from Hacker News

I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

by karlding on 10/18/22, 4:39 AM with 184 comments

• by socialismisok on 10/18/22, 6:24 AM

  "I'd have to bring my electrical systems up to code and that's expensive for my 80 year old house"

  Well, yeah. I suppose it would be. I'm a bit surprised this is a surprise to the landlord. Also, many of the costs here are looming anyways. It's a matter of when, not if, the electrical needs updating to meet code.

• by breput on 10/18/22, 6:30 AM

  The electrical code has evolved not only to enrich electricians, but also to provide a safer environment for the occupants of the buildings. So noting/complaining about having to upgrade an 82 year old rental duplex to modern standards because of electric car charging is a little disingenuous. That wiring is already past the end of life and ought to be updated for the safety of the occupants.

  But I wouldn't be surprised if the 2023 (maybe 2026) NEC will require at least 30A 240V service to garages with electrical service.

• by natch on 10/18/22, 6:48 AM

  You do not need an EV charger to charge your EV. A 110 or 220 outlet with a cord and an adapter will work just fine. Apologies for the US centric terminology but I expect the situation is roughly the same (though numbers vary) elsewhere.

  We did TWO Teslas in an apartment for two years sharing (alternating cars) a single plug of a single 110 outlet. It was fine. With this arrangement, yes, on days where you do big trips, there’s a supercharger visit, But normally, an outlet is totally sufficient.

  An installed charger does add some very, very minor convenience (no adapter, big deal… not worth the cost). And if it needs to be shared and bills split, that’s different. But for basic charging no special installation is needed as long as you can reach.

  I made this second copy of my comment because while profanity (in the other comment) makes some people take notice, it gives others the excuse they need to tune out the message, which is the same for both comments:

  You don't need to install a charger.

• by oceanplexian on 10/18/22, 6:50 AM

  I lived in a ranch-style home in California. Literally added a new breaker, ran 30’ of Romex rated for 50A, and wired up an EV charger in about 2-3 hours. It’s not rocket science.

  Now, obviously some panels don’t have the space, or the service to the house isn’t enough amps but if that’s a case why aren’t you upgrading a 50 year-old electrical panel anyway? It sounds like OP had a bunch of deferred electrical maintenance to begin with but wants to blame it on EVs.

• by gorkish on 10/18/22, 3:47 PM

  Siemens has a new product that basically bypasses this entire problem by installing as a mezzanine connector into the power meter. Called the ConnectDER https://connectder.com/

  Regardless of what people will continue to claim, a 110V 15A outlet is really not enough. It's possible if you live your life on a strict schedule, drive very little, are very diligent about keeping your car plugged in, and don't mind having to go to a public charger routinely to sit for half an hour because you couldn't be bothered to hire an electrician one time to make the situation better for you in any possible way.

• by natch on 10/18/22, 6:32 AM

  Profanity alert. Don’t read this if you are sensitive.

  You. Do. Fucking. Not. Need. An EV charger, to charge your EV. A 110 or 220 outlet with a cord and an adapter will work just fine. Apologies for the US centric terminology but I expect the situation is roughly the same (though numbers vary) elsewhere.

  We did TWO Teslas in an apartment for two years sharing (alternating cars) a single plug of a single 110 outlet. It was fine. Yes, on days where you do big trips, there’s a supercharger visit, But normally, an outlet is totally sufficient.

  An installed charger does add some very, very minor convenience (no adapter, big deal… not worth the cost). And if it needs to be shared and bills split, that’s different. But for basic charging no special installation is needed as long as you can reach.

• by chiph on 10/18/22, 9:03 PM

  I think the straw that broke the camel's back was the city's demand that they relocate the electrical panels. This means that all the interior wiring in the house now has to run to the new panel location - a huge expense. I'm not sure why they couldn't just move only the meters to be more accessible to the power company & firefighters[1] and then run a longer service cable from there to the original panels. That would be much cheaper.

  I plan to add a charger to my rental property, either when my current tenant buys an EV or when they move out (to avoid disrupting them). The home is fairly new and was built with 200 amp service so I don't anticipate any permit problems. The idea is to differentiate my property in the marketplace and justify a higher rent.

  What I don't want is a tenant running a homemade 240v cable to the outlet for the electric clothes dryer and manually plugging/unplugging back & forth. That's unsafe.

  [1] The fire department will pull the meter when they arrive and start fighting a fire, so they aren't spraying water on live circuits.

• by tuatoru on 10/18/22, 11:06 PM

  Back when ICE cars first came along, owners bought cans of gasoline from their local general store and stored them in their stables (now garages). They recharged their cars at home. This seems like the era we are now in with respect to electric vehicles.

