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Hi, I'm Gary and this is EV Musings, a podcast about renewables, electric vehicles and
things that are interesting to electric vehicle owners.

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on the show today we'll be looking at sharing your home charger.

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Our main topic of discussion today is charger sharing.

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getting electric cars, the market share for new EVs is above 25 % now, there are a higher
and higher number of chargers being installed on people's driveways.

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For the vast majority of these times, these chargers are not being used.

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Now, if your car is out of the house all day, then the charger is free and it's only being
used at night.

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If you work from home, your car will usually be charged

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either on solar if you have it or via overnight rates if you don't and is effectively not
adding any value to anyone once your car is charged.

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What if there was a way to use your charger and have it earn some money for you while
you're not using it?

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Well good news is there is and it's called charger sharing.

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Now we did a complete episode on this many seasons ago with Joel Teague who is the CEO of
Co-Charger Now their model is simple.

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They have an app that allows people with chargers to rent their chargers out to people
without chargers.

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The financials are defined between each party with Co-Charger taking a small fee.

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Since that episode aired, the market for charger sharing has expanded and there are now
several different options available.

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So today I want to take a look at the pros and cons of this and help listeners know if you
might be in the right position to take advantage of charger sharing.

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Now it's something of a tradition in neighbourhoods that if you need something that you
don't have and your neighbour has it, you can go over and ask to borrow it.

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I've done it several times where I live because my neighbour has a fantastic electric
hedge trimmer and I don't.

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He lends me it, I trim the hedge and we're all good.

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Now if he needs to park his car on my drive when he has visitors, I let him.

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It's all part and parcel of being a good neighbour.

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However, as soon as you start to bring the financial aspect into things, this relationship
changes.

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If you went over to your neighbour and asked to siphon off a couple of gallons of unleaded
every night without payment,

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that could become a different thing entirely.

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Charger sharing is very similar.

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What you're effectively doing as a charger share is saying to neighbours or even complete
strangers, hey, come over here, plug into my electricity supply and suck out as many

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electrons as you need to get on your way.

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With the price of electricity at the moment, the cost to you can be anything from £2.50
per charge right up to about £30 per charge, depending on the time of day and the charge

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received.

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Plug in a Polestar 3, for example, 110 kilowatt hour battery into charge during the day on
a typical

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peak rate charger of 30pkWh can set you back £33 if the battery is empty and is charging
right up to 100%.

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So how does charger sharing work?

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Well basically it's all app driven.

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You create a host account on the app, co-charger, JOOSUP just park etc.

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and then you log the details of your charger, speed, availability and price and wait.

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Anyone who has the app but is not a host can then see all the chargers available for them
in their area.

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They can use the app to book a charge and you, as the host, are notified.

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Then it's the simple case of turning up, plugging in and charging.

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All the payment is dealt with via the app.

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So how do the apps deal with the tricky concept of pricing?

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Well, generally the charger sharing apps ask you to provide a cost per kilowatt hour for
using your charger.

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And this is where it becomes interesting.

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Now, if you're only allowing charging at night and you're on a cheap charging tariff, you
can add a rate of say 10 pence a kilowatt hour to cover your electricity and make a small

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profit.

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But if you're allowing people to charge during the day,

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The rate has to be enough to cover the fact that your day rate is often considerably
higher than your overnight off-peak tariff.

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Now, I have neighbors with electric vehicles who are on a fixed rate tariff for
electricity of 20pkWh 24-7.

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Now, yes, they're not benefiting from cheap overnight charging, but they are getting
cheaper electricity than most other people during the day.

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As a result, they can stick their charger onto an app and charge, say, 25pkWh and make
money at that rate.

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But will anybody pay

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25pkWh

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to charge their car on somebody else's driveway?

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Well the short answer is yes.

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If you live in a dwelling where you can't charge at home, so a flat for example, your
options for charging are limited to whatever public charging you can find in the local

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area.

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There are very, very few options where you can charge an electric car for 25pckwh on a
public network.

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Tesla offer a rate around that overnight if you have a subscription.

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But that means literally sitting in your car at a charger in the middle of the night.

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The only street charging solution I know that comes anywhere near that is the Char.gy
offering of 39pkWh at their chargers.

