My company recently got a charger and I'm trying to figure out if this is normal. I've been hearing different things from other people about their workplaces. What's the actual situation like at yours with EV charging – any issues, perks, or just no big deal?
I can't charge at home, so the L2 at work is basically how I fuel the car. Most days I don't even notice it. I plug in when I get there, and by lunch I've got more than enough for the round trip. In winter it helps more than people expect, because the pack is already warm when I leave and the car isn't fighting a cold battery the whole drive home. I'm not sure what "normal" is though. Every place I've heard about does it a little differently.
Is it actually a charger or just a 120V outlet in the lot? A lot of places up here call a block heater plug an EV charger.
There's nothing at my work, but I charge at home so it doesn't really matter to me.
Two plugs and free is pretty good. Ours started free too, and then a few months in they put it on the network app for a small fee per kWh. It's still way cheaper than DCFC, so I didn't complain much.
Free ChargePoint at work is a nice setup. Even after it went paid, my old ChargePoint at work was still cheaper than public charging. The app also gave a decent breakdown of kWh and cost per session, so you'll at least know what you're getting.
Ours isn't even in yet, supposed to go in next quarter, and I'm already counting on it. For the ones that went paid, roughly what per kWh did they land on?
Can't help on rates, ours is still free. Between that and charging at home I've done about 1,200 miles for around £20 so far, so if they started charging a bit I wouldn't be too upset.
Ours is free too, but the town pays for it through a program, not the company. No idea if that means it stays free longer than the ones that went paid or if it just disappears when the funding does.
Has anyone here used a J1772 extension cable at their work charger? The cord on ours doesn't quite reach the spot I usually get. I'm looking at a Vevor one for about $100, but I'm not sure it's worth it just for that.
That's what keeps me from fully relaxing about ours. It's free and there are enough ports for everyone right now, so I've been holding off on a home L2. But if it went away or went paid I'd probably regret not putting one in.
Same, got mine about two months ago. So far I've only been plugging in at work once it's under 30%, then letting it go to 80%. Is there any harm in just topping up to 80% every day while it's free?
Similar question here. Ours is free and lets you set the current anywhere from 0 to 48A. I don't need it fast since I could plug in every day, so is there a sweet spot for battery life? I'm guessing the difference is pretty small, but if it's free anyway I'd rather pick the gentlest setting.
Kind of the reverse problem here. Nobody else at my company has an EV yet, so facilities asked me to research what to put in. I'm leaning toward a regular J1772 unit and not a Tesla wall connector, so whoever buys the next EV can actually use it. For those of you with ChargePoint at work, do you know if your company was happy going with them, or were there other brands they looked at?
I went through this for my plant recently and talked to both ChargePoint and Enel X. Fair warning that ChargePoint's subscription and hardware ownership terms were hard to pin down, and the cheaper unit I looked at was software-locked to a single account. Enel X quoted four JuiceBox Pro L2s plus a yearly management/billing subscription, with the company owning the hardware. If you only need a few J1772 ports, get the ownership and subscription terms in writing before you pick a brand.
Useful, thanks. I'm in a similar spot, small company of about a dozen, and management will do outlets but doesn't want to budget much for real chargers. I'm leaning toward running dedicated circuits with 10 AWG so they can be upgraded to L2 later without opening walls again. Did either vendor have a cheap way to start with basic outlets and add networked units down the road?
If you're putting together a case for management, the Energy.gov Workplace Charging Challenge material is worth a look. It has planning guides and examples from other employers, and it helped me figure out what to ask for before pitching it. I'm still at the proposal stage myself, so I'm curious whether anyone found a good way to get a rough headcount of future EV drivers before they committed to a number of ports.
Same problem at my work. If I get in after 9am every charger is full, and I've watched a Bolt set to 100% sit on one of only two working ports for over an hour. I haven't seen a written etiquette guide anywhere, and everyone just seems to wing it.
Ours has 12 stations and they're full every day, but only 5-7 of the cars are actually charging. I complained to security and he said he'd issue ticket warnings and keep an eye on who parks there. I figure having a third party do it keeps it from turning into a fight between coworkers. Not sure yet if it works, it's only been a week or so.
