At one time, hotels didn't offer free (or any) Wi-Fi, and now it's basically standard even at the bargain basement cheapo motels. As the market demands a feature, it will eventually come. I think time will ultimately solve the EV charging issue in many apartment complexes, multi-family homes, townhouses, and other types of residential areas as that feature gets more demanded. Property management companies are particularly cheap and unintelligent bastards, so the change might be slow, but it will eventually get there if the demand exists. For local driving needs, slow overnight charging should be a workable solution for many.
What I don't think is easily workable with mass-adoption of EVs is the following.
> Long Distance travel. EVs sort of almost work for a handful of people doing long drives even when it's slower than just filling a gas tank. But when the number of cars on the road exceeds charger throughput, the delays are going to compound. The proverbial family roadtrip is going to suck a lot when you show up at a charging place and there's a line of EVs waiting for the charger and your kids are crying.
> Dense cities. It's hard to see how EVs can work in denser cities where they theoretically could do the most good. In places like NYC, many buildings don't offer any parking spaces whatsoever to install chargers at. Instead, people park on the street wherever they can find a semi-legal parking spot. Are cities going to dig up all roads/sidewalks and put EV chargers literally everywhere? That's the the only thing that would make EVs theoretically feasible for an average family in a city.
>At one time, hotels didn't offer free (or any) Wi-Fi, and now it's basically standard even at the bargain basement cheapo motels.
Somewhat off-topic but WiFi tended to be free initially at chains most frequented by individual travelers and families, rather than business travelers--who could just expense a WiFi change. Free WiFi then tended to become a carrot for signing up with a hotel chain's loyalty plan before becoming mostly free in general.
One other thing to consider is installation costs. The office complex at which I work spent roughly $45,000 in order to install two electric charging stations. There was a lot of debate about justifying the expense at a management level. That expense was only for a mere two stations, and that was also before the supply chain issues and inflation we're seeing now. I can easily see how most apartment complexes would avoid installing charging stations - unless they were forced to install them because of a city ordinance. Maybe it wouldn't be as much of an expense for new construction where the charging stations were planned from the beginning, but that is just speculation on my part.
Here in suburbia in the Netherlands, there's chargers on basically every street in area's without driveways, and in areas where people mostly have a driveway, you can find most will have a private charger.
I can't charge in the carpark with my house, but never have an issue finding (many) free charging spots on the streets around my house. And besides the level 2 chargers (11/22kw) here, there's also enough fast-chargers around, though these tend to be expensive.
Yeah, I've done a couple road trips and I think I've gotten lucky so far. Usually, the charging stations are at only about half capacity, but one time I got to a 12-stall Supercharging station and there was only 1 stall left, and within one minute of me plugging in, two more Teslas arrived and had to park and wait.
I've heard that in some areas in California, they've been known to have lines a dozen cars deep, but that was a couple years ago. There's constantly new construction of Supercharging stations, and Tesla just released a CCS adapter, so things are getting better.
Still though, it's a race between EV manufacturing and charging installation.
What really needs to happen is 250 kW EV chargers at highway rest stops. It sucks when I plug in to charge, and the local businesses are either closed or their bathrooms are closed.
You'll come across them randomly in places you'd never expect. The problem still exists though.
1) Unless your trip is relatively short, you'll probably need to charge between your home and the hotel.
2) What happens when there's 4 EV parking spots at your hotel and 5 (or more) guests show up at a hotel with EVs? Are people willing to spend their vacations stressing out over getting one of those spots?
Personally, I think EVs only work as a toy for the rich and mass-adoption currently involves too many problems for average people that cannot be resolved anytime soon.
There's definitely some chargers, but the issue ends up being that you need a lot more chargers per mile than you do gas stations in rural areas, assuming you don't have a robust planning/reservation system.
You can easily fill a gas tank with 100+ miles worth of gas in just a couple minutes. Recharging an EV locks up a spot at a charger for a fair bit longer, even if you don't charge to full.
Driving through remote West Virginia earlier this year, I stopped at a couple 2-pump gas stations that were doing fine business because they were the only station on the highway for 50 miles or such. You probably couldn't get away with just having 2 EV stations.
The difference is that wifi has zero marginal cost and a modest fixed cost (ie. $100 for a decent router), whereas EV charging has a high marginal cost (30 cents) and high fixed cost (few thousand dollars for a charger).
> Dense cities. It's hard to see how EVs can work in denser cities where they theoretically could do the most good.