  There are some EV fleets for which charging downtime is not palatable (taxis in busy cities, for example). Swappable batteries have been developed and are being used by some of those fleets.

  The next step is standardization of swappable batteries, and divestment of battery swapping and maintenance into a separate company from fleet operation. The third step is the separate company offering services to the public.

  As vehicles built for these fleets are sold used, they will spread to households.

  Then we are back to "gas" stations/service stations.

  The logic seems sound. Rather than having to build charging complexity into every vehicle, and supply tens of millions or hundreds of millions of chargers, charging can be done at merely hundreds of thousands of charging stations, with the customer having a three minute trip through something like a car wash booth.

• by jhoelzel on 10/18/22, 6:44 AM

  Im just rebuilding my own house from the last century. You as a landlord did not upgrade your eletrical system and the current one is probably held together by straws ;)

  The title should be "what? You do really need a pesky netural wire for EV charging, who knew"?

• by technotarek on 10/18/22, 6:49 AM

  As a comparison, we just did a similar project in Washington DC for our ~105 year old row house. It cost us ~$2500 including permits and all materials except that actual EV charger unit (blanking on what that’s called). But that is BEFORE federal+DC tax credits worth about $1k.

  Situations differ. Local policies and code differ. For a couple thousand dollars, my car will be fully sun powered (from our 11Kwh rooftop solar system). Gas savings over the life of the car should more than make up for it.

  (We had previously upgraded our panel to handle more load and offer more slots when we renovated, but even that was under $3k.)

• by dmitrygr on 10/18/22, 2:45 PM

  We (the HOA) tried to do this in a townhouse complex (where I own one unit) in Mountain View. The story went similarly, except the last step. Instead of telling us that we’ll need to relocate meters, the utility told us that they consider our neighborhood “complete” and they will not be running a thicker line to our buildings to allow for the now-code-required 125A panels. So thanks to their laziness, we can never ever do any electrical work in any unit, since getting permits requires upgrades to current code, and the electrical company won’t do their part no matter what, and without their part, compliance with current code is impossible.

• by mjevans on 10/18/22, 6:19 AM

  TL;DR improving a property triggers mandates like bringing the whole thing up to code (I'm personally OK with this generally) and also the potential to shoulder ore share costs to improve the surrounding infrastructure (I'm against this, it's similar to the problems broadband rollouts face when attaching to aging poles in that if they find an issue it's suddenly their problem to pay for).

  IMO the solution is top down and should require public planning to scale infrastructure to desired standards in a planned way. It should also require updates to modern code rather than allowing older and probably unsafe (code changed for good reason) buildings around until they fail (usually in a catastrophic way).

  It's also bad that there aren't good ways to save for such updates, far too often short term needs prevail rather than doing things right the first time. I'm not sure if taxes to encourage and fund improvements or ways of saving money tax free towards major expenditures (which are then taxed at that time) are better, but there should be some process.

• by FatalLogic on 10/18/22, 6:48 AM

  As an interim solution, the property owner might be able to install large batteries (for example Powerwall) that renters could use to charge their vehicles. The batteries could be charged continuously, without overloading the old electrical service

  Probably this wouldn't be enough if every renter was a heavy EV user, but it could be good for a few years, and also would be useful for power outages and to take advantage of off-peak rates in future

  Metering and payment would be an issue, but it should be possible to find a solution for that

• by foogazi on 10/18/22, 4:15 PM

  > As EVs become more common, more landlords will be driven to invest in vehicle charging.

  Can EVs become more common without tenants being able to charge them ?

• by bhhaskin on 10/18/22, 6:20 AM

  This is one of the many reasons why I firmly believe that hydrogen hybrid are the future to replace gas vehicles. Charging at mass scale is just not feasible nor practical for most people.

  We can't even roll broadband out properly let alone the massive amounts of infrastructure required to deliver enough power to every home. That leaves centralized charging hubs which will quickly become overwhelmed and a massive time sink.

• by eyelidlessness on 10/18/22, 6:35 AM

  > and charge higher rents

  Yeah no thanks.

• by puffoflogic on 10/18/22, 6:26 PM

  Remember, if you aren't wealthy enough to be able to make these kinds of changes or buy a new home which doesn't need them, that means you're in the pocket of big oil. Or something, idk.

• by seibelj on 10/18/22, 6:28 AM

  "Almost 1/3 of San Francisco charging stations are broken"

  https://www.electrive.com/2022/05/13/almost-1-3-of-san-franc...

  There are... a lot of problems yet to be solved in the perfect electrified future. I hope it happens, if only to move all the pollution from cars to the power plants far away. I have found it hard to discuss the negative / illogical aspects with true believers, which is normally fine, except now the developed world is paying a shitload of taxes to fund the dreams of true believers - logic and economics be damned.