Curious how the ticket warnings hold up after the first few weeks. We have a 2 hour limit on our 5 ports and people just blow past it, since there's nothing behind it. I'd rather not start charging fees to fix it because the free part is what everyone likes. Did your security guy get any pushback when he started?
Same problem here, except it's a Prius that sits on the closest charger all day and shows green long after it's done. I can't charge at home, so I'm stuck with the Bolt waiting on it. Campus safety basically shrugged when I asked. I've been thinking of leaving a polite note asking them to text me when it's full instead of unplugging it myself, since that feels rude. Has anyone tried a note like that and had it go over okay?
Related to the unplugging thing, and I'm pretty new to this so tell me if it's a dumb question. Last week I came back to unplug mine and the Leaf next to me had its port door open with nothing plugged in. It looked like the previous person had unplugged it and left. Is there a norm that if you unplug someone's car you plug it into the next charger or back into theirs? I didn't know whether to do it or just leave it.
I'm on the other side of this: I charge about twice a week off a 220V outlet near my spot, and I asked facilities for permission and got "we don't care, don't email us anymore." Then a coworker emailed photos of the charging cars to my supervisor and I got a check-in from my manager. If you do the note thing, I'd keep it between you and the Prius owner and not go through anyone official.
Have you thought about an idle fee instead of charging for the power? Our new stations have a dashboard, and the average session is about 8 hours with roughly half of that idle. I got asked for input on pricing and said I'd rather keep the energy free and just add something like $2/hour once the car is full. That hits the people who camp without punishing everyone else.
I'm kind of the cautionary tale for that one. I used to charge at work under an informal agreement, and it ended once more EV drivers started doing the same. If you do get a plain outlet, I'd try to get the arrangement in writing and offer to cover the electricity, because a verbal okay seems to disappear as soon as a few more people join in.
This is basically what happened to me. My manager said sure to the outlet, and about a week in, after I'd charged every other day, I was asked to cut way back. It's an eGolf, so I doubt I was adding more than a few dollars a day to the bill. Did the people who offered to cover the electricity actually get to keep charging, or did it end up the same way?
Same here, I charge for free on an L2 at the campus where I work and haven't paid anything for it. Honestly if they started charging a small fee I'd still take it over gas.
The loitering fee makes sense to me, but the bigger issue where I am is getting a spot at all. Ours is going to $2/hr for 4.2 kW starting Jan 1. It was free and easy to get a spot when I got my car four years ago, but now I maybe get one about once a week, so I've stopped relying on it. Charging for it doesn't bother me much, because the free version was already mostly unusable for me.
Same here. I came in on a Monday around 1:30 with about 80 km left in my Lightning and three of the chargers were dead and the rest were occupied. I can't charge at home, so that was a bad moment. Now I don't count on the lot every day, and I'm going to try showing up later on weekdays.
Same at my work. I rely on the free charging there and I'm grateful for it, but some people leave their cars plugged in all day even though they were full by around 10AM, while others are waiting. There's also one guy who grabs a spot in the morning and doesn't plug in until after lunch. It's hard to see the logic in that.
That's the part that worries me. I can't charge at home, and before I got a job with a charger I was quick charging 2-3 times a week in my Leaf. Now it's about once a week. If work ever cut me back I'd be right back to that, which is why I keep a couple of other charging options nearby.
Ours is subsidized at $0.25/kWh with sessions capped at 4 hours. I can't charge at home and just picked up a bZ last week. For a 20-mile commute, one session more than covers it, with a few extra days to spare. It's more than your $0.10, but still way cheaper than DC fast.
Same here, I can't charge at home so the L2 at our main office is basically my fueling. I used to use DC fast with a membership and switched to the work L2, and I usually get a port during the week. I'm at about $15-$18 a week now, so even a small per kWh fee wouldn't bother me.
Same here, no home charger and I just charge at work. My commute is pretty short so it's been easy for the few months I've had the car. Freezing temps haven't caused me any trouble either, and I'm in Finland so it does get cold.
