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

Absolutely not.

Most domestic chargers will charge at 7kw. So every hour you charge you are spending 52.5p so if you charge for six hours you are spending £3.15.

My car so shows that in February we charged 486kwh and it cost £33.10. We did 419 miles

i agree though you can get cheaper electricity fr other things. I charge my battery and heat our water on the overnight rate so can effectively offset that saving.

Can you not switch it off? Does that mean anyone can roll up to yours and get a fill?

Surely by being able to use the cheaper electricity tariff (incidentally never available to non-EV users) you have agreed to only charge your own car and not arbitrage by gifting or selling on the lower tariff to in this case your neighbour.

easy to tell them you actually can’t allow them to use your lower price electricity & they would need to get their own as you could be in breach of your contract: 😊

YANBU in the least. Stand firm and don’t let her to use it at all.

Give her the details of your installer and tell her when she goes ahead, you won’t mind the noise as it doesn’t take long, is no real inconvenience and is very much worth it to have your own charger you can use anytime. In the meantime time she can carry on using the public charger.

I think I would do as you said and send a link to who installed it for you and leave it there.
We had friends use ours when they first got their electric car and were waiting for the charger to be installed. They paid us to use it but it soon became annoying at how frequently they wanted to use it and would get a bit moany when we would say no and explain that we needed it.

We have the charger locked when not using it.

God, no! We have 2 double speed Tesla chargers because DH has a Tesla and I have a plug in hybrid and absolutely no to any of my neighbors thinking it's a free for all charge station. Friends/family/guests? They're all theirs.

@Wigglytails we have solar panels and an EV charger but have had economy 7 electricity for at least 30 years!

Surely Earl Grey is more fitting?

The bloody nerve of her!!

yes, put either a laughing or shocked face emoji on her message then ignore it.

Why can’t anyone on MN say no straight off?! She’s a CF. I would secure your driveway if u can. Keep her from just popping over when it suits. So what if she’s ballsy say no. Electric isnt that cheap!!

Has it got a lock on it?

You just know if it stopped working the neighbour would have nooooo idea what could possibly have happened except that it definitely wasn’t their fault

This but without the sorry

Absolutely not. The utter nerve of the woman.

Agree, best not use the word 'sorry' if you can help it OP, it would be like opening the door a crack and she'll have her foot in it very quickly.

I see her tactics as a form of gaslighting, she speaks as if it's perfectly reasonable to make this request and that makes you feel as if she could be right. The phrase 'time to time' would piss me off, as if she can just use your stuff randomly as & when she fancies!!
I think I would say 'That won't be possible. If you have need of a charger I can recomend this company'.

Dear Neighbour.

Let's discuss the fees/tariff I will charge you for the privilege.

Toots,

Neighbour X

Watch her scurry away like the CF she is

Can you figure out what the cost would be? I'd say sure it will cost x

"No." is a complete sentence.

Lol. Yes of course! We are getting a hot tub, it's only a mains plug. We can swap 😁

Is there no way to 'lock' it?

Definitely not. Omg some people 🫣

Gosh don't even look at charging. Nope nada nothing. Will just annoy you every time.