Home owners offering public charging services from their garage; Is that really a thing?

festus_mcBitcoin

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I'm totally new to electric vehicles, with a 2021 TTS scheduled for Jun 4 delivery. I'm trying to learn more about the apps owners use to stay charged, and of course I came across PlugShare.

I couldn't help but notice that some PlugShare users are posting their home address and offering to charge strangers' vehicles. Is that actually a thing? Seems risky for them to invite randoms into their home. So how does that work? Do they accept credit cards or cash just like a standard charging station? Here's an illustrative screenshot from PlugShare.

Porsche Taycan Home owners offering public charging services from their garage; Is that really a thing? Screen Shot 2021-03-05 at 8.06.10 AM


So I guess you'd just text the dude and say, "Hey, I'm outside your garage"?? Doesn't even show a price.
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Dak

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I was an early adopter of electric cars. I’ve driven an EV exclusively since 2014. During the early days the charging infrastructure was not widespread and the cars of the day (Nissan Leaf) had small batteries and low range (80mi). It was good to have this informal network of chargers which you could rely on in a pinch. Usually the owners didn’t charge anything for a fellow EV enthusiast to come and charge at their place. I imagine this doesn’t happen very often now a days with the wide availability of level 2 and level 3 chargers. Still it’s good to know that you sometimes have an option if your car is about to run out of charge and there aren’t commercial chargers nearby
 

JimBob

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Yeah, I hear the Bates motel has a charger. You might want to drop by.
 

rbt3

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I was an early adopter of electric cars. I’ve driven an EV exclusively since 2014. During the early days the charging infrastructure was not widespread and the cars of the day (Nissan Leaf) had small batteries and low range (80mi). It was good to have this informal network of chargers which you could rely on in a pinch. Usually the owners didn’t charge anything for a fellow EV enthusiast to come and charge at their place. I imagine this doesn’t happen very often now a days with the wide availability of level 2 and level 3 chargers. Still it’s good to know that you sometimes have an option if your car is about to run out of charge and there aren’t commercial chargers nearby
I was, (like Dak and a few others on this forum) a very early adopter of EV transportation. I purchased my first Tesla Model S P85 in Dec 2012, and actually took Fremont factory delivery in Feb 2013. At the time Tesla gave you a tour of the factory, saw Elon's work space with the Motor Trend Car of the Year trophy on his desk! It was a surreal experience at the time, and frankly scary to think I had to drive home to Las Vegas from Northern California with new tech and a fledgling Supercharger network, unsure of what may go wrong. Fortunately, I made it home over 2 days with a stop in Los Angeles overnight by choice. I used Tesla SC and destination charging along the way, and never had to use someone's home charging station, but was very glad some made it available to me. There was a collegiality and camaraderie among early EV drivers that extended to courtesy when it came to being able to live with the technology, that is largely unnecessary today 8-9 years later. Many of us gladly offered to share charging capability with other owners and were happy to meet other owners of our EV's, especially Tesla, which had a somewhat cult-like following back then. It was fun to meet "car #3" at a Tesla SC station and talk cars, which extended to some of our homes. To me this forum is similar in that we are all early adopters of the first Porsche EV experience, and we like sharing our stories and challenges with other owners. I don't offer destination charging at my home currently, but if a Taycan owner needed a quick charge, I'm sure I would consider helping out in a pinch, mainly just to talk about our cars and compare notes.
 


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yes back in the early days there was camaraderie amongst owners. I took my tesla on an extended trip to colorado and was in a ski town and a tesla owner there had listed his charger on plugshare at his ski house there and graciously allowed me access to it.

to the OP yes it was a thing when chargers were few and far between but now the huge explosion in the availability of chargers contacting an EV owner and going to his home to charge is less of a thing.
 

epirali

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Keep in mind some people may have outdoor charging units (like we have at our work) and if the house is locked they would have no issue with someone plugging in to charge assuming they weren't using it.
 
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festus_mcBitcoin

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Keep in mind some people may have outdoor charging units (like we have at our work) and if the house is locked they would have no issue with someone plugging in to charge assuming they weren't using it.
Sweet. Wow, EVs truly are a different world. In a good way.
 


 




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