Reading all the port-hogging stories, I think I'm lucky. Ours has dozens of chargers and they're free. I just get in early on the days I need to charge and there's usually a spot. My commute is long enough that I can go all week on one plug-in, so I'm not sitting on a port the other days.
I went about six months with no home charging, just work and street charging, and it was workable. I didn't pick range around the office charger. Overnight street charging was my fallback if work wasn't an option, so I'd look at what's near you before deciding how much battery you need.
Same here, over a year now with no home charger. My Mach-E and my wife's C-40 both run off the free charger at my work. It's been fine, but I'd say it only works because I always have a plan B in mind. If you can't charge at home, find a workaround and don't count on the office one staying free and open forever.
Level 1 at work is plenty for a short commute. Mine is about 7 miles each way and a regular outlet covers it fine, and I spend basically nothing on electricity. The only real catch is that I need a spot near the outlet to be free, so that's what I'd check before you buy.
Same setup here, no home charger and I use the L2 at work, about 10 miles from me. Did around 14,000 miles last year that way and it was no problem. I do pay more per kWh than I would at home, but I still find it way less hassle than gas stations, so it's been worth it for me.
I had about a year of work charging with no home charger and it was great, so I'd guess the free part is a big reason employers keep it simple. Nobody ever asked me to pay or track anything. I can't speak to the tax side though.
Same here, no home charging, just a regular outlet at work. It's slow but over a workday it covers me. When it doesn't, I walk about 15 minutes to a school nearby that has free L2 overnight.
Same for me. I went about 1.5 years with no home charger, mostly charging at work and sometimes at a shopping center, and it was never a problem. Winter was the only difference. I charged every 2-3 days instead of about once a week. Still way better than paying for gas.
Genuinely curious how much of this depends on the commute. I barely drive my Polestar 2 and plug in less than once a week from an apartment, so it works fine for me. But I'd want better charging access before I'd use it for a daily work commute. Did it only get easy for you once work charging was in the picture?
For me it was easy from the start. Two years in my ID.4 with no home charging, and I just use the Level 1 cord that came with the car at work. It's slow, but the car sits there all day anyway. Honestly it's never been an inconvenience. Commute length matters less than whether you're parked somewhere for 8+ hours.
Same here on Level 1 at work with my Focus Electric. When I need more, I swap cars with my PHEV and use the free L2 at the university. It's a bit of juggling, but it works.
Thanks, I'll look at that. I'm in a similar spot, helping my company look at ports for two sites, one in Illinois and one in Wisconsin. Has anyone found a good place to see which rebates and tax credits businesses can actually claim? I'm not sure if state programs differ much from the federal ones.
Same boat, mostly. My company is pretty conservative so I'm expecting a flat no on chargers, and I'm trying to have a fallback ready. For anyone who ended up on a plain outlet or a reduced arrangement, did you offer to cover the electricity yourself? How did management take that?
Per hour is interesting. I'd only be plugging in for the commute and I'm thinking about a city EV mainly because work is free, so a small hourly fee wouldn't kill it for me. It would still beat gas by a lot.
Is the 12V thing the same as the ICCU issue on the EV6/Ioniq 5, or is that a separate failure? I've been reading about the ICCU one and it sounds like a small share of cars, but I can't tell if leaving it plugged in all day makes it any more likely.
To answer the per kWh question, the university where I work charges $0.10/kWh plus some taxes and fees. I'm looking at a used Bolt right now and that rate is a big part of why I'm leaning toward charging mostly at work instead of at home.
I'm in the middle of exactly that. Wiring my garage would be a big job, so I'd be leaning on the courthouse charger where I work, and I'm trying to pick between a Kona and an Ioniq 5 with the assumption that it might not always be there. I'm leaning toward the bigger battery just so I'm not stranded if it goes away.
That's useful to know. I'm moving jobs soon and will probably pitch the office on something, but I'd only be willing to put my own money toward the charger at my apartment, not at work. Is offering to cover the electricity usually enough, or does management mostly worry about it spreading once other people notice?