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If you live in a city where they operate, that's still a good deal and cheaper than the
rate for petrol and diesel, especially nowadays.

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If you don't, 25pkWh becomes very attractive.

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Now we could talk theoretically about charger sharing all day long.

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But when the rubber metaphorically hits the road, what's the shared charger experience
actually like?

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Well, let's bring in somebody who's actually done this.

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So my name is Michael.

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am, I'm a multiple business owner is the easiest way to describe it, but I am also in the
world of performing arts.

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So I've done a few things over the years.

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I did theatre for many, many years and now occasionally I do a bit of TV and film, but few
and far between, but I enjoy it when I'm there.

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And as part of that, you and I have had lots and lots of discussions um about things like
electric vehicles.

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And as a result of that, you're what I call one of my success stories.

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And you've moved to electric.

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Now, we've had you on the show before.

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You've talked about that.

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But one of the aspects of that that I want to cover today is the whole concept of sharing
a charger.

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Now, you've been sharing your charger for quite a while now, I understand.

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So take me back to.

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that time when you had your charger installed and you thought, you know, there might be
the possibility of making a bit of money out of this.

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What was your thought process?

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I believe it was actually listening to the podcast, Gary.

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So thank you for bringing that into my life.

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I believe you have the chap who runs co-charger on and I heard that episode and I thought,
actually, this makes full sense because ultimately my car only needs a little bit of

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charge every so often.

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It doesn't need a massive amount.

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It's a Hyundai Ioniq, it's a 38 kilowatt hour battery and an overnight charge.

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I can charge that from zero to a hundred percent every night if I wished.

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Obviously I will never need to do that, but if I needed to, I could.

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Ultimately, I don't drive enough miles to charge

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every single day, in which case I heard the episode and thought, oh, great idea.

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Why don't I just hire it out?

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So that was the process.

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You are of course referring to Joel Teague who runs Cocharger.

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Fantastic organization, as I say, I'll put a link to that episode in the show notes for
those who want to go and look at that or listen to it.

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I think it was just audio at that point.

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So yes, it's a listen only episode for that one.

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Now, obviously you've selected, as a result of that discussion, Cocharge came onto your
radar.

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Are you aware or were you aware at the time of any other charger sharing options that are
around?

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I hate to disappoint you, but no.

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Very short answer.

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At that point in time, I was really, really new to electric vehicles.

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The technology was all up and coming.

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All the apps were kind of being built.

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Even back then, we're talking like five, six years ago, ZapMap was fantastic and it still
is fantastic, but it's come along dramatically in that period of time.

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And now it's like, you know, there's a lot more different levels of support you can get on
there if you wish.

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And it was similar back then.

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There wasn't really that much around.

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So after listening to the episode, did some research, got on board.

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Since then, I believe there's another company called Charge Share.

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I might be mistaken, but I believe that's what they're called.

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And I've also got their app as well, but I have never had any interest from anybody on
Charge Share.

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So it's all co-charged.

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Yeah, there are a couple of others.

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Juicer, J-O-O-S-U-P is another one.

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And I think, is it Park and Charge actually do a home charger sharing option on their app?

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So the underlying infrastructure is getting better and better and better.

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So, you you've been doing this, how long have you actually been sharing your charger?

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Ooh.

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So it was back, we started in our old house when we had a little pod point.

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We've moved house since, which was two and a half years ago.

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So probably about four years, I'd say.

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So slightly hypothetical question, but I'll ask it anyway.

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If you were in that position now where you just decided to share a charger, what would you
do in terms of researching the different apps and the different solutions that are out

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there?

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Because as you say, at the time it was only code charger.

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Now the infrastructure is a little bit more robust.

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Would that change the way you did things?

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I think so.

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Obviously now there's so much more available and there's so much more tech and even as
we're fully aware, it love it or loathe it, AI has come a long way since then as well.

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So ultimately we could get, you know, um a large language model to go and search out and
find those different applications if needed and do a little bit of research into that as

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well.

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So Michael, once you downloaded the co-charge app, what was the actual onboarding process
to get you set up as a co-charger?

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I believe it was quite quick and easy.

