AIBU charging electric car without asking at Air BnB

[Needanadultgapyear]

We have an annex, it must remain part of the main property for planning purposes and therefore can not be on long term let as a separate home. We offer it on Air BnB it is near a major tourist attraction and a main road connect several UK ports to central and North England.
Our insurance excludes specifically charging electric cars, we put this in our listing and we are 5 minutes from a super fast charging point. If people ask I politely explain that we do not allow electric car charging and point them to the super fast charger.
We had guests a few days ago and DH noticed a wire from a bedroom to the car. So he went round and asked if they were charging. They claimed they were only charging mobile phones, but the wire did disappear.

I feel like this is CFery, but in RL people have said oh well it’s only a few pence.

Your insurance precludes charging electric cars? Bizarre!

In terms of electricity used, unless you put limits on all electrical devices used by guests I don't really think it's a big deal.

Do you have some kind of objection to electric cars? I think they are increasingly going to become the norm so I'd be looking at alternative insurance providers when you come to renew.

You need to make it clearer in your listing and on the welcome information sheet that EV charging is against the terms of your insurance and that guests must not charge EVs.

If I didn’t know, I probably wouldn’t think to ask a host if I could charge my car, just as I wouldn’t think to ask if I could plug in my hairdryer. But your guests were trying to hide that they were doing it.

It's not bizarre and that's completely normal. It's a fire hazard so invalidates the insurance. It would need to be an actual electric car charge point to be safe.

OP - it's absolutely fine to say this. We've had an electric for years and used to seeing it written as a statement. People with electric cars that want a charger shd be filtering by car charger in any case. YABU!

If it’s clear on your listing and explained using a valid justification (as yours seems to be), it’s unreasonable for them to charge the car, in my opinion.

Talk to your insurance company or get a broker to and get a surcharge for electric car charging. Put in a proper charging point (insurance co may prefer this. Talk to them first.). Insurance companies will cover almost everything if you pay them enough.

Then increase your prices to cover it. It’s the way of the world. Policing the no charging is going to drive you insane. (no, I don’t have an electric car. But I can imagine). You could specify named guests only, perhaps. No randoms.

Fire risk

I have an electric car and wouldn’t dream of charging it up at someone else’s expense. It’s not just pence it will be pounds. Maybe not a huge but I wouldn’t expect you to pay.

Perhaps sort out the insurance and put something in place where people pay you properly for the power they use.

DH is in the motor industry and feels that they are an environmental disaster waiting to happen with battery disposal. His opinion is that biofuels are the long term future.
For Air BnB’s precluding charging of electric cars from 3 pin plugs is very normal as a host you can not confirm that the the 3 pin plug and wire is not damaged in any way. I am literal 5 mins if that from a super fast charging point at a fuel station with a coffee shop. Most of our lovely guests go have a coffee and charge their car.

Given the increase in electric car use if you want your letting to succeed in the long term then you should fit a proper charging point and tell your guests that there is a small supplement for using it.
I'm confused by the insurance issue - does that mean that if you get an electric car you can't charge it at home ?

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.

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?

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?)

We do treat it as a business and our very clear in our terms and conditions. Not all businesses offer all services we choose not to offer electric car charging and none of the Air BnBs that we have visited do either. We do provide information at where the service can be easily obtained close by.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Bizarre comment.

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.

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.

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

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)

Yes it bans the charging of electric vehicles by guests. I would define a scooter as a vehicle for this purpose.