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.

My relative had this same issue with cf guests. Insurance also excluded it

I'm also an EV owner, and regular trickle charging is considered fine by the manufacturer of my car. Plugging it in every night is the whole point! You don't have to think about it!

It depends on the battery chemistry. Iron batteries ideally should be charged to full every week or so. Mind you, they are so indestructible, it barely matters.

It's such an overstated risk, though, as it's so ridiculously rare. It's like saying "don't go to the beach, because that's where tsunamis happen".

“Thatcham Research, the UK motor insurers’ research centre, conducted research from 2018 to 2020. They found that 0.001% of plug-in hybrids and 0.003% of range extended electric vehicles were the subject of fire claims. That was lower than the 0.007% of petrol vehicles and 0.011% of diesel vehicles.”

https://www.portskillsandsafety.co.uk/about/news/statistics-on-vehicle-fires-comparing-electric-and-non-electric-vehicles/#:~:text=Non%2Delectric%20vehicles%2C%20however%2C,those%20responding%20to%20EV%20fires.

The fires are more intense I grant you but they are also significantly less likely to happen. That's 1 in 100,000 plug in hybrid cars it happens to. Very rare.

Tell her insurance company.

The lead to the car? To charge a car you need specific car cables that have all sorts of safety things in them.

Scooter fires can be a problem, because they have cheap batteries. Car batteries have lots of safeguards.

Because some insurance companies don't gouge or use any excuse to avoid paying out.

This is rubbish. OP has said there is a super fast charger near by. It’s cheeky to just plug your car in. I have an electric car and wouldn’t dream of doing this and so long as there were public charging facilities in the vicinity it wouldn’t put me off booking.

you should only charge an electric car if your fuse box can manage it. It might cause an overload using the 3 pin option. I wouldn’t plug ours in randomly because you don’t know if the electrics are sufficient.

The insurance reason is enough. YANBU. Much as I think your annex should be such that it can be rented out as a year round home.

EV owner here. Not unreasonable not to have a charging point at your annex given the proximity of fast charging. Having a charge point installed (safest option and should be okay with your insurance) is expensive a d would take you a long time to recover the outlay. Just make it crystal clear in your terms and in the house information that EV charging is not allowed, meters are checked, any misuse will result in a £100 charge. (Similar to warnings about dogs not allowed/breakages etc etc). I would be very tempted if anyone is seen to be charging just to turn the power off!! Good luck.

That’s vehicle fires.

The insurance issue here is a fire within the house caused by wiring / plugs etc not suitable for EV charging.

My workplace burned down due to a visitor plugging in a dodgy cheap generic phone charger.

We have an electric car and have asked Airbnbs before if we can charge there and pay for the electricity (usually about £5-£30 over the course of a holiday). They've always said yes.

BUT, one of the places didn't have the right electrics. We plugged in (3 pin) and after a short time the socket and cable were scaldingly hot. Definitely a fire hazard. We never charged there again and it put us off using unknown sockets.

I wouldn't dream of charging without permission.

We do allow people to charge at our Airbnb if they pay for the electricity. Certainly not going to offer it for free.

If it is abundantly clear in the paperwork that EV charging is not permitted, then you are not being unreasonable (though you are totally hysterical about the actual fire risk of EVs).

True.

This is a tricky one though. These are people paying for a service - telling them they will be immediately evicted for something some (not all) people think is normal is likely to put a lot off (even if they don’t have an EV).

I have a car charger at home and there’s an option to put an access code on it. The OP could get a similar one installed. If paying guests want to charge they can ask for the access code and get it added to their bill.

I think this is a good idea. A clothes dryer pulls as much electricity as an EV - air con can pull a lot more! As an EV driver, there is no way I'd rent a place that said that about the smart meter, because I'd be too scared to use any appliances.

Also, I know there's a charger just down the road, but in practice, that's a real pain. A big advantage of having an EV is that I don't have to go out and "fuel up".

That is true, but faulty wiring is faulty wiring, and should be fixed regardless.

Sometimes faulty wiring only makes its presence known when it is subjected to a very high load for a prolonged period. Like when charging an electric car, for example.

I have a problem with electric car drivers who charge their cars on other people's coin without even asking.

We own an EV and wouldn’t dream of doing this. A charge is around £8 of electricity, it’s not like using a hairdryer!

I would suggest a firm notice in the flat itself, which also features the postcode of the local fast charger to make it easy for people to do the right thing.

Honest EV owners will be very grateful for that. Does your electrical provider have an app allowing you to see electrical use? If so you can check to see if any EV owning guests are creating a spike.

If it was a car charger you'd know exactly that it was, it doesn't look like a wire?

Tesla say to charge regularly on long journeys to keep it topped up.

I'd be very happy that there was a supercharger nearby. I wouldn't run a wire through the window of a rental property.