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just a case of obviously setting up your profile, doing the email, two facts or
authentication, and then logging in and just basically setting up, setting it all up.

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So really, really quick and easy, took no time at all.

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Now, how did you calculate the value, the cost that you were gonna charge to people who
are gonna use your charges?

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Because there are many different ways of looking at it, this, you do you wanna make money
on this or do you wanna just cover costs and offer a service?

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So what was your attitude?

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What was your approach on this?

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I went down the line of I just feel like where I live, there's a lot of houses, there's a
lot of flats, and there's a lot of people who don't have access to charging or overnight

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charging at a cheap rate like the people who do own properties, we do have driveways, have
that opportunity.

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So my logic was I don't want to overcharge people.

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And especially when you've got the app, obviously you can go in and you can see everybody
else's prices in the local vicinity.

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And it's not that I wanted to undercut people deliberately, but I just wanted to...

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kind of charge people appropriately for what I think it's worth, if that makes sense.

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So yeah, I went on the lower level of things, but that did mean that we ended up picking
up quite a few people quite quickly who did appreciate having that opportunity.

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And in terms of the actual calculation of the price, because I'm assuming you're on a time
of day tariff such as Octopus.

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So are you working on the basis that I'm only going to open up the charger for overnight,
therefore I'll be on the low tariff, the whatever it was, seven and seven and half, nine,

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depending when you, when you joined.

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And I'm going to add a little bit on that.

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Or did you say, right?

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No, I'm going to open it up 24 seven.

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So I'm going to have to find a balance between the

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peak rate, the off peak rate.

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I did a bit of both.

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we do, I say to people, ultimately we do offer it out as an overnight charge.

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And specifically I say that to people just because obviously that's where the value is if
they do want to come and do that.

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But ultimately, even today, I've got uh a lovely Polestar on the driveway who's charging
through the daytime because the chap comes down, parks, we live really close to train

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station.

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goes down to TrayStation, works in London all day, comes back, jumps in his car, drives
off.

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So we do add a similar sort of kind of like top up to the regular rate.

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So obviously we're not out of pocket and obviously Code Charge does have, I believe it's a
12 % kind of general admin fee to use the process anyway, which is fair enough.

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You they've got to make money somewhere and we are talking about such small margins
anyway.

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So ultimately it was, yeah, we are looking at maybe just a similar sort of sliding scale
across the board.

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And is all the, for people who don't know how code charger works, do they deal with all
the payment and you just get a at the end of the month or whatever the equivalent is

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nowadays?

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how does the actual routing of the money work?

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What's the process from that point of view?

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So it's fully automated and built into the app itself.

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So as a consumer, you can open the app, have a little look, see X amount of driveways or
charge points in your area, click on one, then potentially contact the owner and say, I

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see it's free at this time and you're charging this rate.

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Is it available?

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Can I come and charge?

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Once they've done all of that and you've got it all locked in, once they've come and done
the charge, basically when they drive up, they'll...

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kind of authorise it on their end and it will say, you know, the starting rate so it knows
how much has been vended into the vehicle.

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And then after that, obviously they'll put, you know, what the end game was and, you know,
the end goal, I should say, and then work out the finances.

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Once it's done that, then it deals with the whole payment system and you pop in your bank
details and then you get the money in your account.

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So it's really, it is really, really straightforward and open and honest and simple
really.

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And that brings up sort of the next big question mark that I've always had with
co-chargers, with sharing a charger specifically.

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Is this something where you as the owner have to be there when the co-charger comes up or
does the app link into your charger or does that have to be managed separately?

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What's the physical logistics of someone pulling up to your driveway and getting the whole
thing set up and charging?

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So on our end of it, as long as we know somebody's gonna come at a certain time, obviously
we make sure the space is available, then all they need to do is drive on the driveway,

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plug in the vehicle, and then leave, and that's it.

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So as plain and simple as possible.

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Obviously for people who own chargers where you have got a physical display, like we have
a Zappi, and it has a physical display on the screen, and it will show you exactly how

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much has gone into the vehicle, which is obviously super useful, especially for
co-charging.

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Whereas our previous house was a pod point, so you didn't have that, it would just tell
you on the app, but at least this way.

