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Would a Tesla make sense as an apartment owner with shared L2 charging?

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I honestly would not even consider an electric car if I didn't have the capability to charge at home. And by home I mean my own charger that nobody else could ever use
Yeah…it’s just that ICE cars are so boring to drive. Even a $60k BMW no longer wowed me. Feels slow. I’m not buying an electric car to save the world but rather because it’s fun to drive and has amazing tech.

So I guess I’m ok with putting up with the hassle. And if I get tired we’ll then I’ll just sell it for more than what I bought it for lol
 
Yeah…it’s just that ICE cars are so boring to drive. Even a $60k BMW no longer wowed me. Feels slow. I’m not buying an electric car to save the world but rather because it’s fun to drive and has amazing tech.

So I guess I’m ok with putting up with the hassle. And if I get tired we’ll then I’ll just sell it for more than what I bought it for lol
Sounds like you've made up your mind. I'm sure you'll make it work. Heck I used to keep my motorcycle in the living room. I would sneak it through the back patio haha. Throw an extension cord out the window :)

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Any chance you can simply talk to the other tenants, and see if you can work out a schedule which would work for all of you?

You really don't need to charge every day... you'll have roughly 250 miles, even charging to 85%, so I'd imagine you'll really only need to charge every other day.

Perhaps you can work it out so that you and the other tenant with an EV agree that on Monday, Weds. Fri. they use the charger, Tues. Thurs. Sat you use it, and Sunday is a free for all? Or perhaps they're at work every day from 8am -6pm, and you're always home until 11am.... you could simply top off your car in the morning on days when you need to.

When the Chevy Volt was released, I was living in an apartment building and the management agreed to allow me to put a Level 2 charger in for my parking space. When I moved out the wiring, conduit, etc. as well as approval by the power company was left there, so a new tenant that wanted to could simply buy a Level 2 charger and have an electrician hook it up (I took the Charger with me when I moved out) Majority of the expense was already paid for by me.

My 21 yo daughter lives with her boyfriend and they don't have a charger (She has a fully electric Kia eNiro). She charges for 4 hours while at work and that's more then enough charge to get her through. So she charges on Friday, leaves work with approx. 250 mile range, and easily makes it to Monday when she tops off again, when she's back at work.

Alot has to do with how much driving you do each day, and it doesn't sound like you do that much.
 
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With increasing ownership of EVs, your property management company will need to strengthen and enforce their parking rules and makes sure that everybody knows what the rules are and the consequences if they are not followed.

File that under "example XXXXXXXXX for why we cant have nice things"... because what the most likely outcome of this is, the management gets tired of people complaining about charging and parking, etc and decides to start charging for the charging services "to make it fair". Thats my guess as to how all that will eventually shake out, anyway.

They can do it now because hardly anyone has EVs there per this OP. Given gas prices and people living there seeing the chargers and outlets, a lot more people may be plugging in there than the management anticipated, in the next 2-6 months. They will quickly get tired of a bunch of people saying "so and so didnt move their car, I couldnt charge, I need a parking space with a plug, how come those people get to charge and I can never get in there, etc etc".

I realize I sound like a pessimist here, but thats not the intent. I just know that if people living there know "some" get energy for free for their car, others will want to do the same once they buy their own EV (and will likely accelerate doing so given gas prices). I also know apartment managers dont like dealing with a lot of hassles between tenants.
 
File that under "example XXXXXXXXX for why we cant have nice things"... because what the most likely outcome of this is, the management gets tired of people complaining about charging and parking, etc and decides to start charging for the charging services "to make it fair". Thats my guess as to how all that will eventually shake out, anyway.
I don't really see any problem with the management company charging tenants to get their vehicles charged. Unless of course they run the gas station playbook and demand $1/kWh or more. If you can afford a Tesla, I'm sure that you can pay upwards of $0.30/kWh for the electricity - enough to at least cover whatever their costs are. Of course that would probably mean changing the existing infrastructure of the charging network to allow for billing of users. A company like ChargePoint could come in, install EVSE and setup an account for residents who must signup and obtain an RFID card. ChargePoint would then need to contact the building management to verify those that apply live there. Those stations could then be reserved only for tenants; not for any public use. Of course if they want to continue offering free L2 charging as an incentive to get and maintain more tenants or they don't want to incur the costs of changing EVSE equipment to go the billing route, that would be great too but that may lead to some problems later on down the line.

They can do it now because hardly anyone has EVs there per this OP. Given gas prices and people living there seeing the chargers and outlets, a lot more people may be plugging in there than the management anticipated, in the next 2-6 months. They will quickly get tired of a bunch of people saying "so and so didnt move their car, I couldnt charge, I need a parking space with a plug, how come those people get to charge and I can never get in there, etc etc".
Which is why I said that they need to first establish some rules and makes sure everybody knows what they are. It could be as simple as maintaining a phone list and having residents communicate among themselves. Not too much of a problem now since there seems to be 3 or 4 people wanting use of the two chargers. Scaling up could be a problem if 10 people need to use the two chargers. That usually means some sort of a sign-up list; some way of tracking "who's next in line?". That may be solved by using something like a Google group calendar. Members could sign up for a block of time, say up to a week in advance, with no more that a certain number of blocks being reserved by any one member. A lot of this can be eliminated if the company changes over to an outside source (like ChargePoint) that can bill users and incentivize moving cars after charging by implementing a strong idle charge fee ($1/min)

