Workplace Charging Would Seriously Stimulate EV Sales

[lynnpt2001]

It appears that EV proponents struggle to get people to convert to EVs. I know I try and only have a few people converted to Tesla. As we all know the big hurdle is charging. I had a 220v NEMA 1450 installed at work, myself and a coworker both now have 220 outlets installed now. Having the ability to charge at work as well as home is a Huge benefit and if most of the people I know could charge their car at work as I do it would make such a difference in owning a EV. Having the car charging while at the office relaxes so many anxieties. We should be campaigning work places to adopt EV charging and to support it. Even if my office would charge me .15 per KWH I would not mind paying for the electricity to charge my car while at work. It certainly would take a lot of the range anxiety away and help the conversion.

 

[jboy210]

Several places I frequent do have at work charging. Google seems to have row after row of AC Charging at most lots and is now adding DC Fast charging. Chargepoint seems to be the big at work provider in Silicon Valley

 

[SSedan]

My place of employment has hundreds of employees on most shifts. Installing half enough outlets for wide scale use not anywhere near practical.

Why should employer's do it most EVs are couple hundred mile range and parked at home.
Is there a fuel pump at work? Why should they put one in for you?

Suggesting costly projects that benefit a few is exactly the opposite of how you are going to win over a lot of folks.

 

[ewoodrick]

I like charging at home much better than work. First, there car is usually plugged in longer, next, it still works on the weekends, and then I don't have to worry about moving the car because someone else is waiting to charge.

With cars supporting more than 150 mile range, the need to charge everywhere you park is great alleviated.

 

[linux-works]

(new member, here).

workplace charging was a key reason I bought my tesla! I live in an apartment and there is no chance of home charging, at least for as long as I'm at this complex.

we have chargepoint dc chargers at work and a queue that will 'page' us when its our 2 hour turn. toward the end of the day, there's usually free slots open so you can get a 2nd 2 hour charge.

there are even times I've been know to drive into work to get some work done and get a weekend charge

definitely a bay area trend; and all else being equal, if I have to pick between employers that offer this and those that don't, it can be a tie breaker.

again, its not about wanting to stay money, per se; its the fact that apartment folks don't have much choice.

 

[ReddyLeaf]

(new member, here).

workplace charging was a key reason I bought my tesla! I live in an apartment and there is no chance of home charging, at least for as long as I'm at this complex.

we have chargepoint dc chargers at work and a queue that will 'page' us when its our 2 hour turn. toward the end of the day, there's usually free slots open so you can get a 2nd 2 hour charge.

there are even times I've been know to drive into work to get some work done and get a weekend charge

definitely a bay area trend; and all else being equal, if I have to pick between employers that offer this and those that don't, it can be a tie breaker.

again, its not about wanting to stay money, per se; its the fact that apartment folks don't have much choice.

Awesome! Since solar energy is being curtailed (thrown away) at times in CA, especially in the spring, workplace charging is the best way to “stabilize” the grid. Tesla should provide HPWCs to any employer that asks.

 

[linux-works]

with my previous ICE, I was spending over $250/mo on gas, almost all for commute. now,my monthly is zero, so in a way, its a $250/mo 'raise'. company is fine with it, too. win/win

 

[Watts_Up]

It appears that EV proponents struggle to get people to convert to EVs. I know I try and only have a few people converted to Tesla. As we all know the big hurdle is charging. I had a 220v NEMA 1450 installed at work, myself and a coworker both now have 220 outlets installed now. Having the ability to charge at work as well as home is a Huge benefit and if most of the people I know could charge their car at work as I do it would make such a difference in owning a EV. Having the car charging while at the office relaxes so many anxieties. We should be campaigning work places to adopt EV charging and to support it. Even if my office would charge me .15 per KWH I would not mind paying for the electricity to charge my car while at work. It certainly would take a lot of the range anxiety away and help the conversion.

Can you explain if you have to move your car after a given duration, like 2 hours for example or if you can leave your car connected all the day?

It might not very parctical for some people to go back to their car until lunch time for example.

Also if there was no spot available when you arrived, would you walk to your car may be every hour to see if there is an available spot?

 

[lynnpt2001]

I was suggestion that companies that have EV owners or for them to offer dedicated outlets for an EV owner. I come and go to my office throughout the day, I have a dedicated spot as well as my coworker. Makes for an almost perfect scenario. There is a packing company in CO promoting EV adoption, more than half of their employees now own EVs, since they installed over 50 charging connections at the office. How cool is that!