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The chargee knows exactly by just reading what's on the screen instead of kind
guesstimating how it all works.

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But it is pretty much a contactless service.

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It's all done via the app.

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You don't physically need to be there.

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Obviously, if you have got a smart charger, you need to do your...

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thing back end of the system to make sure it's charging at the right time and making sure
that they are getting the electric.

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I would say the one time we had a fail and that was a lady with a ID4 who wanted an
overnight charge.

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think it was relatively, I mean the vehicle doesn't matter, but she was relatively new to
the EV world.

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She plugged in.

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And I specifically said to her about 20 times, make sure the car does not have any
automated charging set up on the system because it won't work.

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She went away.

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The following day came back for the truck, for the car.

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Obviously hadn't vended anything.

198
00:14:44,292 --> 00:14:47,936
There was no charge had gone into the vehicle and she swore blind.

199
00:14:47,936 --> 00:14:52,529
There was nothing set up in the car, but that was the only way it wouldn't have worked.

200
00:14:52,529 --> 00:14:57,043
And I was like, you have to have done that because there's otherwise it would have
charged.

201
00:14:57,043 --> 00:14:59,506
So here we are, but you know, it's.

202
00:14:59,506 --> 00:15:07,199
As we often talk about, it's all about education and that was potentially the beginning of
her journey and maybe hopefully next time if she did try somewhere else, which was a

203
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little bit closer to where she lived, because she said we live quite far away from her.

204
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Hopefully she managed it and works it all out by then.

205
00:15:13,231 --> 00:15:18,276
And how, I don't know whether this applies, because I know Zappi, you could put a uh pin
code on it.

206
00:15:18,276 --> 00:15:27,844
If you have a pin code protected charger, is there a way of putting that pin into the
Atlight co-charger and say, this is what you need to be putting in, or is that something

207
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you'd physically have to manage as the owner of the charger?

208
00:15:30,918 --> 00:15:33,577
yeah, you could definitely do that via the app.

209
00:15:33,577 --> 00:15:35,885
They have a message function on there anyway, so...

210
00:15:35,885 --> 00:15:42,325
you know, like anything, I guess, like Just Park or any of those similar sorts of apps
where they have options of doing things like that.

211
00:15:42,325 --> 00:15:47,416
You can always message in advance to person and just say, by the way, here's a pin code,
you know.

212
00:15:47,416 --> 00:15:49,547
I mean, we don't have ours pin coded anyway.

213
00:15:49,547 --> 00:15:58,869
just know from probably most people to have this anyway, like we've got our Ring Cam,
there are ones available and also our Zappi charger.

214
00:15:58,869 --> 00:16:03,189
So I know obviously when someone pulls on the drive and they plug in, I know who it is.

215
00:16:03,189 --> 00:16:04,440
I know what vehicle it is.

216
00:16:04,440 --> 00:16:08,570
I mean, I've never had a rogue person rock up and just suddenly plug in.

217
00:16:08,570 --> 00:16:12,915
And if that was the case, I would see who it was and I would stop the vehicle charging
immediately.

218
00:16:12,915 --> 00:16:18,531
So if I was to put your address details on here, nobody would be able to come up and just
plug in willy-nilly.

219
00:16:18,660 --> 00:16:21,387
Hopefully not, as long as I've got a phone signal.

220
00:16:21,387 --> 00:16:25,327
So when you first set this up, what was the uptake like when you added yourself into the
system?

221
00:16:25,327 --> 00:16:29,588
Was it a little like, know, tumbleweed when you started or what?

222
00:16:29,588 --> 00:16:31,089
Yeah, I mean, it was slow.

223
00:16:31,089 --> 00:16:37,752
Obviously, it was back about four or five years ago when electric vehicle ownership was
slightly less.

224
00:16:37,752 --> 00:16:41,284
So there were less people in the vicinity, which probably wanted a charge.

225
00:16:41,284 --> 00:16:44,175
Also, I know we spoke about this many times back then.

226
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This was in the day where there was the occasional public charger, which was free.

227
00:16:48,648 --> 00:16:52,800
And if people are looking for a cheap charge, they potentially could have gone there.

228
00:16:52,800 --> 00:16:54,116
And I know your thoughts on that.

