Electric vehicle charging

Are you using Time Of Use (TOU) rates?

TOU plans,(off peak hours) are drastically cheaper - it looks like PG&E EV2-A Plan costs 24¢ per kWh from 12 AM to 3 PM and then during peak hours it is 44¢ or 55¢ per kWh. I would think at 24¢ it would work out - but basically one car is going to take up a stall overnight and then perhaps another car could charge in the early morning hours...

https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/rate-plans/rate-plan-options/electric-vehicle-base-plan/electric-vehicle-base-plan.page

I personally feel that electric vehicles are not gonna save money or the environment and 40 million chargers are going to crash the grid that cannot barely stay running on a hot day and will need big hazardous materials dumps for the batteries but anyway just wondering how other buildings cover the cost of electricity used

We recently finished installing abut 25 chargers at owners individual spaces. Ours each pay based on usage. We--I was on the board at the time--considered installing one in a common area too, but decided not to. In any case we would have shared each user the prices our electric co. changes us.

How did your HOA pay for the system-beef-up installation, etc. to get the two chargers installed?

Luckily it's not based on how you feel but rather math and science. Do you even know off the top of your head how many kwhs any electrical appliance is?
No one's gonna throw away dead batteries when they can be sold for a profit either

It is not as simple as your comment makes it out to be. This is a big issue that has not been currently resolved. Hopefully it will be in the future.

https://www.science.org/content/article/millions-electric-cars-are-coming-what-happens-all-dead-batteries

No, they’re getting about 10 miles for the cost of a gallon of gasoline not a full range of 200 miles

Exactly

Valid point.

I am now somewhat confused. What is the HOA paying for?

PG&E charges the HOA $.42 per kilowatt hour. The HOA wants to recover that cost from the owner who charged his car. The problem is at $.42 per kilowatt hour. It works out to being about the same cost as putting a gallon of four dollar gas in a gas powered car If we lower the cost to say $.24 per kilowatt hour the owner saves money. on an electric vehicle, makes sense at that rate, but the HOA loses money

What do you mean the HOA is supposed to lose money? no they are not supposed to lose money

My response above could have been clearer. Our HOA and those around us in my urban area all charge the EV owners Whatever the Elect. Co. charges th HOA.

Can someone else help????

Did you install paid meters where the user swipes or taps their credit card? and who is paying for the charging meters and the service to run the payment processing? This is something that all the owners are paying for
and only a few are using. If I was at this HOA I would sue the HOA to cover a portion of my petrol purchase.

LOL that's 3x our annual budget.
you must have a lot of lights, hvac and other crap running all the time. I know CA has electricity that is 2 to 4x higher than the rest of the country, but that still means an equivalent $20K bill. sounds like you need a energy survey to see how you can reduce your bill. most electrical companies do them for free.

You mean increasing the power capacity of your building's electrical system would cost $200,000 or more.

It appears the parking for this HOA is entirely common area. The spaces are assigned. What Wayne has presented does not seem consistent with this from https://www.davis-stirling.com/HOME/E/Electric-Vehicle-Charging-Stations:

"Owner Requirements. If an owner wants to install an EV charging station in a common area or an exclusive use common area (his parking space), he must meet applicable health and safety standards and requirements imposed by state and local authorities as well as all other applicable zoning, land use or other ordinances, or land use permits. (Civ. Code § 4745(c).) In addition, he must obtain HOA approval and agree in writing to the following (Civ. Code § 4745(f)(1)):

Architectural Standards. Comply with the association's architectural standards.
Licensed Contractor. Use a licensed contractor to install the station.
Insurance. Within 14 days of approval, provide a certificate of insurance that names the common interest development as an additional insured under the homeowner's insurance policy.
Installation Costs. Pay for the cost of installing the charging station.
Utility Costs. Pay for electricity usage associated with the station."

I wonder how well thought out the installation of the two charging stations was. However, I am in the cheap seats. I know how demanding this is on board members. I know California is struggling and California HOAs are facing incredible struggles. The board members are greatly undercompensated.

Board decided to install a couple chargers in the common area as more owners with electric vehicles requested chargers. Since the CC and Rs say they cannot be installed in the non-deeded, assigned spaces they decided to put a couple in a couple common area spaces as an experiment, (there’s enough power for four more in the future), and to get a head start on the upcoming city mandate that will require all buildings to provide charging

Wayne is insisting that chargers may not be installed in the "non-deeded assigned spaces." For one thing, I cannot tell if he understands what common area is and the rights owners have, under California statute, to use common area for chargers.

Here's what Wayne claims is "very unclear":

Ca Civil Code 4745 (a):
"Any covenant, restriction, or condition contained in any deed, contract, security instrument, or other instrument affecting the transfer or sale of any interest in a common interest development, and any provision of a governing document, as defined in Section 4150, that either effectively prohibits or unreasonably restricts the installation or use of an electric vehicle charging station within an owner’s unit or in a designated parking space, including, but not limited to, a deeded parking space, a parking space in an owner’s exclusive use common area, or a parking space that is specifically designated for use by a particular owner, or is in conflict with this section is void and unenforceable."

This section goes on to explain owners' rights to install charging stations on common areas.

It's all "unclear" until a court orders the HOA to permit an owner to install a charging station on common area. Especially for a HOA attorney who wants to gouge the HOA.

I would call that interpretation an 'effective prohibition' of a charging station in a designated parking space. The statute section flatly prohibits such covenants (and certainly as well, interpretations of covenants).

If no owner is asking to install a charging station that will serve his or her designated parking spot, I suppose it's moot. I just take issue with your continued insistence that the lack of deeded parking spaces means the HOA can prohibit owners from installing charging stations, on common area, serving his or her designated parking spot. By any reasonable reading of the statute, the statute does not.

For good or bad, and for right or wrong, California is obviously very serious about going electric. This statute section reflects that.

This "reasoning" is further justification for why I think your board should seek an experienced Ca attorney to handle this.

the electrical power would come from their unit. there are EV extention cords people use all the time. your reasoning is laughable.
It's probably not practical for people to have ev extention cords, but hard to tell with out a sketch of how the power and parking is laid out.

LOL, well now I understand. something is wrong with the math.
https://www.pge.com/en_US/small-medium-business/energy-alternatives/clean-vehicles/ev-charge-network/electric-vehicle-rate-plans.page

above website says it will cost about $120 for 3 cars every month or about $40/car assuming a lot of stuff like charging at night and driving 30 miles per day. which are very reasonable assumptions.
but using the PGE calculator it shows price per kwh is $0.14 to $0.34 per kwh
yes you are claiming $0.42 and only a few cents cheaper if you do some paperwork???
bottom line is this kind of stuff requires one research what the rates are at various times, making sure you are getting the best rates and when you aren't calling up pge and asking waht the heck is going on.

if you are biased and think e-cars dont' save money to begin with then your results might reflect that bias.
that being said you are right, the cost needs to be about 28 cents or cheaper for them to save money at 30 cents it's probably break even comapred to gas, good luck.

Like I said, the cost is $.42 per kilowatt hour at peak and $.39 per kilowatt hour off peak. When you do the math charging at that rate and break it down into how many miles you get it works out to about the same as a gas powered car. The energy bill for common area in the building is ridiculously high and the HOA is trying to save wherever they can which is why they want to recover cost of the energy used by people charging their electric vehicles.

you should probabaly read the whole thread and the laws that are being implemented in CA that are forcing condos to install charging stations before you type a non viable solution out.