No!!! Keep your cars out of my city! Personal EVs are not a solution for cities, they just perpetuate detrimental car centric urban policies. Spend that money on continuous sidewalks, narrower streets and better public transit.
When I first bought a Tesla in Tennessee we had the same problem with our condo's HOA board. We were lucky to live in a newer building but it still only had a single third party charger that would milk you dry if you used it (still not sure why it was so expensive). We just ended up charging at a supercharger when we got groceries. Would've been a nightmare if we had a Leaf or another electric car without that option. Maybe this isn't fully appreciated by the average Silicon Valley person since charging is so ubiquitous there (and in California more generally) - after we moved to Mountain View basically every apartment we looked at had plenty of charging options, if your workplace doesn't provide one for you already.
>We were lucky to live in a newer building but it still only had a single third party charger that would milk you dry if you used it (still not sure why it was so expensive).
Totally unrelated, but does anyone know if stealing power to charge your car has the same repercussions as stealing gas?
I dont know what the policies are now but I was an inspector for the electric company (PSE&G in north Jersey) for a few summers in college. Mostly, someone would call in about their bill being high and we'd go check and find someone had run power from their meter so they were paying for a neighbor. We'd report it, someone would come out and usually just remove the offender. I don't even think they even tried to find out where it went. As far as I know the matter was dropped at that point. No charges filed, etc. even though it was theft of some kind since it was intentional.
Maybe today with EVs there is a different approach. I don't know. Some of the things people would do not to play their electric bill were literally shocking :-)
Depending on location, apartment hunting with any car can be difficult, and likewise house hunting without a car can be difficult.
In general the infrastructure needs of apartment dwellers and house dwellers tend to differ a lot.
Personally, if we're talking about upgrading legacy infrastructure in rental units, I would really like if including in-unit washer dryer combos would be the norm in my city (Boston). Although I own now so it doesn't bother me anymore, but it was quite frustrating paying $3500/mo rent and still hoarding quarters for the weekly laundry haul to the common-area basement of the building.
Depends on location and size of the unit. This was for a 3 bedroom 1000~sqft unit in a pretty great location (near the Charles river in Cambridge, 12 minute walk to the subway, quiet + beautiful + safe neighborhood).
Generally speaking, urban rental units with in-unit washer+dryer in boston command a $300-500 rental premium from what I've seen (makes sense because retrofitting an old triple-decker[0] with in-unit laundry isn't trivial)
My favorite was moving into an apartment that had no fridge which is what happened to me when I relocated to LA. Not once in my previous apartment renting experience until then did an apartment not come with a fridge.
There’s a lot more to be considered here - while charging in your own parking garage is great, has anyone thought of what happens when your tesla overheats and catches fire in the basement? Are the fire suppression systems rated for electric car fires?
Since this article was published, Washington State finally has a right-to-charge law, too, with the passing of HB 1793 - 2021-22, hopefully making things mildly better in Seattle.
While the article claims there is no money to be made in EV charging to incentivize and align with building owners, there's plenty of similar "amenities" that easily can help differentiate a "luxury" apartment building, hopefully they become more common.
There’s tons of money for apartment complexes in having chargers. For one EVs are definitely more expensive right now (outside of the older stalwarts like used Leafs). For two, my place charges an absolute arm and leg to charge and they have Solar on-site. $3 for the first two hours, $2 per hour for parking after the first eight, etc.
Buying a Tesla has caused us to bump up our timeline for purchasing a house. We are very lucky to have two charging stations at our apartment complex, but a few things make it a less than perfect scenario.
1) They charge a 40% markup on electricity. This is fair, given the upfront costs of installation and ongoing maintenance costs, but still a downside.
2) Since installing it, the number of EVs living here have tripled or quadrupled. A great thing, but also ties up the charger more frequently.
3) Their breaker apparently can't support 2 Teslas charging at once. This doesn't seem to be a problem with two non-Telsa EVs, or one Tesla and one non-Tesla, but if two Teslas plug in at the same time the breaker blows and both chargers are out of commission for 24-72 hours until maintenance gets around to fixing it.
All of that is still better than no charger of course, but we have other complaints with this complex and want to move when our lease is up. Looking for apartment complexes with chargers severely limits options and makes buying a house make a lot more sense.
> 3) Their breaker apparently can't support 2 Teslas charging at once. This doesn't seem to be a problem with two non-Telsa EVs, or one Tesla and one non-Tesla, but if two Teslas plug in at the same time the breaker blows and both chargers are out of commission for 24-72 hours until maintenance gets around to fixing it.