I realize I sound like a pessimist here, but thats not the intent. I just know that if people living there know "some" get energy for free for their car, others will want to do the same once they buy their own EV (and will likely accelerate doing so given gas prices). I also know apartment managers dont like dealing with a lot of hassles between tenants.
Then the management company should see the writing on the wall. It will get to the point that there will be too many residents with EVs trying to use the (now) woefully inadequate number of free charging stations. Yes, some residents may be able to charge at work or use other off-site stations. But there will be a small subset of the population that can't, or would not want to, charge elsewhere. The company will either need to increase the number of free EVSEs to keep (mostly) everybody happy or wash their hands of the situation and install fee-based charging.

edit: ChargePoint could also setup the charging system to be free for a certain number of hours and then begin charging an idle fee. This was done when I worked for Samsung. There were around 30 L2 stations that employees could use for free in the parking garage. We were allotted four hours of time at the L2 stations and then an idle fee kicked in. However, there was a workaround to the time limit. If you unplugged your car after four hours and just moved to another station, you could get four more hours of time. Not too many people knew that at the time; they may have since plugged that hole.
 
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File that under "example XXXXXXXXX for why we cant have nice things"... because what the most likely outcome of this is, the management gets tired of people complaining about charging and parking, etc and decides to start charging for the charging services "to make it fair". Thats my guess as to how all that will eventually shake out, anyway.

They can do it now because hardly anyone has EVs there per this OP. Given gas prices and people living there seeing the chargers and outlets, a lot more people may be plugging in there than the management anticipated, in the next 2-6 months. They will quickly get tired of a bunch of people saying "so and so didnt move their car, I couldnt charge, I need a parking space with a plug, how come those people get to charge and I can never get in there, etc etc".

I realize I sound like a pessimist here, but thats not the intent. I just know that if people living there know "some" get energy for free for their car, others will want to do the same once they buy their own EV (and will likely accelerate doing so given gas prices). I also know apartment managers dont like dealing with a lot of hassles between tenants.
Yeah, I think this is spot on .. in reality what is needed is some form of booking system for it ever to work in a shared apr complex. It's kinda crazy to me that no charger that I've ever looked at has this kind of model in its software.
 
Unless you’re parking in particularly sketchy locations, sentry mode is a waste of energy when charging resources are limited. Each day of sentry mode requires an additional hour of charge time on your typical 30 amp public charging station.

Aside from that, the situation OP describes sounds reasonably tenable, with several backup charging options in the event that the home stations aren’t available for some reason.
 
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Unless you’re parking in particularly sketchy locations, sentry mode is a waste of energy when charging resources are limited. Each day of sentry mode requires an additional hour of charge time on your typical 30 amp public charging station.

Aside from that, the situation OP describes sounds reasonably tenable, with several backup charging options in the event that the home stations aren’t available for some reason.
The one time I didn't enable sentry mode at my work parking lot was the one time someone managed to hit my front bumper.
 
Unless you’re parking in particularly sketchy locations, sentry mode is a waste of energy when charging resources are limited. Each day of sentry mode requires an additional hour of charge time on your typical 30 amp public charging station.

Aside from that, the situation OP describes sounds reasonably tenable, with several backup charging options in the event that the home stations aren’t available for some reason.
Thanks guys! I am just dreading the wait now to get my car 😭 1 month more!! Red on black with 18 aeros long range. It’s my first car now that I am out of college and can afford stuff!
 
I’ve seen past threads about this but feel it differs by situation. After test driving a model 3 I placed one on order immediately. Now I’m a bit unsure due to charging situation so I wanted to ask:
let the charge come to you:


see if they are in your area.

otherwise, you can live in an apartment/condo and drive an ev.
 
I might be ignorant or naive but the solution is simple. You post at the EV charging spot or every tenant is notified by bulletin/email of the rules…….we offer free charging but you have to move your car when it is done charging. The OP talks about people in his complex who already charge, they would also not be happy to see another car in the spot sitting overnight when fully charged. For abusers, you can leave a kind note on their window.

Also many companies are now putting in chargers for their employees in campus type environments. There are a few near me. There is also a large corporation (Siemens) who has put out 4 free chargers for their employees. I wish I knew someone there and could get permission to charge, LOL.

Side note: My town’s train station were pioneers in this area, many years ago put in 2 Level 2 chargers, most of the time one was broken and when not broken the “commuters” into NYC would scoff them up early in the morning, get on the train and not disconnect until the evening when they came home. These chargers were free, parking you had to pay for. So many people including myself complained about the abuse of these chargers not available to other people because the commuters were hogging them. So the town decided to rip those lousy chargers out, put in 5 new ones, but charge for the electricity now. Now there is no problem getting a charger because people are not using them much anymore that you have to pay. Go figure.
 
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How many miles do you drive per week? It sounds like if you're only driving weekends you don't do much driving to begin with. There's a chance you could probably get by charging 1 or 2 days a week on the level 2 charger and be fine.
Normally go to the gym after work M, W, F which is 10 miles round trip, and then sometimes go to grocery store but that’s on the way home anyway.

Weekends in the summer I tend to go hiking a lot but non-summer a bit less.

I also enjoy driving and it brings me pleasure so I can see myself purposefully taking the car out for fun.

Best guess is 8,000-9,000 miles a year or 180 miles per week.