5 ms·

I own a condo with a garage, yet I can't put in a charge station. I need to convince most of my neighbors to have the HOA do it. The garage is a separate share

I own a condo with a garage, yet I can't put in a charge station. I need to convince most of my neighbors to have the HOA do it. The garage is a separate shared structure and is only wired for lighting and the electric garage door. The only way they could put in EV chargers would be to trench though 30 feet of asphalt from the electrical vault (assuming that vault has sufficient capacity), then wire up the garage. I'm not sure how metering would work in that case, I assume that'd have to put in meter boxes for each resident. Several people have tried, but couldn't get interest from more than a handful of residents, and the cost to do the initial work is too much for one person to bear.

matthewdgreen 7y ago
I had to trench about thirty feet to install a charger in my back alley. It was expensive (about $1500) but I looked at it as a long-term investment that would pay off over a decade. If I could have shared that cost with, say, 10 neighbors it would have been pretty modest. My state also has a reimbursement program that will cover a portion of the installation costs. These capital costs are problematic but not really devastating. Even if nobody wants to use taxpayer funds, cities/utilities could propose investment programs with payback done via a small extra fee charged to electric usage over a few years.
- Johnny555 7y ago
  The estimate was about 10X more than that -- I'm not sure what made it so expensive, maybe because the wiring had to be sized to handle all 30 units, the HOA wouldn't let it be built to handle just the few people that wanted an EV charger today. And there was some sort of upgrade that had to be made to the underground electrical vault.
  - matthewdgreen 7y ago
    A $15,000 loan, at 5% interest, works out to about $159/month over a decade. Divide that by ten neighbors, it's about $16/month per user to charge -- excluding the cost of energy. This isn't nothing, but it's a reasonable enough price if you have 10 people in the facility who are interested. Obviously the theory and practice are very different things, but as barriers go this one seems surmountable. Particularly given the fact that electric car charging is eventually going to be more and more popular/valuable to purchasers or renters. In short, this is a very tiny fraction of the price of a new roof.
throw0101a 7y ago
Ontario changed their provincial laws a little while ago which makes EV charging "mandatory" to the effect that a condo/apartment building must do it unless they can produce an engineering report that says it (a) be some kind of safety hazard, or (b) would compromise structural integrity. All new builds must have at least the conduit in place (if not the wiring). I wouldn't be surprised if having EV stations becomes a selling point in pre-construction marketing.
pocketlim 7y ago
Check to see if your local energy utility has any rebates on charger installations. I don't know where you are, but I'll give an example locally. For commercial installation (since it's HOA) if you're with LADWP (Los Angeles), they will reimburse for the cost of the charger and installation up to $5000 for the first charger, and $4000 for each charger thereafter. LADWP will also install a separate meter (if you so choose) and give you a discount on the energy specifically for EV charging. Might be easier to convince the HOA if the net cost to them to install it is... well, hopefully nearly nothing.

matthewdgreen 7y ago

I had to trench about thirty feet to install a charger in my back alley. It was expensive (about $1500) but I looked at it as a long-term investment that would pay off over a decade. If I could have shared that cost with, say, 10 neighbors it would have been pretty modest. My state also has a reimbursement program that will cover a portion of the installation costs. These capital costs are problematic but not really devastating. Even if nobody wants to use taxpayer funds, cities/utilities could propose investment programs with payback done via a small extra fee charged to electric usage over a few years.

Johnny555 7y ago
The estimate was about 10X more than that -- I'm not sure what made it so expensive, maybe because the wiring had to be sized to handle all 30 units, the HOA wouldn't let it be built to handle just the few people that wanted an EV charger today. And there was some sort of upgrade that had to be made to the underground electrical vault.
- matthewdgreen 7y ago
  A $15,000 loan, at 5% interest, works out to about $159/month over a decade. Divide that by ten neighbors, it's about $16/month per user to charge -- excluding the cost of energy. This isn't nothing, but it's a reasonable enough price if you have 10 people in the facility who are interested. Obviously the theory and practice are very different things, but as barriers go this one seems surmountable. Particularly given the fact that electric car charging is eventually going to be more and more popular/valuable to purchasers or renters. In short, this is a very tiny fraction of the price of a new roof.

throw0101a 7y ago

Ontario changed their provincial laws a little while ago which makes EV charging "mandatory" to the effect that a condo/apartment building must do it unless they can produce an engineering report that says it (a) be some kind of safety hazard, or (b) would compromise structural integrity. All new builds must have at least the conduit in place (if not the wiring). I wouldn't be surprised if having EV stations becomes a selling point in pre-construction marketing.

pocketlim 7y ago

Check to see if your local energy utility has any rebates on charger installations. I don't know where you are, but I'll give an example locally. For commercial installation (since it's HOA) if you're with LADWP (Los Angeles), they will reimburse for the cost of the charger and installation up to $5000 for the first charger, and $4000 for each charger thereafter. LADWP will also install a separate meter (if you so choose) and give you a discount on the energy specifically for EV charging. Might be easier to convince the HOA if the net cost to them to install it is... well, hopefully nearly nothing.