The Tesla owners can fix this themselves by changing the charging speed manually in the car or the app.
> 3) Their breaker apparently can't support 2 Teslas charging at once. This doesn't seem to be a problem with two non-Telsa EVs, or one Tesla and one non-Tesla, but if two Teslas plug in at the same time the breaker blows and both chargers are out of commission for 24-72 hours until maintenance gets around to fixing it.
The real problem is lack of choice in where you live. If it wasn't the charger, then the folks in the article might have had another problem that their inflexible landlord would not resolve. If you have a choice, then things are a lot easier.
I rented a townhouse in the fall of 2019. As I was negotiating rent, move in dates, etc, I got the landlord to agree to have his electrician install a NEMA 14-50 outlet in the garage at my expense. It was all quite painless. If he would have said "no", I'd have rented a different townhouse. I made it clear that was a deal breaker.
When I bought my current place, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it had a NEMA 14-50 already installed in the garage, so I didn't have to do anything to secure charging for my car.
This is what is kind of keeping me back from going electric. My current condo building (in Toronto) does have chargers on the first parking level, but each time I drive past them, they are taken. Dealing with that sounds annoying.
Across the pond, in Belgium, there is now a push for companies to offer electric cars as part of the compensation package, some friends have placed their first EV "order". Because of this, companies are installing chargers around the office. I'd instantly opt-in for that. (Although in Belgium I think it's mandatory now, so wouldn't even have a choice. But someone still living/working there can correct me on that).
I wouldn't want to rely on charging at work. That would significantly reduce my workplace options. And what happens if EV adoption at your employer grows and there ends up being contention for chargers there?
I do wonder if the chargers at your condo punish at all for being plugged in even once fully charged. Some people might not care about the location of those charging spots, so they just park there and leave it there all the time.
Tesla learned many years ago that people just leaving their car at the supercharger while they spend a couple hours at the mall watching a movie or whatever was going to become a massive problem, so they charge idling fees if you're fully charged and the charging station is at more than 50% capacity.
I have a hunch that this is what is going to slow EV adoption. I could be wrong, but I don't see this changing since the incentives aren't directly linked. Apartments can easily find other residents. Condo associations have to subsidize a few residents.
I can't fathom having an EV currently. Charging at home is a must.
In Norway, they had what looked like old fashioned parking meters outside apartment buildings. What it was a combination parking meter and electric charging meter... So you could park overnight and charge on the street... And get charged for parking at the same time!
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What I don't think is easily workable with mass-adoption of EVs is the following.
> Long Distance travel. EVs sort of almost work for a handful of people doing long drives even when it's slower than just filling a gas tank. But when the number of cars on the road exceeds charger throughput, the delays are going to compound. The proverbial family roadtrip is going to suck a lot when you show up at a charging place and there's a line of EVs waiting for the charger and your kids are crying.
> Dense cities. It's hard to see how EVs can work in denser cities where they theoretically could do the most good. In places like NYC, many buildings don't offer any parking spaces whatsoever to install chargers at. Instead, people park on the street wherever they can find a semi-legal parking spot. Are cities going to dig up all roads/sidewalks and put EV chargers literally everywhere? That's the the only thing that would make EVs theoretically feasible for an average family in a city.
Somewhat off-topic but WiFi tended to be free initially at chains most frequented by individual travelers and families, rather than business travelers--who could just expense a WiFi change. Free WiFi then tended to become a carrot for signing up with a hotel chain's loyalty plan before becoming mostly free in general.
I can't charge in the carpark with my house, but never have an issue finding (many) free charging spots on the streets around my house. And besides the level 2 chargers (11/22kw) here, there's also enough fast-chargers around, though these tend to be expensive.
Yeah, I've done a couple road trips and I think I've gotten lucky so far. Usually, the charging stations are at only about half capacity, but one time I got to a 12-stall Supercharging station and there was only 1 stall left, and within one minute of me plugging in, two more Teslas arrived and had to park and wait.
I've heard that in some areas in California, they've been known to have lines a dozen cars deep, but that was a couple years ago. There's constantly new construction of Supercharging stations, and Tesla just released a CCS adapter, so things are getting better.
Still though, it's a race between EV manufacturing and charging installation.
What really needs to happen is 250 kW EV chargers at highway rest stops. It sucks when I plug in to charge, and the local businesses are either closed or their bathrooms are closed.
1) Unless your trip is relatively short, you'll probably need to charge between your home and the hotel.
