I would love to have gone electric (bought a car in September) but I rent and don't have any way to charge at my residence. How do we solve the renters-that-cant-charge-their-cars problem?
Public EV chargers are pretty widespread nowadays. Not as much as gas chargers obviously, but for most people in the country if you don't have a way to charge at home it's not fundamentally that different from not having a gas pump at your house.
Plus, most people can charge at home with an extension cord. It's not particularly fast, but you should be able to get 4-5 miles an hour. In the worst case scenario where you can only charge at home and can only charge for 10 hours overnight, that's still 40 miles of driving which is enough for a lot of commuters. Even if it falls short—again—you can use public chargers.
Lastly, eliminating the sale of ICE cars will be a pretty rapid forcing function on the deployment of EV chargers. Still, I'd be all for locations that ban combustion engines mandating that landlords provide EV charging facilities.
In the UK, in London at least, they're starting to put in more and more ~4-5KW chargers on the electric street lamps/lamp posts.
So far its like 1 or 2 a street (and not all streets either), but hopefully one day it will basically be all of them in every street so you don't need to worry.
So if you need to park overnight on the street anyway, park next to a lamp post that has the socket. Its "slow" charging at 4 to 5 KW, but if you're parked for 8-12 hours (while you are asleep), that is quite a considerable top-up in the 40-50KWh range.
One option may be to ask your work to electrify a parking spot for you? Depending on the type of company there can be big enough subsidies and tax-write-off capital investments in adding more electric parking spaces that they might do it just for that. (It can be fun to use accounting games in your personal favor.) For other types of companies they may see that as a possible "captive audience" revenue source, with nickel and dime-ing electric charge fees on top of existing parking fees to be a a fun game to play with their own employees whose cars are stuck in the same place for many hours at a time because they "must" be in the office.
Either of those two common types of companies you can possibly "win" an easy way to charge your daily commute.
And everyone you ask has a slightly different situation so no generic solution does it. We’ll have to spend some money and retrofit at least where possible. We’ll need free level 2 chargers wherever people congregate. And folks will probably have to adapt their expectation toward mobility in a way. Things change.
You could possibly have come to an arrangement about getting a 50 Amp (think dryer plug) hookup in the garage and provided your own charger. Also depending on your driving patterns a trickle charger in a 20 Amp socket may have worked for you as well. Mine takes about 48 hours for a full charge on the trickle charger.
There's no garage, and the only driveway-facing outlet is at the front door - opposite where my parking spot is allocated (an extension cord would have to go under/through the landlord's cars.) I have to drive 60km to work every day.
Only laws (accommodate EVs and/or WFH) or spending time sitting at a gas station will help me here. No landlord is interested in accommodating an EV unless it's a net benefit to them (and thus a net negative to me, who already spends 40% income just to have a place to work.)
All our local Tesla drivers park their cars partially blocking the alleyway each evening.
They can't make it into their garages on the narrow road, and there are no curb side plugs in the front (NEC safety rules.) Funny until the Garbage truck rage mashes the horn at 6am... lol =3
I’m in the same situation, but I did go electric. I’m in a bigger city in Europe and the public infrastructure here is adequate and reliable. I rarely have to wait for the car to finish charging, it mostly fits my usage.
If you own a house, generally you can do things like install charging points (also backup batteries, solar panels, better insulation, all kinds of fun things) that renters can't.
I'm sure there are some homeowners who can't - maybe listed buildings, or these weird HOA rules I hear about from Americans.
stouset|7 months ago
Plus, most people can charge at home with an extension cord. It's not particularly fast, but you should be able to get 4-5 miles an hour. In the worst case scenario where you can only charge at home and can only charge for 10 hours overnight, that's still 40 miles of driving which is enough for a lot of commuters. Even if it falls short—again—you can use public chargers.
Lastly, eliminating the sale of ICE cars will be a pretty rapid forcing function on the deployment of EV chargers. Still, I'd be all for locations that ban combustion engines mandating that landlords provide EV charging facilities.
mattlondon|7 months ago
In the UK at least, there are more EV chargers than gas/petrol stations: https://www.vertumotors.com/news/there-are-more-charging-poi...
Joel_Mckay|7 months ago
EV is not for everyone, but those Rivian are nice though. =3
mattlondon|7 months ago
So far its like 1 or 2 a street (and not all streets either), but hopefully one day it will basically be all of them in every street so you don't need to worry.
So if you need to park overnight on the street anyway, park next to a lamp post that has the socket. Its "slow" charging at 4 to 5 KW, but if you're parked for 8-12 hours (while you are asleep), that is quite a considerable top-up in the 40-50KWh range.
WorldMaker|7 months ago
Either of those two common types of companies you can possibly "win" an easy way to charge your daily commute.
barbazoo|7 months ago
DangitBobby|7 months ago
jjayj|7 months ago
Only laws (accommodate EVs and/or WFH) or spending time sitting at a gas station will help me here. No landlord is interested in accommodating an EV unless it's a net benefit to them (and thus a net negative to me, who already spends 40% income just to have a place to work.)
Joel_Mckay|7 months ago
They can't make it into their garages on the narrow road, and there are no curb side plugs in the front (NEC safety rules.) Funny until the Garbage truck rage mashes the horn at 6am... lol =3
Toutouxc|7 months ago
empath75|7 months ago
Quitschquat|7 months ago
SV_BubbleTime|7 months ago
bhandziuk|7 months ago
nottorp|7 months ago
esperent|7 months ago
I'm sure there are some homeowners who can't - maybe listed buildings, or these weird HOA rules I hear about from Americans.
Zambyte|7 months ago
By solving the renters-think-they-need-to-own-a-car problem.
bethekidyouwant|7 months ago