Visitors Electric cars charging at your house?

[Reallyreallyborednow]

so random thought yesterday after receiving my electric bill.

couple of close friends/family have electric vehicles. These are fairly short range, so need charging after an hour or so.

when they come to visit it’s about 40 mins, so they drive, plug into my electric to recharge while visiting/we go out in my car, so they can get home.

never really thought about it before, but one is coming soon as we’re driving a couple of hours to visit an attraction that’s nearer me. So no doubt they’ll drive the electric car and want to charge it, and I’ll have to drive to the attraction as mine is petrol and they don’t have the range.

are electric car drivers bu to ask if they can charge at someone else’s house? It seems U to say no, but I wonder how much it’s costing me to charge their car for a day.

although I add these people do have a petrol car, they just choose the EV, no doubt because it’s cheaper. No malice or bad intention, I think they see the request for a plug to charge their car as no different to charging phone etc, and it’s not as if there’s anywhere else.

Pint of beer logic: if it doesn't cost more than a pint you'd be willing to buy them in a pub (about £4 locally), then don't ask unless your in financial dire need.
Or ask them to bring a bottle of refreshments or two (alcoholic or non alcoholic) for everyone to share. No one's out of pocket then.

Given they have a petrol car but choose not to use it "because it's cheaper" to use the EV then it's cheeky in the extreme.

It's only cheaper because you are subsidising their travel - not only through charging the car, but also the petrol you pay for any further travel whilst they are with you.

Personally it would piss me off. Not the money but the entitlement.

If they have chosen to own a short range EV then it's up to them to mange the range and use public charging or dare I say it their petrol car for longer distances.

At the very least they should be offering some contribution to your costs (charging and petrol).

It's not dissimilar to people who don't own a car at all but expect lifts from others without offering to pay anything towards travel costs (and frequently are stingy about it thinking it's "only" the petrol costs and nothing about the cost of running a car ).

But the OP's always buying them pints and they're never buying her one from the sound of it. That's CFery in my book. Pint-buying has to be reciprocal.

I agree the cheekiest bit is them choosing not to use their petrol car and then expecting you to drive everyone to the attraction. Definitely not ok. Ok car sharing makes sense if you all fit in one, but surely they should take it in turns to be the ones driving.

Do they really run out of charge after just a couple of hours? That's bonkers!

Who cares who they are? Would you pay for their petrol to visit you, then drive them around everywhere using your own fuel? If you would, more fool you but I don't do that. I pay for my fuel to visit my family, they pay for theirs. We also wouldn't be daft and get an ev that doesn't do the mileage we need. They cheaped out on an ev, got to face the consequences now, means waiting around to charge it more often.

Lol we've just had a request this morning from ILs to top up charge their car at ours as we are 3/4 point on their weekend away - they want to charge on the way and way back
I said yes as long as they bring us baked goods from Betty's (they live down the road from one) to be honest knowing the price at Betty's we are getting the better deal!

I was wondering how this would hit holiday rentals. That’s a decent thing to do, although I’m not convinced your average CF would.

We have a dual meter added for our holiday rental. So we can see usage per use on a separate system

Using an extension cable is a shorting/fire risk. If they're going to plug in to a 3-pin socket they need to get a 3-pin lead that's long enough to reach the socket directly.

It’s quite common and nothing to do with the state or the electrics. If you plug an EV into a 3 pin plug for 10+ hours the plug and socket get very hot. There’s a reason they don’t recommend it as a long term solution…

That makes sense.

If they wanted to siphon some petrol from your tank would you let them?

I think they're being pretty cheeky. I do 50 miles and back easily on a full charge so they're obviously not charging it fully before they visit. Are they not offering to pay?

I very briefly had a similar small range EV (got rid as Icouldn't go anywhere), it cast £2-3 to charge which isn't excessive but adds up if it's happening often. Do they offer petrol money for the driving you do to the attraction? If so maybe add a bit to that. If not they're doublely cheeky for making you default driver.

That’s an extremely nasty post but if you get off with being nasty to strangers online who are offering a suggestion to the OPs question then you ‘fill your boots’

Just received our payment for 2.5hrs charge, seems very fair (& yummy)

If it only has 40 miles of range, the sun of bugger all.

mine does 4 miles per kWh. Say on average they need 20 miles of charge. 5 kWh.

A couple of quid max.

The car only has 40 miles of range. Unless it is the most inefficient EV in history, and is fully depleted every time they get there, and fully charged every time they leave, this is a massive overestimate.

You do need to get a decent cable, that’s true, but the most important thing is to fully unravel an extension lead (even if properly rated). That’s the real fire risk.

Tell them you'll meet them at the attraction. Problem solved.

My work charges everyone a flat fee of a fiver to charge their car. Proper outdoor charging sockets for company vehicles. You get the odd visitor or guest who asks to use them.

The point is they shouldn't get very hot - if they are getting to melting point you have arcing in the socket and it would be a problem anyway with anything like that with a constant draw. (electric heater for example)