 

[linux-works]

Can you explain if you have to move your car after a given duration, like 2 hours for example or if you can leave your car connected all the day?

It might not very parctical for some people to go back to their car until lunch time for example.

Also if there was no spot available when you arrived, would you walk to your car may be every hour to see if there is an available spot?

how it works for us: we have a row of chargepoint fast chargers for cars that can take that; and we have other slow chargers for the plug-in cars. those sit on the slow charger all day and I don't know much about those.

chargepoint seems to maintain the phone/web app. before 9am, if you get in early and there is a fast charger stall free, you can NFC or RFID login, grab a timeslot and you can use that parking/charging slot until you are done or 2 hours is reached. when you unplug, it 'pages' the next person and, yes, you do have to move your car.

if you arrive after 9am, you add yourself to the wait queue and when you get an notification,. you have 10 minutes to 'run' outside, move your car to the charger slot *assigned to you* for that timeslot. then 'run' back to your desk or meeting.

fwiw, we have a culture at work where its fully ok to 'run out' to move your car when you get paged. lots of people do it and it only takes 5 minutes anyway (well, hopefully not rainy; we get no snow in the bay area, thankfully).

when your car is done, again, you have 10 minutes or so to move it. if you don't, you get more 'pages' on your phone and if you ignore them, people on the company chat app (we use slack) will get on your case. its self managing and so far it has not been abused.

ob disc: I do work for an electic car company and so many of our employees have fully bought into the e-car idea and almost every month, we see lots of new teslas being added to the chargepoint queue system. I don't work at tesla, but you might think so by all the model 3's we have in our parking lot (not on this photo,though)

 

[ralph142]

how it works for us: we have a row of chargepoint fast chargers for cars that can take that; and we have other slow chargers for the plug-in cars. those sit on the slow charger all day and I don't know much about those.

chargepoint seems to maintain the phone/web app. before 9am, if you get in early and there is a fast charger stall free, you can NFC or RFID login, grab a timeslot and you can use that parking/charging slot until you are done or 2 hours is reached. when you unplug, it 'pages' the next person and, yes, you do have to move your car.

if you arrive after 9am, you add yourself to the wait queue and when you get an notification,. you have 10 minutes to 'run' outside, move your car to the charger slot *assigned to you* for that timeslot. then 'run' back to your desk or meeting.

fwiw, we have a culture at work where its fully ok to 'run out' to move your car when you get paged. lots of people do it and it only takes 5 minutes anyway (well, hopefully not rainy; we get no snow in the bay area, thankfully).

when your car is done, again, you have 10 minutes or so to move it. if you don't, you get more 'pages' on your phone and if you ignore them, people on the company chat app (we use slack) will get on your case. its self managing and so far it has not been abused.

ob disc: I do work for an electic car company and so many of our employees have fully bought into the e-car idea and almost every month, we see lots of new teslas being added to the chargepoint queue system. I don't work at tesla, but you might think so by all the model 3's we have in our parking lot (not on this photo,though)

View attachment 492472

You for an ev co and the employees drive mostly Teslas, ouch.

 

[linux-works]

You work for an ev co and the employees drive mostly Teslas, ouch.

Reason is that we are not selling to the US market yet. We buy what we *can* for now.

 

[ewoodrick]

I was suggestion that companies that have EV owners or for them to offer dedicated outlets for an EV owner. I come and go to my office throughout the day, I have a dedicated spot as well as my coworker. Makes for an almost perfect scenario. There is a packing company in CO promoting EV adoption, more than half of their employees now own EVs, since they installed over 50 charging connections at the office. How cool is that!

Oh, private parking spots, if everyone in a company doesn't have them, is a terrible idea. At a minimum, they had better be the furthest spaces from the door.
Allowing EVs to have elite rights, in addition to free charging just isn't a great idea to me. Too much negative attitude from other employees, especially those who can't afford a Tesla.

 

[linux-works]

otoh, I'm seeing more free charging at supermarkets, and its NOT the 'far away' parking spots, either, its right up front.

first month of owning my m3, this appeared. totally free (for now, at least) and right up front. its my local supermarket and I'm loving how EV's are getting 'extra favors' why not! lets encourage people to move this way.

