A year ago we had a company conversation about whether we should look to increase the numbers of electric vehicle charging points on our corporate site in Cambridge. We have 2 posts at present and 4 bays. At the time there were only 6 EV drivers. We ended up not investing further in the posts because of the high costs to us to install (access to suitable electricity spurs across the car parks would need significant works to upgrade/extend), and we couldn't reconcile whether we should charge our own tariff to the drivers in an attempt to recoup some of the capital investment.
Since then the number of EV drivers has started to really increase and we're being asked again by the drivers if the company will be doing anything. I'm therefore keen to understand if anybody else has taken the step to provide EV charging facilities at their own sites and if so, are you charging for the electricity/trying to recoup the capital?
Being on a Science Park in Cambridge we have responsibilities to work actively to promote and provide alternative/green transport issues but there's a difficult balance between doing this and the high cost of investment when the majority of our employees are paying for their own petrol and diesel.
There is a significant level of interest in this area and many initiatives at differing levels of maturity. Some initiatives come with a number of different funding opportunities beyond the obvious grants (e.g. taking advantage of the new tax breaks for charging with employer NIC saving opportunity, participating in 'sharing' schemes that for those where it may be viable providing paid public access to your charging points outside of business hours etc). It will be interesting to see how various stakeholders (including REBA members) can accelerate the initiatives in this area.
Please find article below, including contact details, which you might find useful-
The wait is over, our charge point map is here!
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Putting Nottingham on the Map
The wait is over, our charge point project progress map is here!
We are installing over 200 charge points across the region to create the D2N2 public charging network. So far we have installed 53 sockets at thirteen locations with 60 more coming soon.
Thank you to everyone who has suggested locations for charge points, the response has been brilliant, and we now have a big list to investigate. Because of this we are not currently taking new suggestions for sites until we have reviewed them all.
In the meantime, the map will show you...
hi Amy - its not something the reward team has been involved in, but we do have about 8 charging points in prime parking slots. Electric drivers do have to register but charging is free to our associates for now. I can see some future point when electric is much more prevalent that employers might reconsider, but do not believe that is on the cards just yet.