AIBU charging electric car without asking at Air BnB

I would tell guests (in the ‘no EV charging’ clause) that you check the smart meter and any unauthorised charging will result in their immediate eviction.

Why should you incur a £1k installation charge because of entitled CF guests?

Hahaha that charging a car battery is similar to using a hair dryer.

OP: the truth is that AirBnB / holiday cottage guests routinely break all rules. Dogs allowed but not in the sofa or upstairs? I stayed in a cottage with those rules with my (lovely and otherwise reasonable) friend and within minutes the dog was on the beautiful velvet sofas and slept on the bed. I stayed in a cottage every year with those rules and I can tell dogs have been on the sofa. And know they go upstairs.

My Mum used to rent her house out: no household linens / soft furnishings to go outside. I actually saw her guests in the beach with her lovely woollen sofa throws.

So electricity theft / fire risk are doubtless standard these days.

I have an EV and I think your guests are cheeky. I do not agree it is only a little thing either. Depending on the car size, three charges in the daytime over a week (guests will be travelling so this is possible), could easily rack up 90 quid, which could alter the profitability of the let. Possible to set up a separate charging point, but at the moment this would cost 1k or so, so a bit difficult to get this cash back.

How is using a charger supplied with my car anymore of a fire hazard than me plugging in my mobile phone charger, my hairdryer or my blender?? If you say you aren’t sure if it is safe then any of those things might have been tampered with? Doesn’t make sense.

I think it’s rude to use your electricity to charge their car so on that front I think they were out of order, but I’m not convinced your reasoning about it not being safe is correct.

I can see installing a charger might make business sense if facilities were limited locally, but that clearly isn’t the case. I’d avoid the hassle of installation and working out how to ensure guests pay for their consumption given most will be perfectly happy with a fast charger five minutes away and not selfish enough to break clear rules.

I think you’ve misinterpreted the point you highlighted. Trickle charging relates to using a straight 3-pin plug without the ICCB (big rectangle box attached to the cable). Most EV is sold with one of those and they are (as the instructions you’ve sent suggest) completely fine.

My husband is also anti- electric as knows a lot about it through his profession. He believes hydrogen is the way to go but the infrastructure is very poor. We would also no allow a charging point!

I have an EV and wouldn’t charge it at an Air BnB unless there was a charging point and the option was given.

Two have caught fire locally to us in the last month - the damaged they cause is immense and the fire brigade almost have to stand and watch them burn whilst they melt concrete

Two ICE cars have caught fire locally to me in this past week, one on a petrol station forecourt and one outside the local chemist. You can imagine the damage that’s done.

This thread is beginning to sound like a scaremongering attempt at EVs tbh

I'm an EV owner. Trickle charge (3 pin plug) should only be used in an emergency to give you enough charge to get to the nearest charging point.

It's also insanely slow and really really not worth bothering as a regular way to charge.

This is from my manufacturer (kia)

The e-scooters that catch fire are mostly ones that have been modified and tampered with, so I see how they would catch fire.

@Needanadultgapyear they might not have been genuine chargers / replacements bought off Amazon. I think it’s fair to ask guests not to charge if it invalidates your insurance though. + the energy bill on top - you can’t take a hit on that every time and you’ll have to raise your prices in the end. I would just write it in capitals at the top of the listing - “EV CHARGING NOT PERMITTED. We understand some of our guests travel using electric vehicles, however our host insurance does not cover EV charging. We politely ask guests to use very handy rapid chargers located in X, alternatively Y which is just a 10 min drive away. Sadly, X fee will be applied to guests that don’t comply’ (whack it in chatGPT to make it friendlier)

I have read far more news stories about e-scooters catching fire while charging than electric cars. Does the insurance ban them as well.

Is it a fire hazard? We were given a regular 3-pin charger when we bought the car to charge in our home. I can’t see how an original, purpose made and safety tested charger could be a fire hazard. Open to being told otherwise.

Bizarre comment.

I assume you have a fire risk assessment? On ours it says no charging through windows, also no charging of bike batteries. It's also in our house rules not to charge EV.

On a number of forums I've seen people quote various amounts for a charge- up to £20. In any case, we are up to the limit on our electricity supply so we don't allow it.

Not unreasonable OP especially with a supercharger so close too.

We have electric cars and made it round Skye and surrounding areas without using our hosts electricity and would never have dreamt of doing so.

It "can" be but to date isn't being in any significant quantity.

My main concern with lithium is the reliance on China though.

Lithium batteries can be recycled and the lithium used as new so your information there is outdated - it was a problem early on

further refusing EVs because of lithium mining issues is kind of missing the existential threat of climate change

hey my children died of starvation but that’s ok because they didn’t run out of lithium

and there is lithium in your phone battery too if you want to a moral high ground , and cobalt and a lot of other problematic minerals . That’s why you should always return an old phone for recycling btw Apple and Samsung are getting good at mineral reuse and recovery

Have you not seen the news stories about electric cars exploding? Rare, yes, but if you have a different car being charged adjacent to your house every week, the risk goes up.

I think it’s unreasonable electricity consumption. Theft actually, as it’s explicitly excluded from the contract.

If you want the hassle of policing it, that is up to you, it’s your property, but if guests sometimes ignore your clear instructions, you still risk invalidating your insurance.

I agree re the batteries and environmental concerns. I also think it's bizarre that we're setting up to become so reliable on Lithium when China controls almost all the world's resource (and it's also not renewable, so how is it economical friendly?)

I would have thought it makes sense long term to cover insurance and allow charging at your property, including adding a premium.

However, I’ll never understand why someone would think it’s fine to charge their vehicle at the owner’s expense. Surely, they wouldn’t have expected the owner to pay for their petrol?

This is a pragmatic way forward if you want to avoid those situations. Airbnb letting is a business so treat it as such. See it as a way of managing the fire risk at your property.