Booking EV Charging in the Office Car Park
Unlike a petrol or diesel engine that takes just minutes to fill, a typical electric car will take at least half an hour to recharge.
Recent reports of Charge Rage in motorway service stations are only adding to range anxiety, with motorists facing long waits, arguments and lots more stress.
With this and other challenges in mind, it becomes clear why providing electric vehicle charging points in your office car park, while initially appearing expensive, makes a lot of sense for at least three compelling reasons:
1. You’ll attract and retain talent
According to research carried out by CSR experts, Cone, 83% of millennials would be more loyal to companies that care for the environment.
Along with providing cycle storage and showers in the workplace, installing charging points at the workplace reflects your company’s environmental awareness. It can also be the impetus your workforce needs to adopt more sustainable transport.
2. You’ll remove barriers to getting your workforce back into the office
Making a visit to the office as attractive as possible is high on the agenda for employers wanting to encourage their workforce back into the office.
For those with electric vehicles, providing charging facilities at work will help remove ‘range anxiety’ that a trip into the office might cause. They will also help allay any concerns over ‘charge rage’ due to insufficient capacity and lack of grid connections on the UK highways.
It will also help where the facilities to charge an electric car at home are limited.
3. It’s not as expensive as you might think
If cost is a hurdle to installing chargers, it’s not as bad as you might think.
In the UK, the Government has introduced the Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) to help organisations fund the costs of installing charge points. Of course, if your business includes operating a fleet of vehicles, by switching to electric you can reduce fuel costs substantially at the same time as enhancing your brand image.
Installing EV charging bays is just the first step…..here’s some things to consider if you’re planning to introduce EV charging bays into your office car park facilities.
Have a game-plan for managing EV charging in your office car park
Whether you plan to charge a nominal fee for employees to charge up, or offer charging for free, ensuring optimal and fair use of an EV charging is your next challenge.
The last thing you want is forstaff to be fighting in the car park.
Here’s some things to consider:
Publicise your EV Booking Etiquette
Practicing good EV charging etiquette fosters a cooperative and considerate atmosphere, ensuring everyone can efficiently access charging facilities in the office car park.
To prevent instances of ‘charge rage’ in your own company car park – as well as fair access to all concerned – it’s advisable to introduce the provisioning of EV chargers along with clear guidelines on your intranet.
Your EV charging charter can be communicated on your company intranet, with points that include:
1. Pre-booking a slot: See next point below.
2. Priority: Don’t book a slot if you just need a top up – priority should be given to those that need a bigger charge to complete a return office trip.
3. Don’t Block: Promptly move your vehicle once charging is complete. To help with this we suggest you keep swap-over bays free – see next section.
4. Emergency Override: In case of an emergency or if your vehicle’s battery is critically low, communicate the situation to others and seek understanding to use the charging station.
5. Tidy Up: Avoid leaving charging cables on the ground and if you notice any problems with the charging stations, report them.
Have Swap-Over Bays
In many workplaces, parking is already at a premium, and without dedicated swap-over bays, drivers may find their EV charging session has ended but there are no available parking spaces to move into.
This can leave vehicles hogging EV bays beyond their designated session.
By reserving a small number of nearby parking spaces as swap-over bays, organisations can ensure folk always have somewhere convenient to relocate their vehicle.
Introduce an EV Charger Booking System
An EV charging bay booking system can be as sophisticated or as simple as you like, but it should integrate with your existing Microsoft environment, including Outlook, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and Microsoft Places, allowing employees to book charging sessions without leaving the applications they already use.
Ideally, the system should provide an interactive car park map where employees can view charger availability at a glance, select an available charging bay and complete their booking in just a few clicks. Once booked, they should automatically receive calendar invitations, email confirmations and reminder notifications before and during their charging session.
Importantly, the system should also allow employees to cancel bookings they no longer need and enable facilities managers to identify and manage no-shows, as both scenarios can result in valuable charging capacity sitting unused.
With the car park and EV charging booking system Essential provides, organisations can also introduce policies to help maximise charger utilisation and ensure fair access. For example:
- Allow employees to book charging slots, such as four-hour sessions or morning/afternoon bookings, giving everyone a fair opportunity.
- Track no-shows and apply fair usage policies, such as a “3 strikes and you’re out” approach for repeat offenders.
- Allow employees to book both an EV charging bay and a designated swap-over bay as part of a single reservation, ensuring they have somewhere to move their vehicle once charging is complete.
Other benefits of managing EV charger bookings include:
- Pooling a bank of chargers so bookings are allocated to the next available charging point rather than a specific charger.
- Automatically releasing charging slots following a configurable no-show period.
- Tracking charger utilisation to help plan future expansion.
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