Living in Apartment Building - Charging questions

[Jctz1]

When I saw the title, I thought there might be a discussion on wiring up an outlet for you. I am a landlord and wonder how this will play out as more and more people will be purchasing electric cars.

Talk to your landlord and see if they'd be willing to split the cost with you to have an electrician run a new wire from your breaker box (service panel) out on to the wall of the building near where you park. Inform them that electric cars will be more prevalent soon and having the new outlet will make his apartment more desirable. for renters, maybe even get $10/month more for the apartment with the charging outlet.

I have a 12-unit building and am already trying to figure out how to get outlets on the exterior for tenants. It shouldn't be more than $100 for me since I know electric code and do my own wiring, which is legal where I am, as long as it's inspected by the local codes enforcement officer.

Hello!
So the building we live in is a strata. We don't own here, rather we rent from an owner who lives in a different province. The city we live in is, it seems granting money to buildings to retrofit their parking so that EV's can charge, but I asked the strata representative and it seems the city hasn't really moved forward with this yet, so they haven't talked about it since November last year, I believe.
This building is over 15 stories high and the underground parking is 5 or 6 levels, so I am not sure whether it would be possible to just run a cable in order to be able to plug the car in, but I will definitely be contacting them more often to ask about potential solutions. I had thought of reaching out to my landlord to ask to split the cost of installing at least an outlet in our parking space, billed to us, so that we can charge overnight, but with the potential of us moving out of here in the next year or so it seems kind of not worth it...
Thanks for the suggestion though!

[alozzy]

Hopefully you have already figured out that BC Hydro, for level 3 DC charging, uses time based rates. So, for our older, slow charging LEAFs, we are paying sometimes as high as $1 per kWh on cold winter days. That's predatory pricing, an absolute rip-off.

So, if your plan is to use mostly public charging infrastructure, then you won't save much vs a fuel efficient gas car. Without access to home or work charging at much more reasonable $0.10 per kWh residential rates, you are better off selling your LEAF.

Yes, BC Hydro rates for DC fast charging in particular are that bad. This is the problem with monopolies, they can do whatever the heck they want.

[LeftieBiker]

So, for our older, slow charging LEAFs, we are paying sometimes as high as $1 per kWh on cold winter days.

I'm curious: how much slower does a 9 bar Gen 1.0 Leaf DC Fast Charge than a Gen 1.5 Leaf with 10 or 11 bars? I'm not sure I've ever seen that discussed.

[alozzy]

My 2013 SV is the only LEAF I have ever owned, so I don't know how the DC Fast charging compares to a 2011/2012 with 9 bars.

My LEAF pack's build date is after April of 2013 and it's still got 10 capacity bars remaining. However, the DC Fast charging rate can slow down to about 12 kW when temps go to -5C (Vancouver very rarely gets much colder than that).

[SageBrush]

Yes, BC Hydro rates for DC fast charging in particular are that bad

For an old LEAF, soon to be a rounding error on the BC balance sheet. That is not a predatory pricing strategy. If it is anything at all, I'd say you are being ignored.
For a modern EV they are reasonable, even cheap.

This played out the same way for us in NM at EA.
My LEAF would quickly drop to 15 kW, and at 24¢ a minute I would pay $1 a kWh
If I could charge a Tesla there at 200 kW, I would pay 14¢ a kWh

Just this month though EA switched to volumetric pricing at 42¢ a kWh, so about 3x home rates for everybody.
If EA had a decent business case at the old time based rates I would have chosen for them to continue since old LEAFs are a minority of the charging population and getting smaller by the day.

[Jctz1]

Hopefully you have already figured out that BC Hydro, for level 3 DC charging, uses time based rates. So, for our older, slow charging LEAFs, we are paying sometimes as high as $1 per kWh on cold winter days. That's predatory pricing, an absolute rip-off.

So, if your plan is to use mostly public charging infrastructure, then you won't save much vs a fuel efficient gas car. Without access to home or work charging at much more reasonable $0.10 per kWh residential rates, you are better off selling your LEAF.

Yes, BC Hydro rates for DC fast charging in particular are that bad. This is the problem with monopolies, they can do whatever the heck they want.

Yeah it is pricier definitely, to use DC charging. I found that using level 2, even for an hr and a half, replenishes my battery quite nicely and it is only about a dollar and forty cents for 4kWh.

I'm curious: how much slower does a 9 bar Gen 1.0 Leaf DC Fast Charge than a Gen 1.5 Leaf with 10 or 11 bars? I'm not sure I've ever seen that discussed.

If I recall correctly, it was charging at around 1kWh every ten minutes.

[SageBrush]

BC Hydro has a new tariff as of Apr 2022

https://electricvehicles.bchydro.com/ho ... %25%20GST)

12.07 cents per minute for 25 kW charging (+5% GST)
21.13 cents per minute for 50 kW charging (+5% GST)
27.17 cents per minute for 100 kW charging (+5% GST)

That works out to 13¢ (US) per kWh for a reasonably modern EV. Is alozzy going to continue to whine at the oh so horrible monopoly pricing ??

I say yes.

[alozzy]

That looks somewhat encouraging, except that I'm pretty sure that's the rate schedule based on the max charging rate of the machine, not on the actual draw of the car.

That assumption is based on the fact that BC Hydro has a few 25 kW chargers in rural areas, 50 kW chargers at most urban areas, and a few 100 kW chargers at brand new locations. So, the max charging rates of the machine match those of that rate schedule exactly, unlikely to be a coincidence.

With rare exception, EV owners in Vancouver will be charging at 50 kW chargers all the time. So, 21.13 cents per minute will apply to the vast majority of sessions, if my hunch is right.

[alozzy]

For an old LEAF, soon to be a rounding error on the BC balance sheet. That is not a predatory pricing strategy. If it is anything at all, I'd say you are being ignored.
For a modern EV they are reasonable, even cheap.

Even when a gas station is busy and cars are queued up, a car owner who fills up and then goes inside for some junk food doesn't pay for gas based on the amount of time spent at the pump.

Also, if a particular car takes a little longer to fill than average, that driver isn't penalized for taking longer at the pump.

With gas, you pay by volume which essentially correlates with units of energy. EV charging should not be any different...

I should also add that BC has a lot of older LEAFs on the road.

[SageBrush]

If you are so keen to compare to petrol, then pay petrol rates