House or Apartment?
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Exactly! Plus, you get to pre-heat your car inside your garage without being worried about carbon monoxide poisoning.
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All those who don't have any wall outlets at home, raise your hand....
Seriously, I think those who only have on-street parking likely have not bought an EV. Of course you could buy a Volt and just run it as a gas car, something other EV's could not do.
Seriously, I think those who only have on-street parking likely have not bought an EV. Of course you could buy a Volt and just run it as a gas car, something other EV's could not do.
I live in a condo And charge off a 110 volt outlet on the patio running off an extension cord. Yes I know the manual says don't do this but I have the heaviest gage I could buy at home depot and I charge at 8 amps. Has worked fine for a couple of years. I commute 50 miles each way to work but my drive is only 4.5 miles to the train station! So 110v works for me.
Apartment dweller, with a basement parking space equipped with a 7.7kw Leviton Evr-Green. I use every opportunity to remind the management that I'm here instead of elsewhere because of that EVSE.
They're putting them into the other buildings they own over the summer.
They're putting them into the other buildings they own over the summer.
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437 Posts
Personally, I live in a densely urban brownstone neighborhood where there is only street parking, or you lease or own a parking space. Though I own a space in a parking lot, I have found that I could charge with street parking, though not without the help of one my tenants. So for 4.5 years now I've pretty much been able to charge with just street parking. So it can be done.
Cities like Baltimore, Seattle and Philadelphia (I wish there were more forward thinking cities) have setup Residential Permit EV street parking, its of course up to the owner to pay signage and installation of plug or EVSE. And though any EV can technically use the space the permit owner is not require allow the use of their electricity. So residential street EV charging can be done.
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And this is what I do when I make my cross-country road trips. When at home I always charge my car in my garage. The best of both worlds!
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I realize that most apartments do not provide anyway to charge an EV, however some do. If a renter is willing to move and perhaps pay more rent a place can be found that does provide EV charging. Especially in places where EV is becoming popular. I live in a Tesla town and I'm finding more public chargers being installed all over town and I'm sure that some upscale apartments and townhouses are getting them also.
Eventually EV charging at housing will be like high speed internet. Housing without it will be worth less.
That time has not come yet though.
I probably should have titled it different, but I figured the short title summed up the intention.
That time has not come yet though.
I probably should have titled it different, but I figured the short title summed up the intention.
Doubt there will be much meaning in the results of the poll, but voted anyway.
Your answers are going to be strongly biased towards being able to charge at home, as that's the majority owner pattern of a volt.
Those who can't, likely didn't buy, and even more likely are not browsing these forums in order to vote.
Your answers are going to be strongly biased towards being able to charge at home, as that's the majority owner pattern of a volt.
Those who can't, likely didn't buy, and even more likely are not browsing these forums in order to vote.
I was sort of curious, because it appears a good number of Tesla Owners cannot charge at home. Sounds backwards, right? Buy BEV when you have no home charging. Buy dual mode EV when you DO have home charging.
Because they bought it to take advantage of "unlimited" L3 charging access, including those who can charge at home, but choose not to. And the battery is large enough to support the "gas tank" model of having to go somewhere regularly to fill up (no thanks, I prefer to fill up at home 
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Tesla's have > 200 miles of range and a supercharger network. If you happen to live near a supercharger you could visit it once a week just like ICE drivers visit the gas station once a week, it's less convenient than a gas fill up because it takes at least 30 minutes but it's probably tolerable. Volt's have an EV range of 53 miles and it takes 4.5 hours to charge it. Unless you have access to a free L2 charger at work you need an EVSE at home. Even if you have access to a non-free charger at work you wouldn't want to use it because it's so expensive for Volt owners. Chargepoint is priced by the hour not by the KW so it's really expensive because of the 3.6KW charger in the Volt, in my area > 40 cents/KWh. You would also need to move the car after it's charged if you are using a public charger for the Volt which makes it even more inconvenient to rely on a public charger. Given that it only costs about $1K to install an EVSE (EVSE + electrician's rate) it would be crazy to buy a Volt and not put in your own charger.
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894 Posts
My condominium homeowners association banned electric vehicle charging. I am waiting for county or state law to catch up with the need for mandatory access to charging for all condominiums in Colorado. Until owners can be assured access to charging, the electric vehicle revolution will only extend to the minority of rich people who can buy million-dollar homes. I am able to charge about a half-mile away from home, then pick-up my vehicle every night a couple of hours later to park at my condominium.
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I don't think a real revolution would be had on the backs of the minority rich people. I'm not rich, but I do own my home and charge at home.
Most apartments house non-rich tenants, I think. The EV revolution will depend on them more than rich people. I agree some type of legal pathway towards mandating or easing the install cost of multi-car EVSE (or just relief from install costs for sufficient service for a 120VAC @ 12A for each tenant's parking space) would help considerably.
Most apartments house non-rich tenants, I think. The EV revolution will depend on them more than rich people. I agree some type of legal pathway towards mandating or easing the install cost of multi-car EVSE (or just relief from install costs for sufficient service for a 120VAC @ 12A for each tenant's parking space) would help considerably.
Sucks about the closed minded condo association, hope that gets upturned quickly for you.
But I don't think you need a $1M dollar home for an EV. I'm sure plenty of people on the forum don't.
I just charge 120V 12A overnight and am good for 3 days X my 21km commute when it's over ~5C. When it gets colder I have to charge every second night. And when it gets really cold I'm back to every 3-4 nights since ERDTT puts lots back into the battery.
I have a house but every appartement and duplex/townhouses I've rented (~16 years), had a blockheater outlet and although I would've been limited to 8A, I could live with that.
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What was their reason for banning EVSEs? As long as you were willing to pay for the installation of the EVSE and the electricity is billed to you I don't see why they would object.
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