charging at work

Chat about all things battery in here.
Need to know what type to use or size or capacity then again place your thoughts here
User avatar
Kevin Sharpe
Posts: 489
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 5:39 pm
Location: Bradford on Avon
Contact:

charging at work

Postby Kevin Sharpe » Wed Feb 16, 2011 12:03 pm

EV_dub wrote:The Problem with my EV is having to own another car for the extra long trips.
Have you considered investing the time, money, and effort in having "Charge Points" installed at the locations that you plan to visit? A 240V 32A "Commando" socket can be installed for very little money, and many pubs and restaurants are happy to help... I know this is not as versatile as towing your own generator but would be part of the long term solution for all EV drivers.
Kevin Sharpe - Founder and Patron for UK registered charity Zero Carbon World. Founder and Chairman Mainpine Group. http://about.me/kevinsharpe

User avatar
EV_dub
Posts: 93
Joined: Sun Jan 24, 2010 8:31 pm
Location: Dorset/Devon

Re: range extending generator

Postby EV_dub » Wed Feb 16, 2011 5:22 pm

Kevin Sharpe wrote:
EV_dub wrote:The Problem with my EV is having to own another car for the extra long trips.
Have you considered investing the time, money, and effort in having "Charge Points" installed at the locations that you plan to visit? A 240V 32A "Commando" socket can be installed for very little money, and many pubs and restaurants are happy to help... I know this is not as versatile as towing your own generator but would be part of the long term solution for all EV drivers.

Hi Kevin
Yes I did try this approach at the airport where I work. My employer looked into the cost of an official charging point and the figure was atound 50k. The cost not only come from the expensive equipment but also the liabity the company have with ensuring the user recieves the electricity they pay for. The cost of hiring equipemt to take card payments and the extra insurance costs. In the end they just installed a 16amp socket for myself and any other employee providing they signed and liability contract. Ad for investing my money into public charge points, I'm afraid I'm only a hobbyists and not a business or charity.
1993 Veedub Golf, 156v, 1200A, 150ah's

User avatar
Kevin Sharpe
Posts: 489
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 5:39 pm
Location: Bradford on Avon
Contact:

Re: range extending generator

Postby Kevin Sharpe » Wed Feb 16, 2011 6:37 pm

EV_dub wrote:Ad for investing my money into public charge points, I'm afraid I'm only a hobbyists and not a business or charity.
I fully understand... just for the record this charge point hardware costs less than £100 and supports two vehicle charging (1 x 32A and 1 x 13A);

http://twitpic.com/3q8jan

We have found that many hotels, restaurants, and pubs are prepared to take on the cost of the installation if we provide the charge point hardware. If they install on their own property then they can also accept the liability as part of their standard insurance with no extra costs (basically they need the system installed by a NICEIC Electrician and have the system tested every 6 months or so).
Kevin Sharpe - Founder and Patron for UK registered charity Zero Carbon World. Founder and Chairman Mainpine Group. http://about.me/kevinsharpe

User avatar
EV_dub
Posts: 93
Joined: Sun Jan 24, 2010 8:31 pm
Location: Dorset/Devon

Re: range extending generator

Postby EV_dub » Thu Feb 17, 2011 12:56 pm

Kevin Sharpe wrote:
EV_dub wrote:Ad for investing my money into public charge points, I'm afraid I'm only a hobbyists and not a business or charity.
I fully understand... just for the record this charge point hardware costs less than £100 and supports two vehicle charging (1 x 32A and 1 x 13A);

http://twitpic.com/3q8jan

We have found that many hotels, restaurants, and pubs are prepared to take on the cost of the installation if we provide the charge point hardware. If they install on their own property then they can also accept the liability as part of their standard insurance with no extra costs (basically they need the system installed by a NICEIC Electrician and have the system tested every 6 months or so).


Looks like a great temp solution and I would happily encourage the use of these. I think the problem is making a fair
service for all customers, employees. If they are prepaired to pay for cost of my electricity why shouldnt they contribute for the fuel for another person??
Theres a meter on my charge point at work ánd the cost is deducted from my wages. This is not because they arent prepaired to cover the cost, but to make it fair on the other 150 engineers who pay for their own fuel.