2) What happens when there's 4 EV parking spots at your hotel and 5 (or more) guests show up at a hotel with EVs? Are people willing to spend their vacations stressing out over getting one of those spots?
Personally, I think EVs only work as a toy for the rich and mass-adoption currently involves too many problems for average people that cannot be resolved anytime soon.
You can easily fill a gas tank with 100+ miles worth of gas in just a couple minutes. Recharging an EV locks up a spot at a charger for a fair bit longer, even if you don't charge to full.
Driving through remote West Virginia earlier this year, I stopped at a couple 2-pump gas stations that were doing fine business because they were the only station on the highway for 50 miles or such. You probably couldn't get away with just having 2 EV stations.
No!!! Keep your cars out of my city! Personal EVs are not a solution for cities, they just perpetuate detrimental car centric urban policies. Spend that money on continuous sidewalks, narrower streets and better public transit.
Ideally we'd have really narrow streets, so much less parking, and many more amenities for pedestrians.
Realistically, replacing a good chunk of the existing gas-fueled cars with electric cars would be a HUGE net win.
Seems a little entitled to me.
Totally unrelated, but does anyone know if stealing power to charge your car has the same repercussions as stealing gas?
Maybe today with EVs there is a different approach. I don't know. Some of the things people would do not to play their electric bill were literally shocking :-)
In general the infrastructure needs of apartment dwellers and house dwellers tend to differ a lot.
Personally, if we're talking about upgrading legacy infrastructure in rental units, I would really like if including in-unit washer dryer combos would be the norm in my city (Boston). Although I own now so it doesn't bother me anymore, but it was quite frustrating paying $3500/mo rent and still hoarding quarters for the weekly laundry haul to the common-area basement of the building.
Generally speaking, urban rental units with in-unit washer+dryer in boston command a $300-500 rental premium from what I've seen (makes sense because retrofitting an old triple-decker[0] with in-unit laundry isn't trivial)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-decker_(house)
I personally ride my escooter to the office, walk to most places, take the occasional taxi, and if I need a car, I use car sharing programs.
While the article claims there is no money to be made in EV charging to incentivize and align with building owners, there's plenty of similar "amenities" that easily can help differentiate a "luxury" apartment building, hopefully they become more common.
1) They charge a 40% markup on electricity. This is fair, given the upfront costs of installation and ongoing maintenance costs, but still a downside.
2) Since installing it, the number of EVs living here have tripled or quadrupled. A great thing, but also ties up the charger more frequently.
3) Their breaker apparently can't support 2 Teslas charging at once. This doesn't seem to be a problem with two non-Telsa EVs, or one Tesla and one non-Tesla, but if two Teslas plug in at the same time the breaker blows and both chargers are out of commission for 24-72 hours until maintenance gets around to fixing it.
All of that is still better than no charger of course, but we have other complaints with this complex and want to move when our lease is up. Looking for apartment complexes with chargers severely limits options and makes buying a house make a lot more sense.
The Tesla owners can fix this themselves by changing the charging speed manually in the car or the app.
https://www.tesla.com/support/gen-3-wall-connector-power-sha... ?
Or chargers are non-tesla ?
I rented a townhouse in the fall of 2019. As I was negotiating rent, move in dates, etc, I got the landlord to agree to have his electrician install a NEMA 14-50 outlet in the garage at my expense. It was all quite painless. If he would have said "no", I'd have rented a different townhouse. I made it clear that was a deal breaker.
When I bought my current place, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it had a NEMA 14-50 already installed in the garage, so I didn't have to do anything to secure charging for my car.
Across the pond, in Belgium, there is now a push for companies to offer electric cars as part of the compensation package, some friends have placed their first EV "order". Because of this, companies are installing chargers around the office. I'd instantly opt-in for that. (Although in Belgium I think it's mandatory now, so wouldn't even have a choice. But someone still living/working there can correct me on that).
I do wonder if the chargers at your condo punish at all for being plugged in even once fully charged. Some people might not care about the location of those charging spots, so they just park there and leave it there all the time.
Tesla learned many years ago that people just leaving their car at the supercharger while they spend a couple hours at the mall watching a movie or whatever was going to become a massive problem, so they charge idling fees if you're fully charged and the charging station is at more than 50% capacity.
I have a hunch that this is what is going to slow EV adoption. I could be wrong, but I don't see this changing since the incentives aren't directly linked. Apartments can easily find other residents. Condo associations have to subsidize a few residents.
I can't fathom having an EV currently. Charging at home is a must.