily at the last supercharger on the way home from a long road trip. Of course you'd just want to get home at that point, but I always had to be patient and make a 30-60 minute stop at Ellensburg or Centralia or whatever so I had a >50% SOC when I got home. The day to day stuff wasn't bad at all. You just get in a habit of being absolutely sure you plug in every night and then take the occasional L2 opportunity charge out in public when it presents itself.
With a 2021 SR+ I get 8 mi/hr of range added with a NEMA 5-20 (or 7 if I have Sentry mode enabled) so just a little bit better than the 6 mi/hr (or 5 with sentry) on 5-15, but that actually works perfect for me. I was actually surprised at how practical charging off of a 120v outlet is so I definitely wouldn't count that out given your use case. I'm not sure how commonly used communal chargers are in buildings but personally I'd probably choose just a 120v I could plug in to overnight consistently vs dealing with L2 communal chargers.
Yes, a dedicated 120v would be better in some ways than a communal L2 charger. I guess if I can find a place with a 5-20 outlet it might meet my needs. I do have communal chargers at my workplace but it is first come first serve with no time limits so there is generally a bunch of Nissan Leafs or hybrids plugged in all day!
A 5-20 will be able to do 16 amps continuous (assuming you're the only thing on that circuit). That's 1.9kW so 1.9kWh. My Model Y LR gets around 335 wh/mi in the winter with moderate freeway speeds (55mph) and maybe 260 around town in the winter. So 1.9kWh would result in ~5.5 miles/hour of charging for moderate freeway speeds and 7 miles/hour of charging if your speeds are more like 35 to 40 mph around town. Now of course there are going to be a little bit of losses with sentry mode on or if it needs to warm the battery or anything, but it's usually not huge. I think 40 to 50 miles overnight (8 hours) would be reasonable. In the summer it might result in like 25% higher, so like 50 to 60 miles.
That actually wouldn't be so bad if you could hit a supercharger once a week for like 15 to 20 minutes, or better yet, a level 2 charger for an hour or so while grocery shopping or if you go out to a dinner and/or movie on the weekend. (Actually, if you don't drive much on the weekend, that would probably allow you to get all the way back to "full", 85% maybe, and then slowly trickle down during the week).
Even if you did 70 mile trips four days a week, you would only actually be "down" 80 miles because of charging every night on the 5-20 and that would be easier to build back over the weekend if you're plugged in a lot more or again on a L2 or supercharger.
This is an important point that many seem to miss. It's okay to operate at a deficit for short periods of time. When I lived at the apartment, in winter I would lose a net of 5-10 rated miles per day. But this isn't that bad because I would start at close to 300 rated miles on the battery. All this meant was that I would need to arrange for other charging once a month or so. In my case, I pretty much always make a longer trip at least once a month, so I would just stop at a supercharger on those trips and fill up that way. And if I didn't have a trip like that planned for some reason, it's not hard to go to a supercharger and do your grocery shopping if you live in the Seattle area. It used to only be Lynnwood and Issaquah, but now we have Ballard, Mill Creek, and a couple pay garages downtown. And of course they are building more. And this all assumes that you will never get any L2 charging, but of course you should be able to do that if you take a look at Plugshare and look at what chargers are out there near places where you spend time.
I should have clarified about the 70 mile trip, that's one way. So we are look at 140-150 mile roundtrip at least 3 times a week. It's definitely doable with the 5-20 outlet and scheduled supercharger stops BUT adds a level of complexity with time/meetings/pickups etc. Ideally we find a townhome that has a dryer outlet or 14-50 outlet in the garage, but that's the dream!
alstoralset
Man from another place
If budget permits, I would suggest searching for townhomes with integrated garages, similar to the below. The complex would probably let you install a wall charger, if 110V wasn't adequate.
Apartment
Apartment
Last edited:
TunaBug
Member
Late to the thread...
The new-ish "Kirkland Urban" (in downtown Kirkland has "38 Dual 6.6kW on P2" according to Plugshare. I've never been to P2 since you need a pass and I don't live there. There are 5 additional ChargePoints on P1 which are free to the public and I have used multiple times.
Covid has increased demand for rentals of single family homes (no sharing your HVAC system). Some of those will have chargers in the garage, but if not then the owner/landlord might be willing to install one. How easy that conversation will be obviously depend on how, ummm, enlightened the owner is. Of course, at a minimum, you'll be able to plug into a 5-15 in a garage and not worry about your charger walking off.
The new-ish "Kirkland Urban" (in downtown Kirkland
has "38 Dual 6.6kW on P2" according to Plugshare. I've never been to P2 since you need a pass and I don't live there. There are 5 additional ChargePoints on P1 which are free to the public and I have used multiple times.Covid has increased demand for rentals of single family homes (no sharing your HVAC system). Some of those will have chargers in the garage, but if not then the owner/landlord might be willing to install one. How easy that conversation will be obviously depend on how, ummm, enlightened the owner is. Of course, at a minimum, you'll be able to plug into a 5-15 in a garage and not worry about your charger walking off.
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