However I do think there should be more incentives like this to encourage the use of electric vehicles. :D
1993 Veedub Golf, 156v, 1200A, 150ah's

User avatar
ChrisB
Posts: 4657
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2006 11:33 am
Location: Hampshire on the Southcoast
Contact:

Re: range extending generator

Postby ChrisB » Mon Feb 21, 2011 11:05 pm

EV_dub wrote:Theres a meter on my charge point at work ánd the cost is deducted from my wages. This is not because they arent prepaired to cover the cost, but to make it fair on the other 150 engineers who pay for their own fuel.


This is one problem I'm suffering from at my works currently, they see it as a taxable perk if I dont pay for the lecy, which in theory it is :?

ChrisB
I reject reality and substitute my own !!!!!!

User avatar
timpootle
Posts: 1362
Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2007 12:13 pm
Location: Chorlton-cum-Hardy, UK

Re: range extending generator

Postby timpootle » Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:37 pm

Aargh! Can we knock this one on the head quickly, please? Charging your electric car is a taxable perk, and you are paying for the 'leccy out of your wages?

Has anyone actually done the maths to see how much the company is subsidising your journey to work, as compared with the administration cost of finding out how much money to take off you? How long are your contributions going to be paying off the cost of the meter, before you start paying for the electricity itself? And does your present arrangement allow other employees to charge their EVs, or do you pay for all the electricity coming through that meter out of your wages?

http://www.batteryvehiclesociety.org.uk ... ionsV1.pdf
Collecting Payments
Commercial charging posts with payment facilities are available, but cost thousands
of pounds each. The described facility can be installed at a fraction of the price but
has no means of metering electricity use. Considering the low cost of the electricity
consumed, many organisations decide that the publicity available from offering free
re-charging facilities is more valuable than the revenue from taking payment; hence
there is little justification for the extra expenditure on complex charging point
installations and their maintenance (metering and payment systems). A typical
electric car might consume 2kWh (about 20p) for a one hour charge and 10kWh (10
units, about £1) for a full charge, depending on electricity tariff and time of day.


The idea of "taxable perk" sounds like we are getting HMRC involved. It would be really useful to get a categorical statement from them saying that they don't want to know anything about EV charging of employee's vehicles, as a policy to encourage their uptake. Does anyone here know where we start to get this agreed?

My view point comes from the older generation of EVs with ~20kWh of installed storage, using "slow-charging" (maybe 4kW limit?). Newer vehicles with bigger batteries and fast-charging may well be taking enough electricity to make metering cost-effective. Opinions?

The above post was written trying to avoid the linguistic minefield of "current" (electricity flow/present time) and "charging" (electricity/money). I hope I made myself clear.

I don't want any of the above to negate the good work EV_dub has done in getting his charging point installed at all. I realise getting companies to do something when they can't see any benefit to themselves is a really big hurdle. But I do believe that accounting for the electricity used is counter-productive.

Also in the BVS repository:
http://www.batteryvehiclesociety.org.uk ... intsV1.pdf
Tim Crumpton

Grumpy-b
Posts: 991
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 12:06 pm

Re: charging at work

Postby Grumpy-b » Thu Feb 24, 2011 4:37 pm

I work in the public sector, and one point of allowing us to top up, is the reduction in CO2 that the organisation gains as a result of us using electric vehicles. This has a value and could be considered as part of the offsetting process. We effectively reduce the Carbom impact of our organisations function.
In addition, I no longer claim any mileage allowance whilst I am travelling on business but I do use power supplied by the organisation to top up / replensish. This has a financial gain for my employer overall.
Basically they are not concerned at the current situation, and I do not believe that HMRC would be either given the small sums concerned, and the cost of collection. You can also offer to pay for the electricity, and I did do this when I first started to use my Blingo.
Over time this will become an issue, but when publicly funded initiatives to extend use of evs and pay for charge points require free supply of power, I really dont see how the pursuit of this by HMRC would fit in with Governments objectives.
Perhaps some form of discussion with the transport Minister would actually be beneficial. This Government is not keen on speaking with forked tongue and is keen to be green and seen to be encouraging new technologies.


