Electric car plug in request

New guest requests, “Hey, is it ok if we just plug in our car overnight?”

I searched online and found that on avg it seems to be $9 to charge a car. Don’t know if that’s right or not.

Wondering what experience any of you have had with electric car charge requests.

I decided to charge him $9/ night for a charge. I also sent him a link that I found online for local charging spots.

Curious about your experiences…

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We do not offer it and will not do so (not a good fit for us). If we did, it would be at least double the cost.

You can calculate the worst-case relatively easily.

Standard 110/120V outlets in the US are rated for 1500W of continuous power delivery and devices that require continuous power cannot exceed it. So, 1500W is 1.5kW and every hour you charge at maximum power delivery would be 1.5kWH. If you pay $0.14/kWH for electricity (the current average in the USA), then every hour of charging costs $0.21 or a maximum of $5.04/day if charging for 24 hours straight. You can easily adjust that if you pay more or less for electricity in your area.

Of course, if the guest brings a 220/240V charging cord and uses the outlet behind your electric clothes dryer or electric range for charging an electric car, then that changes a lot. The same goes if you’re in in a country that has native 220/240V outlets, then this isn’t going to be accurate.

FYI, all of the 120V EV chargers I’ve ever seen seen were 12A, which means they’re around 1440W.

[Edit] Adding link to a forum search for this topic which yields some good threads in the first few hits.

https://airhostsforum.com/search?q=electric%20car%20charging

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We had a guest that requested to charge overnight, basically the same exact situation as yours, except ours were a little more polite about it. So once we understood what they needed, access to an outdoor outlet, we looked into it and figured out that it would be about $6 or something (our electric is inexpensive here) and said, “sure!”.

I wish I could tell you how it worked out but they were one of the many reservations canceled at the beginning of the pandemic so they never came.

For us, we weren’t going to charge them any extra but they were going to be paying a nightly rate of $209 so, at a cost of $6/24 hours, it didn’t put us out. But I’ve lived places where the elecricity cost a lot more and I’ve also had guests paying lower rates so I might feel differently about charging the guest or not with different details. Clearly, it it is going to cost you $9/night for them to charge the car and they are going to charge the car every night and your rate is $89, that’s 10% of your rate so you should pass the cost on to them.

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We provide Level 2 EV chargers in 2 of our listings. Guests inquire about the chargers relatively often. I surmise many guests don’t ask about it, however, they are are searching purely based on the existence of a Level 2 charger. There is no doubt that it increases bookings.

At our remaining listings (4 others), we offer a dedicated 110V 15A GFCI outlet adjacent to the parking space for EV charging at no cost (BYOCC). I’m not sure how many people use it, but I’m sure it’s more than zero. I think the EV charging amenity is going to only get more and more commonplace. It was also recently added to searchable criteria for guests. The 3 listings we have under construction will all have Level 2 chargers at them. Better to be in front of it than to be playing catch up, I suppose?

If something costs you $5-$10 and you can really delight your guests, it’s hard to justify going through all the time, energy, and awkwardness to collect a few extra bucks. . .

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A friend who lives in Canada said it costs her about $6 CAN to charge her car from almost empty to full charge.

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IMO, a fair overnight charge would be $15-20. Many commercial charging stations charge 0.25 - 0.5 per kWh. Granted that is also for “fast charging”. This varies depending on State and station ownership. It can be by kWH, charge or even time.
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Blink has a cool interactive map with locations of their stations and rates (member and guest). https://blinkcharging.com/drivers/pricing/?locale=en
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If you allow them to “just plug in at your house”, then @Brian_R170 is close to the mark.
Worst case might be 2.4 kWh * time, with a dedicated 20 amp circuit. That is max cost of $8-9 for many (not Hawaii).
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This is just “pure electric cost”, not counting heat/ac loss if the cord needs to use an open door/window, etc.

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No requests yet, but it’s a good idea for us to be proactive and decide in advance how to handle these requests. If it is convenient to offer it, this could differentiate your listing.

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All good thoughts. Thank you to those of you who responded.

We have a small studio, so for us, it makes sense to charge some, especially if they plug in each night for a week. I also like the idea of being proactive and adding it to our listing.

Thanks for your help. I love this forum!

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I have a level 2 EV charger for guests and right now I don’t charge for it. My installation actually supports the ability to charge money for power with an app but for now we are just offering it for free - and then we have a QR code for a digital tip jar if people want to leave us a tip - but it’s not required.

Regarding charging - in my mind - I’m comfortable parting with 20 - 30 bucks total for little extras to make a guests visit good. Whether it’s toiletries, or the welcome basket , or some free power.

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A digital tip jar? How does that work? Never heard of it.

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Basically it’s a sign with 3 QR codes for the major payment services . They can point their camera and pay whatever if they want.

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This is interesting to think about. I get as many bookings as I want without this but I would like to support the concept and facilitate EV charging.

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Having an exterior outlet installed would be more cost-effective and convenient in this case.

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Yep. But if one needed to install one just for this, that’s pretty expensive with permit/inspection plus the actual install and many are not comfortable with it. We have several high speed charging stations within 1 mile of us and so far not one guest with an electric car.

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An electrician came over and put in two for us. It cost us $210 all told. We don’t need a permit or an inspection for an electrical outlet installed by a licensed electrician.

Do you really need a permit or an inspection for that in your state? And I don’t understand why someone wouldn’t be comfortable with it? They have weatherproof encasements and can even be locked if you want to lock them. Besides, how do people put up holiday lights or outdoor wifi extenders if they don’t have outdoor outlets?

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Yes, a permit and inspection is required here. Think of it as extra taxes.
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Many people are not comfortable with connecting a new circuit into a live panel. $210 was pretty reasonable for two new circuits.

Electricians seem totally comfortable with it :wink: Honestly, it’s some of the simplest electrical work there is.

We’ve had no less than 16 additional outlets and a new panel installed since we’ve bought the house. But the most fun was having the natural gas chandelier spigots updated for electricity (yes, from gas to electricity in the year 2020, lol).

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I offer them. Have not had any takers yet. Level 2 at my home share and level 1 at my whole home listings. The costs you are talking about totally depends on what vehicle it is. Mine is a plug in hybrid and only cost about $1.50 to charge from empty to full. A Tesla would cost a lot more and wouldn’t charge completely overnight on a level 1 anyways.

I installed my own level 2 outlet and charger. No need for inspection.

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If we didn’t have a multi-family, I would’ve installed ours too. I have installed many throughout the years. We don’t need a permit or an inspection but our insurance could ask for proof of professional installation, there’s more focus on it because it’s a multi-family.

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