229
00:16:54,116 --> 00:16:58,216
So yeah, was slow, it was slow, but it's picked up a lot over the years.

230
00:16:58,216 --> 00:17:08,936
And have all the people who've used your charger, have they approached you via the app or
have you found people locally and kind of said, by the way, you know, if you need my apps,

231
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my charger is available.

232
00:17:10,219 --> 00:17:14,282
Funnily enough, I've only said that to one person who's my friend.

233
00:17:14,282 --> 00:17:15,412
who lives down the road from me.

234
00:17:15,412 --> 00:17:16,413
He lives really close.

235
00:17:16,413 --> 00:17:18,184
He's recently got an MG5.

236
00:17:18,184 --> 00:17:19,924
He doesn't have a home charger.

237
00:17:19,924 --> 00:17:22,765
His neighbor has a home charger, but he does a lot of public charging.

238
00:17:22,765 --> 00:17:25,578
And I said to him, this is the offering.

239
00:17:25,578 --> 00:17:27,318
You're more than welcome to come down and charge.

240
00:17:27,318 --> 00:17:29,610
You literally are two minutes walk away.

241
00:17:29,610 --> 00:17:31,542
And he's never taken me up on that offer.

242
00:17:31,542 --> 00:17:35,624
So he's the only person I've ever mentioned it to in person just as an offering.

243
00:17:35,624 --> 00:17:37,686
Otherwise everyone else has been via the app.

244
00:17:37,686 --> 00:17:39,207
It's not like I go out and publicize it.

245
00:17:39,207 --> 00:17:41,796
I'm not like come and charge your car guys.

246
00:17:41,796 --> 00:17:42,896
No.

247
00:17:44,101 --> 00:17:48,106
Are there any issues that could potentially arise sort of early morning?

248
00:17:48,106 --> 00:17:51,570
So we assume somebody is going to be plugged in all night.

249
00:17:51,570 --> 00:17:55,558
You may not be getting up until seven o'clock.

250
00:17:55,558 --> 00:18:00,003
may need to leave or disconnect at 5.30, six o'clock, six thirty.

251
00:18:00,003 --> 00:18:05,178
Is that all completely transparent or do you actually need to be there when they unhook as
well?

252
00:18:05,178 --> 00:18:06,429
No, that's absolutely fine.

253
00:18:06,429 --> 00:18:15,207
They can come and unplug and like I said, obviously by the app or via the screen, then you
know how much has been vended from the Zappi anyway.

254
00:18:15,207 --> 00:18:16,278
So it's not a problem.

255
00:18:16,278 --> 00:18:23,455
The only challenge we had recently was doing someone having a night charge into a day
charge.

256
00:18:23,455 --> 00:18:32,250
Now that was a bit of a headache because the guy who normally, the guy with the fabulous
Polestar sitting on the drive now, he'll often arrive about 6.30 in the morning, clearly

257
00:18:32,250 --> 00:18:34,642
goes into work early and you know, that's absolutely fine.

258
00:18:34,642 --> 00:18:39,065
And we have another chap who charges potentially two to three times most weeks.

259
00:18:39,065 --> 00:18:40,696
uses his car for work.

260
00:18:40,696 --> 00:18:43,236
He normally leaves about six every day.

261
00:18:43,236 --> 00:18:52,236
And there was one point where he was charging overnight and he, I think he picked his car
up about quarter to seven instead of the time he told me he was going to pick his car up.

262
00:18:52,236 --> 00:18:55,816
And then the Polestar arrived and I'm not going to lie.

263
00:18:55,816 --> 00:19:00,067
Like I have a three year old, I'm awake at six most days of the week.

264
00:19:00,067 --> 00:19:03,547
And I just messaged him and I said, listen, pop your keys through the door.

265
00:19:03,547 --> 00:19:04,458
It's not a problem.

266
00:19:04,458 --> 00:19:06,129
reverse you on the drive and get you charged.

267
00:19:06,129 --> 00:19:08,342
So it wasn't, it wasn't that much of an issue.

268
00:19:08,342 --> 00:19:12,967
And to be fair, he did message me back and said, if you want Michael, go and take it out
for a drive.

