If you are an electric car owner, do you charge for free or pay a fee at your employer owned charging station? Here is what Nissan Leaf owners say, sharing their experiences at a public group on Facebook called SF Bay Area Nissan LEAF Owners.
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The discussion was started by Vivian Keys who wrote the following. "Quick question about employer owned charging stations. I just found out that my employer applies a 50c an hour fee for using the ChargePoint stations in the company garage. I was under the impression that companies usually provide the charging for free as part of the benefits. What's the situation with other companies? Do you charge for free or need to pay a fee?"
Here are some interesting responses from fellow Nissan Leaf owners to this question.
Karen Stover Barnes
I work at UCSF and they charge $1.25/hr. And $30 a day to park smile emoticon. So I just charge at home. Unless I'm desperate.
Ivan Jue
I've seen this vary by employer or property management company. With the high demand of EVs here, some companies are adding fees to deter folks who are unnecessarily charging.
See if your company has internal forums for EV drivers or reach out to property management on policies.
It's not really Chargepoint who sets the fees; it's the property owner or management company. I've seen some very high per hour fees on Chargepoint chargers. Some locations are even charging per kilowatt fees (with some rates doubled between 3.3 and 6.6 kWh.
Hendry Limawan
$0.50 an hour is still cheaper than charging at home and it encourage people to move their car instead of using it as a parking spot.
Ivan Jue
Agreed--putting fees per hour really deters folks who don't need to charge--such as the Plug-In Prius or other PHEVs that have enough range to make it home. And $.50 is fairly reasonable. I believe the Chargepoint continues to bill you if you are still connected after you finish charging--a nice incentive to get folks to move out of the spot when they are done charging.
Brian Pavia
Some companies get hit with certain accounting charges on their books when they provide free charging to employees. It is seen as a benefit and falls into different buckets pretty much. Most companies will find that installing 4-6 chargers is simply not enough to service their employees. $0.50 is definitely a good price nowadays.
Kevin Lieberman
Paid stations is not a bad thing. It means that the people that really need a charge are getting it, at a small fee, but people for whom charge is optional can wait for a free or cheaper way.
Srinidhi Nagaraj
Free charging at AMD Sunnyvale.
Abhijith Prabhudev
Free for 1st 4 hours, after that $7/hour
John Hinkle
I have been charging for free for 4 years at Credo High. I paid for the charger and installation.
Eric Tissot-Dupont
Free is a mixed blessing. If there are enough stations for all, free is great. But when the demand exceeds the supply, a small fee for time used helps making sure people don't stay plugged longer than they need to. It's free at my company but I wish it wasn't.
Emmanuel Huna
$0.20/hr at Rakuten in San Mateo. Same parking lot as SalesForce.
Marc Lewert
Free at our company. This was actually discussed in a company meeting. The person setting things up said it would cost more money than we would collect for the person time, or in fees to have someone handle the accounting. When asked about power usage, the comment was that all of the power used for charging cars would be a rounding error on the power used for the data center.
Brian Kelly
Our hospital University of Chicago Medical Center has two "Charge Point" stations and they charge $1 an hour. Sure seems a bit high when our rates are only about 10 cents/kwh
Jeff Orr
Yahoo provides free charging to its employees in Sunnyvale, while Intel charges $1/hr to its employees in Sunnyvale. Both companies use EV Connect for charging station management.
Peter Jones
Autodesk in San Rafael uses Greenlots and charges about $0.50/hr. That's pretty inexpensive compared to other options.
What about you? Please comment where you are and if you charge for free at work or have to pay a fee. If you pay a fee, what is the cost per hour?
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