My apartment doesn’t have idle fees, but it hasn’t been an issue so far. What happens if your car finishes charging at 3 am, though? Wouldn’t idle fees be a problem then?
zendaya said:
My apartment doesn’t have idle fees, but it hasn’t been an issue so far. What happens if your car finishes charging at 3 am, though? Wouldn’t idle fees be a problem then?
You’d just have to pay the idle fees, or you could stop charging earlier so you don’t have to get up at 3 am. Some people start charging as soon as they get home so they can move the car before bed. That way, someone else who works late or comes home late can use the charger. Idle fees help shift behavior so that people stop hogging chargers.
zendaya said:
My apartment doesn’t have idle fees, but it hasn’t been an issue so far. What happens if your car finishes charging at 3 am, though? Wouldn’t idle fees be a problem then?
Yeah, that’s a good point. You could probably set the fees to only apply between 9 am and midnight, so people aren’t penalized for charging overnight. But I’d still prefer some system to prevent charger hogging.
zendaya said:
My apartment doesn’t have idle fees, but it hasn’t been an issue so far. What happens if your car finishes charging at 3 am, though? Wouldn’t idle fees be a problem then?
If you’ve got a Tesla and don’t care about others, you could just lower the amps so it takes all night to charge, avoiding the idle fees.
In my building, they installed enough chargers for everyone. I’ve got a charger by my reserved spot. They’re slow, though, because of load balancing to avoid overloading the system.
I’ve lived in a few places with 3rd-party chargers from companies like ChargePoint and Blink that do have idle fees.
If I had to move my car after a few hours, I wouldn’t even consider buying an EV. I like having my parking spot, and I leave my car there for days or weeks sometimes. They should just install more chargers if there’s a shortage.