269
00:19:12,967 --> 00:19:13,868
It's a lovely vehicle.

270
00:19:13,868 --> 00:19:16,491
And I was like, thank you very much for the kind offer.

271
00:19:16,491 --> 00:19:22,326
But it's a very expensive vehicle, which uh I do not want to do anything stupid to.

272
00:19:22,326 --> 00:19:27,511
So I just reversed it very, very gently on my driveway, plugged in and left him to it.

273
00:19:27,511 --> 00:19:32,526
Oh, as a Polestar owner myself, I have to say, take any opportunity to go out for a drive
in a Polestar.

274
00:19:32,526 --> 00:19:33,187
Absolutely.

275
00:19:33,187 --> 00:19:38,432
now correct me if I'm wrong, you're not just a one EV family, you're a two EV family,
yeah?

276
00:19:38,567 --> 00:19:48,787
Has that caused any sort of conflict with access to the charges and the need to charge two
vehicles plus potentially have that access to third parties?

277
00:19:48,787 --> 00:19:49,788
Not really.

278
00:19:49,788 --> 00:19:59,334
Initially at the beginning, I thought it could prove a challenge just because we did have
over Christmas and beginning of this year, we had so many regular charges, like literally

279
00:19:59,334 --> 00:20:03,576
six or seven days a week, somebody was on the driveway charging, which was a headache.

280
00:20:03,576 --> 00:20:05,548
A couple of those have dropped off.

281
00:20:05,548 --> 00:20:10,743
for various reasons, not because I don't like them anymore or they're not nice people
because they are and I speak to them and they're lovely.

282
00:20:10,743 --> 00:20:12,855
just, know, logistics and things like that.

283
00:20:12,855 --> 00:20:18,120
But my car has a really, really small battery, which is really lucky and it's very
efficient.

284
00:20:18,120 --> 00:20:22,453
My wife's car Corsa E also, I think it's about a 50 kilowatt hour battery.

285
00:20:22,453 --> 00:20:23,504
So it's not massive.

286
00:20:23,504 --> 00:20:27,958
She doesn't do many miles, thankfully, in which case it works quite well, but.

287
00:20:28,060 --> 00:20:30,774
we do have a three pin charger on the drive as well.

288
00:20:30,774 --> 00:20:41,511
So worst case scenario, if someone is charging and I desperately need to charge, I will
three pin my car at the same time as another vehicle being using the actual, you know,

289
00:20:41,511 --> 00:20:42,769
seven kilowatt charger.

290
00:20:42,769 --> 00:20:47,814
There may be listeners who are, or viewers who are listening or watching this, might
think, like that idea.

291
00:20:47,814 --> 00:20:49,775
I think I've got a charger.

292
00:20:49,775 --> 00:20:51,347
I want to open it up to the public.

293
00:20:51,347 --> 00:20:56,522
Any learnings or any words of advice for somebody who wants to do that from your
experience?

294
00:20:56,522 --> 00:21:00,573
You know what, honestly, like, no, I would say just do it.

295
00:21:00,573 --> 00:21:03,644
The systems out there are so plain and simple to use.

296
00:21:03,644 --> 00:21:10,375
I mean, if you're worried about potentially getting any sort of problems or anything like
that, I mean, I cannot.

297
00:21:10,375 --> 00:21:16,788
explain how many hours and hours and hundreds of hours of time we've had people charging
on our driveway.

298
00:21:16,788 --> 00:21:17,970
We've never had an issue.

299
00:21:17,970 --> 00:21:24,257
I guess the only potential issues you could have is if you had somebody who potentially
couldn't park their car very well.

300
00:21:24,257 --> 00:21:34,021
But we all know EVs come with a lot of safety kit on there anyway, and they should be able
to park their car on your driveway without hitting a front wall or taking off, you know,

301
00:21:34,021 --> 00:21:37,444
or driving into another vehicle or anything stupid like that.

302
00:21:37,444 --> 00:21:38,736
So you should be OK.

303
00:21:38,736 --> 00:21:48,112
Luckily nothing like that has happened with us and to be fair we live on a hill as well so
people have people generally back onto our driveway down a hill which could you know prove

304
00:21:48,112 --> 00:21:48,672
difficult.

