The neighbour and the EV charger

[Alittlebit9]

DH has an electric car, and had a charger installed at home on Friday. It cost him £1200.

Today, neighbour (who we are fairly friendly with, in a neighbourly way) has messaged me to ask if we would mind if they used it from time to time. I think she’s being a CF and this will be a slippery slope. Plus it’s on our driveway so we would have to move our cars. Also, I know it isn’t expensive but it’s going onto our bill.

YABU - let them use the charger
YANBU - they need to get their own

That’s a blatant piss take .A firm no and nip it in the bud now

That’s extremely low. We charge ours overnight every day and we pay 9p per kwh on the overnight rate. It’s averaging about £38 a month

@haufbiskiy yes interested in this. DH claims it’ll be £2 per charge, so I imagine averaging about £40 a month.. we shall see.

The app for our car tells us exactly what we pay each month so I’ve been tracking it. It’s clearly much cheaper than diesel but it’s not nothing

Plus we have two days a week when we don’t use the car at all so we are relatively light users

Electric isn't free at all, would she ask to poo over and heat her dinner in your oven so she doesn't have to buy one? Use your hot water? It's a really odd request to me

Say it’s fine but that you’ll be round on Tuesday to charge your devices and cook your dinner seeing as you’re sharing electricity now

Definitely charge her if she’s pooing too

It’s understandable to feel that this could become a slippery slope. It could lead to a huge expense, it's your charger and your driveway, and you’re the one who would be moving cars and potentially covering the costs. So, YANBU – it's totally fair to say they should get their own charger. It’s an investment for you, and you shouldn’t feel pressured to share it.

Send her an message with links to a map of local public ones and the firm your partner used to install the one you have. Just say sorry, no but here's where to find them or this company installed ours, they were quite good.
Then don't mention it again.

I’d say no - it’s not like fast chargers at stations that only take 20mins - it takes all night on a domestic charger to fully charge a vehicle. Having someone else's car parked on your drive all night is a real imposition - and it might invalidate their insurance as it’s not parked on their own drive.

Even if this is what the neighbour meant, it would be an unwanted chore for the OP to have to keep track of the usage and bill the neighbour - who may or may not pay back promptly.

Lock it or your electric bill will be rediculous thanks to her

Feels low. My sister stayed at my house for 2 nights, told me she was ill while here so didn't go anywhere, but managed to rack up £14 of electric costs. It might not all have been the car but I know she did charge it and my daily electricity costs are usually about £1.50.

Tell her no. Yanbu to say no. She can charge elsewhere.

If she pays upfront for the electric then fine but otherwise no!

😂

Just send her that.

No way!
This reminded me of a friends daughter ( adult mum of two) who called my DH to ask if her son could use our DCs Xbox account so she didn’t have to get one.

My brother is getting one and is considering letting a neighbour use it too. I think it’s fraught with problems and inconveniences.

He’s talked about solicitors letters outlining the agreement etc.

Not sure they measure how much they’ve put into the car for starters. Ours doesn’t. For some electricity prices vary across the day.

But saying no may be a problem - if you want a half decent relationship afterwards.

So you could say something like….. “it’s tied to my phone and only me and my partners phone can operate it, it can only talk to two phones not 3.” (Many, if not all, new ones are blue tooth operated) Or “our power only comes on at night, 12am until 5am, we just plug it in ready”

Hi Claire, we used Octopus to fit the charger, and it works out at £30 a month in energy costs. Would highly recommend. Don’t think using a neighbour’s charger will be sustainable, you’ll deffo need your own. Was super easy to install and only cost £1,200.

I’m with Octopus on their intelligent octopus tariff. As well as 7.5p/kWh for six hours overnight, whenever they charge the car outside that time I get that rate for all electric usage.

By being pretty savvy with it, if I’ve got a busy day where I’m going to have the oven for for baking or a roast as well as running the other appliances and heating the hot tub, it’s actually meant the overall bill hasn’t changed!

My DH has just given me his opinions on electric cars and to put it politely he doesn’t see them as the future. DH is however a petrol head who bought a Golf R. My opinion now. As far as your neighbour is concerned they are definitely a cheeky besom and I would be telling them no and who installed yours as if it’s that important to them they need to pay for the solution themselves.

Just message back:

“Hi Cheeky Fucker, here are the details of who installed ours. Really recommend them”.

Complete CF.
Then you will have other "stuck" neighbours asking and it will be nothing but hassle.
Do not start on this road.
You will bitterly regret it.

It really pissed off my friend when her husband said sure and cars had to be moved.
Her neighbour actually got snippy waiting for her car to be moved one day, when my friend was busy WFH, and my friend snapped and said no more.

She was like an antichrist with her husband for putting her in that position.

The EV has saved her an absolute forture over the past few years.
She got a great deal several years ago with a trade in plus the charger fitted with a great rate.
What with her solar panels, free electricity, endless hot water, she is unbearable to listen to🤣

For heavens sake, never mind all these convoluted reasons. OP just needs to say no.