Sharing of Private / Home Chargers

[survivalist]

Sorry if this has already been covered elsewhere.

I was reading the the thread about shell repurposing one of their London petrol stations into an EV charging facility.

Do people use apps to park and charge on other peoples driveways when available? Seems to me that crowd sourcing the charging of electric vehicles makes a lot of sense.

Or does it not work out as cost effective because most people don’t want to charge during the day?

[JonnyVTEC]

I’m on Co-Charger and have hosted a number of charging people for £1.50 an hr. Also people have added homes to zap map to offer charging too.

https://co-charger.com/

Edited by JonnyVTEC on Monday 24th January 13:15

[ZesPak]

JonnyVTEC said:

I’m on Co-Charger and have hosted a number of charging people for £1.50 an hr. Also people have added homes to zap map to offer charging too.

I don't get charging (pun intended) by the hour?
Isn't it simpler for everyone involved to have a kwh rate?

[robbieduncan]

JonnyVTEC said:

I’m on Co-Charger and have hosted a number of charging people for £1.50 an hr. Also people have added homes to zap map to offer charging too.

Given the way electricity prices have moved that doesn’t sound like a sustainable price. 7kWh will soon cost well above £1.50 if it doesn’t already for some!

[JonnyVTEC]

It’s the way the model works but means hours give clarity for multiple booking start and end times! How else would it work?

I’ll change prices when my tarriff changes but at 13.4p I’m happy to help people outZ

[ZesPak]

JonnyVTEC said:

It’s the way the model works but means hours give clarity for multiple booking start and end times! How else would it work?

Over here most are 3rd party, the charger just keeps how much kWh you have on your session.

[JonnyVTEC]

Thanks, ill bare that in mind for when over move over 'there'...

For now, im doing what im doing an this benefits the OP probably more.

[ZesPak]

As an EV driver, to me it's the equivalent of filling up on petrol and paying by the minute.

[ingenieur]

JonnyVTEC said:

It’s the way the model works but means hours give clarity for multiple booking start and end times! How else would it work?

I’ll change prices when my tarriff changes but at 13.4p I’m happy to help people outZ

How are you getting leccy for 13.4p

Had a recent look at my options as I'm with Bulb... haha. Most tariffs seem to be around the 20p to 25p region.

[JonnyVTEC]

Octopus Go, Tarriff from last April im locked into for 12months. Glad i had the delay on the smart meter else i would have been on Go.

Regarding Co-Charger, ive simply signed up to be a host, and yet we have all sort of experts in this forum popping in their pennies when i dont see they have an alternative app or system to faciliate charging.

Ive simply added how im trying to help the community and some wise guy who i assume isnt even on UK soil is taking pops at the way the booking and charge system operates. Give it a rest yeah, no one cares.

Edited by JonnyVTEC on Monday 24th January 13:39

[ZesPak]

JonnyVTEC said:

Regarding Co-Charger, ive simply signed up to be a host, and yet we have all sort of experts in this forum popping in their pennies when i dont see they have an alternative app or system to faciliate charging.

Ive simply added how im trying to help the community and some wise guy who i assume isnt even on UK soil is taking pops at the way the booking and charge system operates. Give it a rest yeah, no one cares.

I was just giving my input on how EV chargers usually work - per kWh.
It's indeed a foreign system to me, we're also talking to some people about setting up semi-public chargers and it's the first time I've heard of charging by the hour.
I went through the co-charger website and I do see the advantage in that your charger doesn't have to relay anything to the app, thus virtually anyone could set it up with any type of charger.
That begs the question, how do you give access to the cable? I assume there's a manual process required to allow people to charge after a booking through the app? Or is it always accessible and based on trust?

[TheDeuce]

We have a large drive and I would have no issue in the future making my charger available to the public. There would need to be an infrastructure provided for payment though - IE: A charger that was smart enough to integrate with an over the air service so that 'customers' could scan their membership card on the charger/book through their app to start the charge.

I'm not aware of that being a thing just yet, but it seems likely that something along those lines will be available at some point. Basically the same idea as care share schemes. Just needs someone to set up a workable infrastructure to book and take payment.

[JonnyVTEC]

ZesPak said:

That begs the question, how do you give access to the cable? I assume there's a manual process required to allow people to charge after a booking through the app? Or is it always accessible and based on trust?

Ive got an Ohme Intellignet Charger so it doesnt actually do anything outside of my 20:30-1:30am 5.5p /kWh window.

So i just accept bookings, and can either switch the cost limit off or when they show up i jump into my app and switch to 'Max charging'. Afterwards i get a confirmation that asks me to agree to the charge event, i just look at my charger history to see how much kWh were used and if it matches what they took / length of charge. Handy i also have a video camera that emails a picture during any detection events.

Then i get a payment a bit later. Simple enough to not over complicate it but avoid un authorised use.

[joropug]

Would this be something that would need to be declared to your home insurer I wonder?

Someone reverses into your house, drives through your wall or something. Obviously could happen with a normal visitor but if they are visiting your premises for the purposes of charging you could argue its commercial in nature. I know EV's shouldn't let you drive if a cable is attached but what if the station was damaged by improper use etc too.

I'll grab my anorak.

Personally would not want a stranger on my driveway as you don't know who they are and whether something might catch their eye that they might come back for later on. I wouldn't have an issue if it was a neighbour though if you could grant select people access to it via a code or something.

[TheDeuce]

joropug said:

Personally would not want a stranger on my driveway as you don't know who they are and whether something might catch their eye that they might come back for later on. I wouldn't have an issue if it was a neighbour though if you could grant select people access to it via a code or something.

Looking to the future, in areas where many houses can't charge at home but some can and can share their charger/space, then I guess it typically would be neighbours that would make use of it.

To do fairly typical annual miles I charge about 1.5 times a week, perhaps 18 hours total charge time, nearly always overnight - on a street with twenty houses without their own parking space, if just 3-4 houses can offer 1-2 chargers per driveway then with the right app/infrastructure to organise it all, the entire streets charging needs could be catered for. Perhaps this sort of thing might even get neighbours talking more and being a little more thoughtful!

/snob mode/ Although personally I'm very happy charging at home, on my own drive without booking a slot to do so