305
00:21:48,672 --> 00:21:56,457
Our neighbors our neighbors the other day did say they've had they've reversed a car three
times into their garage door just because it's down quite a steep slope.

306
00:21:56,457 --> 00:21:58,880
We've never had that we've never had that thankfully.

307
00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:02,682
But I just say yeah just crack on and do it I mean it's what can you lose really?

308
00:22:05,650 --> 00:22:05,167
your time as always.

309
00:22:05,167 --> 00:22:06,218
Thanks for joining us.

310
00:22:06,218 --> 00:22:07,062
Thanks.

311
00:22:07,918 --> 00:22:12,863
Now a good use case for sharing a charger is if you have a pavement gully installed.

312
00:22:12,863 --> 00:22:19,521
And we talked about pavement gullies when we interviewed Ben Whittaker from Kerbo Charge
in an earlier episode, link below.

313
00:22:19,521 --> 00:22:26,689
Now they allow a groove to be dug in the pavement outside a terraced house to pass a
charging cable safely across the footpath to charge your car.

314
00:22:26,689 --> 00:22:33,324
And when I spoke with him, he told me that their business model was for one Kerbo Charge
gully for every three houses.

315
00:22:33,324 --> 00:22:40,469
Now all three houses would use a single home charger and charger sharing apps to manage
who gets the charge and when.

316
00:22:40,469 --> 00:22:45,962
Now this has the added advantage that you don't need to be parked right outside your house
to use this.

317
00:22:45,962 --> 00:22:52,546
And you can be in one of three adjacent parking places without issue, providing you have a
long enough charging cable, obviously.

318
00:22:52,730 --> 00:22:54,321
Who shouldn't be a co-charger?

319
00:22:54,321 --> 00:22:56,552
Well, sharing your charger is not for everyone.

320
00:22:56,552 --> 00:23:08,149
I, for example, would probably find it difficult to share my charger because my driveway
layout means I would need to move my car to allow another vehicle to access my charger and

321
00:23:08,149 --> 00:23:10,580
my car would then block the charging vehicle in.

322
00:23:10,580 --> 00:23:14,813
So in the morning I'd need to move my car to allow the car to exit.

323
00:23:14,813 --> 00:23:17,237
If the car needed to be out by say 6 a.m.

324
00:23:17,237 --> 00:23:20,841
That could be an issue for some people who usually don't get up until 7am.

325
00:23:20,841 --> 00:23:23,165
That's not me, but it could be for some people.

326
00:23:23,165 --> 00:23:27,551
There are also things to make sure when it comes to the way the charger interacts with the
car.

327
00:23:27,551 --> 00:23:36,018
For example, I'm on the Intelligent Octopus Go Tariff and that means that whenever a car
is plugged into my charger, the Octopus app will determine when the charge will take

328
00:23:36,018 --> 00:23:36,590
place.

329
00:23:36,590 --> 00:23:45,188
Now, ideally it will start charging whenever the car is plugged in, but if the plug-in is
early in the evening, it might then wait until later at night to start charging.

330
00:23:45,188 --> 00:23:54,036
On top of that, Octopus recently announced that they're looking at limiting the cheap
hours to a more strict six hours per night too, and that will also alter the availability

331
00:23:54,036 --> 00:23:54,457
for...

332
00:23:54,457 --> 00:23:55,427
renting charges out.

333
00:23:55,427 --> 00:23:59,471
Now that's not a problem if your charger is wanting an overnight charge.

334
00:23:59,471 --> 00:24:09,426
But if they plug in during the day, wanting to charge while at work, as Michael's Polestar
charger does, this means you have to go into the Octopus app and start a bump charge,

335
00:24:09,426 --> 00:24:12,218
which is obviously going to be more expensive than an overnight charge.

336
00:24:12,218 --> 00:24:17,921
But these little foibles aside, if you have a charge which either sits empty most of the
day, or several nights a week,

337
00:24:17,921 --> 00:24:22,730
after all the number of people who have to recharge their car every night is minimal

338
00:24:22,730 --> 00:24:30,785
You might be able to go into one of the various apps and rent or hire your charger out to
someone who has an EV but no ability to charge overnight at their place.

