"It was reported by the campus management company that your Toyota Prius Plugin vehicle was plugged into one of the wall outlets in the garage on P2 today. Please be aware that tenants are not allowed to plug into random outlets in the garage. The management company is pursuing installation of EV charging units in the garage for next year. If you have any questions, please contact the property manager, KXX HXXXX. Thank you. KXXXX HXXXX Property Manager WORTHE REAL ESTATE GROUP License #XXXXXXXX 818-XXX-XXXX 818-XXX-XXXX fax [email protected]" Ain't that a bitch...
Sounds to me that if you go talk to them and let them know how little it cost to charge, they might just bend a little!
The time for that pitch was back when he purchased the car. For some reason he seems to have thought other peoples property was his to abuse. I suspect now is too late.
I would talk now, as retired suggested. Let them know you only use 3 kWh and you don't need an expensive Special EV Charging unit. Only 120 vac, 15 amp circuit. Here the cost is 25 cents per charge.
My apartment manager "busted" me when I was caught charging my PIP. I told him I will pay for the electrons. Gave him a copy of my ChargePoint sessions to show I only use 3 KWH per charge. He got back to me and said $15.00 a month. Which is fair since he only pays 9 cents a KWH. Since April 23, 2012 I have only filled my tank twice. 5.8 gallons the first time. still have 8 gallons in my tank as of today. I was paying $25.00 to $30.00 a month for gas before I got the PIP. So win win
I politely asked The Irvine Compant property manager at my office if they would be so humble as installing a few EV charging stations. The guy chewed off my head and went on that they have stations at other properties.
I put my KAW on my Desktop (3 monitors) (2 gpu's) A months worth is 157 KWH's .09 x 157 = $14.13. My TV, printer, Blu-Ray, Laptop 106 KWH's x .09 =$10.60 So I'm getting $24.73 a month for "free"
I'm actually not surprised to have gotten the email... I was much more appalled that the property didn't already have charging stations. I suspect the issue is one of liability than the cost of the electricity. I'll plead my case and keep my fingers crossed they install the charging stations soon.
I think "abuse" would imply malice on my part. But, let me see if I can match your hyperbole and holier than thou tone… This is a very large executive complex with what I would consider several very progressive companies and a couple thousand employees. I would think that they would want to support the socially conscious concept of a lower carbon footprint. That said, it's their garage… It's their rules… But, of all the things to be reprimanded for
It is too bad you did not let them and stole from them instead. The next poor soul will have to live down your abuse of the system even if he tries to do it right and ask. Am I holier than thou? It is true I am not driving off with gas without paying the gas station.... so maybe I am.
Actually, as ridiculous as this sounds, I think it's a blessing in disguise. Here's why: you now have a direct contact with someone who actually understands what you're doing and can potentially resolve the issue. I parked in a VA garage here the other day and plugged into an outlet. this was on a weekend. there was no one around. i doubt i could have found someone "responsible" even if i tried, and even then, it's unlikely that they would even understand why i wanted to use some random outlet in their garage. so yeah, i'd say email back to them asking whether you could pay them for the charge, and that the charge only costs 50¢ for the whole thing. see what they say, can't hurt.
It depends on the place. There's a difference between talking sustainability, which is all the rage, and putting your money where your mouth is. See if they have LEED certification and see if they've misrepresented the availability of alternative fuel vehicle accommodations at the property to get LEED points.
Completely separate from the energy cost issue, I would not take it for granted that the electrical infrastructure of the garage is built to handle one or multiple plug-in vehicles. The chargers draw enough power that they must be included in the load and circuit planning. It is easily possible that without improvements, the existing infrastructure won't meet code requirements while charging plug-in vehicles. Or the facilities department hasn't yet been able to review the needs. I was once involved in a workplace conflict caused by non-hardware people moving in to neighboring cubicles and plugging their server farm willy-nilly into our outlets along the spine wall, in complete disregard to our careful load planning, which had previously included special added capacity. We discovered this when circuit breakers started popping, wrecking some of our measurements. We 'resolved' this by yanking their plugs, and getting some managers involved to force them to put in facility orders to buy their own added capacity.
I see you have a facilities background too. Funny how people don't want to do their own surgeries, or most don't even want to take apart and service their own computer, but as soon as it's time to make an architectural design or schematics everybody's an architect and engineer. It's always fun to have to rescue people from their own ingeniousness.
LOL! At the company I used to work at, my roommate (worked in a different building and group) was in a building that was pretty overcrowded in terms of being out of offices/places for contractors (he was one of those). So, they put a whole bunch of contractors into meeting rooms (not an unheard of practice at the company). That added up to a lot of PCs in a meeting room. I'd walked by such meeting rooms before. He said that they found the "tipping point" of one more machine causing an overload and tripping a breaker somewhere.