 

[Watts_Up]

how it works for us: we have a row of chargepoint fast chargers for cars that can take that;
and we have other slow chargers for the plug-in cars. those sit on the slow charger all day and I don't know much about those.

chargepoint seems to maintain the phone/web app.
before 9am, if you get in early and there is a fast charger stall free, you can NFC or RFID login,
grab a timeslot and you can use that parking/charging slot until you are done or 2 hours is reached.
when you unplug, it 'pages' the next person and, yes, you do have to move your car.

if you arrive after 9am, you add yourself to the wait queue and when you get an notification,.
you have 10 minutes to 'run' outside, move your car to the charger slot *assigned to you* for that timeslot.
then 'run' back to your desk or meeting.

fwiw, we have a culture at work where its fully ok to 'run out' to move your car when you get paged.
lots of people do it and it only takes 5 minutes anyway (well, hopefully not rainy; we get no snow in the bay area, thankfully).

when your car is done, again, you have 10 minutes or so to move it.
if you don't, you get more 'pages' on your phone and if you ignore them,
people on the company chat app (we use slack) will get on your case.
its self managing and so far it has not been abused.

ob disc: I do work for an electic car company and so many of our employees have fully bought into the e-car idea and almost every month, we see lots of new teslas being added to the chargepoint queue system.
I don't work at tesla, but you might think so by all the model 3's we have in our parking lot (not on this photo,though)

This system of waiting is great, however during 'core' hours, typically from 10 am to 4 pm I'm often in meetings.
- I wonder what will happen if you can't move your car when the charging is done?

It would be great in the future to have wireless charging, or a robot arm plug, so the car would be able to move by themself to free a spot.

For people who cannot charge at home, providing easy ways to charge at work or when shopping is a must.

Otherwise people will coninue buying petrol or hybrids cars, or even will considere getting Hydrogen Fuell Cells cars.

 

[linux-works]

depends on your company culture, I guess; but we have no problem letting people leave for a few minutes to move their car. you do have 10 minutes to *do* the move, so if you are in the middle of something, it can wait a little while, but not too long. if you don't move it, well, it won't move itself, but you'll be blocking others from using the spot.

for me, its not a bad thing to get an 'exit pass' to be able to leave a meeting and give myself a good 5 minutes to walk, stretch legs and even get some outside air for a short while.

when it rains, well, its not the most fun thing, but otoh, with the range we get with our cars, I could afford to 'skip' a day or even two. if I'm in line and my phone tells me its my turn to start a charge - I can always 'snooze' and give up my slot for a set period of time. I can even leave the waitlist if I find I *really* can't take time away, that particular day.

 

[jboy210]

This system of waiting is great, however during 'core' hours, typically from 10 am to 4 pm I'm often in meetings.
- I wonder what will happen if you can't move your car when the charging is done?

It would be great in the future to have wireless charging, or a robot arm plug, so the car would be able to move by themself to free a spot.

For people who cannot charge at home, providing easy ways to charge at work or when shopping is a must.

Otherwise people will coninue buying petrol or hybrids cars, or even will considere getting Hydrogen Fuell Cells cars.

Most of the companies I frequent that have Fast DC charging that require car swapping also have J1772 for slower AC charging. Some have 2 or 3 fast chargers and 30 or 40 J1772. When you use the AC charger you can stay in your spot all day.

 

[ralph142]

Most of the companies I frequent that have Fast DC charging that require car swapping also have J1772 for slower AC charging. Some have 2 or 3 fast chargers and 30 or 40 J1772. When you use the AC charger you can stay in your spot all day.

this seems like a better answer, 20 amp x 240 or 120 volt charging for as many spots as needed. We have 6, free, 7 kw j1772 ChargePoint chargers for 700 plus employees at the far end of one lot, nearly max distance away. There is no formal que system, so it’s always a contest in the am, and the honor system to move your car when “done”, however you define that. Many, many times, leafs and bolts and i3s or worse, phevs and such simply stay put all day. I’m not familiar with their charging enough to know what they need or don’t, but for me, 8 hrs at 7 kw is nearly 0-100%. ( leMR) So it sure seems like just hogging the spots for their convenience rather than moving.
I would be happy if I could recover my 20 mile commute. Upshot is that I rarely if ever use one unless I run the battery down past 30% and plan on a short day.