339
00:24:30,785 --> 00:24:32,957
Now remember the statistics are quite clear.

340
00:24:32,957 --> 00:24:42,984
There is a sizeable majority of the people who do not have enough space off road to park a
car for driving around 32 % of households and an additional percentage who do have the

341
00:24:42,984 --> 00:24:46,548
space but can't install a charger for whatever reason.

342
00:24:46,548 --> 00:24:51,210
They may be renting, the landlord won't allow him, they'll allow him, it might be distance
from the house,

343
00:24:51,210 --> 00:25:03,090
electricity supply or fuse issues and none of these people should be denied the ability to
charge near their home without needing to sit on a public charger for hours at a time.

344
00:25:03,182 --> 00:25:05,053
charger sharing is the solution.

345
00:25:05,053 --> 00:25:07,084
So let me know if you'd be happy to charge a share.

346
00:25:07,084 --> 00:25:08,915
What would stop you from doing so?

347
00:25:08,915 --> 00:25:14,326
Send me a note info at evymuseums.com or leave a comment, like and subscribe.

348
00:25:14,326 --> 00:25:16,646
I hope you enjoyed listening to today's show.

349
00:25:16,646 --> 00:25:19,762
It was put together this week with the help of Michael French.

350
00:25:19,708 --> 00:25:27,392
If you have any thoughts, comments, criticisms or other general messages to pass on to me,
I can be reached at info at evmusings.com.

351
00:25:27,412 --> 00:25:32,135
On the socials I'm on bluesky at evmusings.bsky.social.

352
00:25:32,255 --> 00:25:39,940
I'm also on Instagram at evmusings where I post those little short videos in the odd
podcast extract regularly.

353
00:25:39,940 --> 00:25:41,350
Why not follow me there?

354
00:25:43,344 --> 00:25:51,626
Many thanks to everyone who supports me through Patreon on a monthly basis and through
coffee.com on an ad hoc basis.

355
00:25:51,946 --> 00:25:55,447
Now, if you enjoyed this episode, why not buy me a coffee?

356
00:25:55,447 --> 00:25:59,229
Go to coffee.com slash EV Musings and you can do just that.

357
00:25:59,229 --> 00:26:02,950
KO dash FI dot com slash EV Musings.

358
00:26:02,950 --> 00:26:04,490
Takes Apple Pay too.

359
00:26:05,330 --> 00:26:07,691
Regular listeners will know about my two e-books.

360
00:26:07,691 --> 00:26:12,122
So you've gone electric and so you've gone renewable.

361
00:26:12,402 --> 00:26:18,735
Now they're 99p each or equivalent and you can get them on the Kendall store on Amazon.

362
00:26:18,836 --> 00:26:26,600
Now check out the links in the show notes for more information as well as a link to my
regular EV Musings newsletter and associated articles.

363
00:26:26,703 --> 00:26:38,430
Now I've spoken to a few of you and I know that you're probably driving, walking, jogging,
ironing or sat on the sofa watching this on your phone but if you can remember and you

364
00:26:38,430 --> 00:26:45,063
enjoyed the episode drop a review in iTunes please, like, subscribe, leave a comment on
YouTube because it really helps.

365
00:26:45,063 --> 00:26:45,804
Thank you very much.

366
00:26:45,878 --> 00:26:49,832
If you've reached this part of the podcast and are still listening, thank you.

367
00:26:49,832 --> 00:26:57,539
Why not let me know you've got to this point by messaging me at musingsv.beesky.social
with the words share and share alike.

368
00:26:57,539 --> 00:26:59,913
Hashtag if you know, you know, nothing else.

369
00:26:59,913 --> 00:27:02,465
Thanks as always to my co-founder Simon.

370
00:27:02,465 --> 00:27:09,069
You know, I asked him if his newfound love of a polyamorous lifestyle was causing him any
problems.

371
00:27:09,069 --> 00:27:11,600
I mean, how does it work logistically?

372
00:27:11,643 --> 00:27:17,298
So on our end of it, as long as we know somebody's gonna come at a certain time, obviously
we make sure the space is available,

373
00:27:17,606 --> 00:27:18,080
Thanks listening.

374
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:19,536
Bye bye now.