Grumpy-b

User avatar
ChrisB
Posts: 4657
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2006 11:33 am
Location: Hampshire on the Southcoast
Contact:

Re: charging at work

Postby ChrisB » Thu Feb 24, 2011 8:35 pm

Interesting, I was told that it would be deemed a taxable perk as others have to pay for their own travel costs to work and thus if they gave it to me for free then it would be classified as a taxable perk regardless of the amount.
I counter acted that with parking, we have to pay for our parking on site HOWEVER car share folks get their parking reduced or in some cases for free if they car share with a full car.

I asked the question isnt this a "taxable perk then "...............much mutterings went on :lol:

I must admit I need to revisit this with my lot

ChrisB
I reject reality and substitute my own !!!!!!

User avatar
Peter Eggleston
Posts: 162
Joined: Tue Apr 10, 2007 9:12 pm
Location: Tyne Valley Northumberland

Re: charging at work

Postby Peter Eggleston » Fri Feb 25, 2011 12:41 am

My company allowed me to charge my truck at work for 7 years. Then we got a new boss who decided to save money by stopping me from charging. He saved about 50p per day. He also stopped everyone from charging their mobile phones at work so oooh another 50p saved there at least. This guy has now moved on and I am now allowed to charge at work again. The company's stance is that they like to support green issues.
Calling charging at work a perk which people who pay for their own fuel do not get is not valid since everyone chooses to live a different distance from work and pays accordingly depending on how they travel. Someone who walks to work pays nothing.
Rant rant. I'll shut up now.
Peter

User avatar
Jeremy
Posts: 472
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:35 pm
Location: Salisbury

Re: charging at work

Postby Jeremy » Fri Feb 25, 2011 7:36 am

As a (now retired) "boss" I can put another perspective on this, perhaps, but not directly from a battery charging perspective. Many years ago I was sent North to manage an establishment in a remote rural area, with no public transport links to the workplace. For many years a minibus had been used to go to the nearest town, some 8 miles away, to pick up the post from the post office early in the morning. It had become "custom and practice" for a few employees to jump on the bus and use it to come to work. Similarly, there was another post run at the end of the day, taking the outgoing post to the post office, which would take these people home again.

Personally I thought this was an admirable arrangement, it didn't cost us anything (we'd have been running a vehicle on these trips anyway) and it provided a useful service for staff who either didn't own, or chose not to use, a car.

Step in what was then still the Inland Revenue. They came one day to do an audit and went through our accounts etc with a fine tooth comb. This took all day and as they left the auditor spotted the minibus full of people at the gate. He marched back in and asked if that was "company provided transport", where we explained the circumstances. A few days later we received a letter from the Inland Revenue reminding us of the responsibility of the employer when it came to declaring taxable benefits to employees and pretty much demanding that we make sure that all using the minibus paid income tax equivalent to the IR mileage rate (which, at that time, meant taxing staff around 6p per mile for using the minibus).

Needless to say I was the bad guy when I enforced this, as the majority of the staff assumed (wrongly) that it was just a cost-cutting exercise on my part. The reality was that the whole thing cost us money, because the extra work involved in collecting information about who had used the bus and when was costly, particularly as the IR were demanding three years back tax from everyone.

Since then the rules have changed, and company provided transport to and from a place of work is no longer regarded as a taxable benefit, provided that it is open to all employees to use. If company transport is selective and is only available to some employees then it's still seen as a taxable benefit. Fuel for personal vehicles for travel to and from a place of work, in whatever form, is still seen as a taxable benefit, too.

An employer who provides free charging points for staff is laying him or her self open to action from HMRC, depending on whether or not it gets picked up and whether or not the particular HMRC employee who spots it is a real jobsworth or not. Once detected by HMRC I doubt that an employer would have any significant influence over the outcome, even if common sense dictates that it's too small an issue to get worked up about, from a tax value perspective.

Jeremy


Return to “All things battery related”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 30 guests