[Craig063]

Hi all. I've pre-ordered an ID.4, and am eagerly awaiting my first EV. My company has had us working from home during COVID, so I haven't been to the office in almost a year. It turns out, though, that we're moving to a new office building in April. I did a drive by of the new building today and it has six Chargepoint chargers (Level 2) that are free for employees and customers. This excited me quite a bit, as I can charge at work and minimize my fuel expenses even more!

When I got home I looked at the Chargepoint map, as well as plugshare, and the chargers were not listed either place. Is this because they're considered "private", or is it because they're relatively new and haven't been listed in the system yet?

If it's a dumb question I apologize. I'm very new to the EV world and just learning more about public charging and the rules and etiquette surrounding it. It doesn't help that my state isn't super-EV friendly, so we don't have chargers on every corner. Yet.

 

[egsell]

My company has installed a couple at one of our offices, they have been in service for over a year now and do not show on the map. I suspect that owner/operators have the choice of whether the EVSE devices are listed.

 

[Craig063]

My company has installed a couple at one of our offices, they have been in service for over a year now and do not show on the map. I suspect that owner/operators have the choice of whether the EVSE devices are listed.

That makes sense to me. And as they even say they’re for employees and customers, they probably don’t want a lot of extra traffic in the lot.

 

[egsell]

I suppose there could be a whole "Hidden EVSE" network out there.

 

[ErickF]

My plan is that, if it's on the Chargepoint app (or similar), it's available for public use outside business hours. If there's signage that specifies "for employee use," I'll drive on. When I do use one of these, I'll stay with with my vehicle and yield to anyone that seems to belong there more than me.

 

[MLopez]

Sometimes they are public, but you need to pay a fee to use the parking lot or garage. Other times, they're only for employee use. It's kind of been trial and error for me as an e-golf driver for the past three years

 

[Huey52]

The electrical utilities in my area offer a considerable infrastructure installation discount to office buildings, etc. to make their chargers public so I am encouraged we'll have even more options.
Alas they don't offer those discounts to homeowners but can be made public as well.

 

[Huey52]

No dumb questions around here. Many are new to this EV environment and even seasoned hands are learning. Welcome!

... If it's a dumb question I apologize. I'm very new to the EV world and just learning more about public charging and the rules and etiquette surrounding it. It doesn't help that my state isn't super-EV friendly, so we don't have chargers on every corner. Yet.

 

[stealthg]

Yea, I tend to stay away from office park charging stations. At my previous job, there were a lot of politics around them (executives ICE’ing the spaces initially because they were close, people from the other company where we shared a road coming down to use them, which lead to them getting their own). There also may be internal processes for those spaces as well. At my wife’s university, they have an EV drivers email group and they let each other know who’s charging and move their cars when completely charged. They are open to the public, but not a lot of people want to park in a random university parking lot with nothing else to do. 🤣

 

[nigela]

Where I worked, we had a ChargePoint charger installed for employee use, free for two hours and then $$ after that. It definitely was not a public charger. For one thing, company parking lots are private property, so non employees are trespassing.

Some company provided chargers are tied to employee credentials, requiring a layer of verification.

tl;dr: no, they are not public chargers