LONDON: Comfortable seating. Free coffee. A place to plug in? Companies looking to attract talent are increasingly considering EV chargers at the office.
Competition for teachers in the UK can be fierce, and one high school thinks it has something that gives it an edge: electric vehicle plugs.
The Judd School, in Kent, southern England, last year received a £2,100 (RM11,234) government grant for six EV chargers installed by Electric Car Chargers UK. For the EV drivers on staff, the new stations have been a welcome addition.
“It changes people’s perception of us, that we are a forward-thinking school and we take the environment seriously,” says Hilary Goldsmith, the school’s business manager. “(And) we can promote ourselves as actively reducing our carbon footprint.”
While electric vehicle adoption is reaching a tipping point, one of the biggest obstacles for would-be converts to EVs is lingering anxiety about running out of power far from a working plug.
With employers facing a tight labour market, charging at the office is one potential answer to both problems.
Melanie Shufflebotham, co-founder of UK charging data company Zap-Map, says alongside comfortable seating and clean toilets, EV charging is becoming something of a basic need.
“You’ve got a tick list,” Shufflebotham says. “You’d say ‘I provide a loo, I provide a cafe, and I provide charging points.’”
British property consultancy Knight Frank is already seeing interest trickle up to its commercial clients.
Landlords are keen to “future-proof” their office buildings, and new tenants often say that having a certain number of chargers is a non-negotiable condition to take over a lease, says Robert Blake, a senior consultant in the company’s energy, sustainability and natural resources team.
“It is in a large part driven by tenant demand at the moment,” he says.
Cars at the office can be left plugged in all day, meaning they can use slower chargers that lessen the need for expensive upgrades to the electrical grid.
These kinds of “destination chargers” — installed at places where drivers hang around for a significant period of time — also reduce demand for expensive ultra-rapid boosts en route.
Most workplace chargers are likely to charge at 7 to 22 kilowatts, which bring a car battery to full over several hours, compared to the 50 to 350 kw at the rapid and ultra-rapid chargers more common at rest stops and gas stations.
Done right, workplace charging can also help make up for gaps in available street charging, particularly relevant for drivers in urban settings who may not be able to plug in easily at home.
In the UK, over a quarter of drivers don’t have a driveway or garage. In the US, an estimated 44% of vehicles don’t have a dedicated off-street parking space.
For charging equipment company ChargePoint, a big boost is coming from partnerships with fleet companies such as ALD Automotive, a French provider of company cars that offers its customers EVs and ChargePoint chargers.
Across Europe, around 60% of new cars are registered through corporations, and companies like ChargePoint can smooth the transition to an electric fleet by also providing the chargers.
“The demand from our customers in the workplace space is where our big growth is coming from,” says Tanya Sinclair, senior director of policy for Europe at ChargePoint.
Workplace charging doesn’t necessarily mean it’s free; that much is up to the company or landlord.
The current payback period for EV chargers is around four to seven years, says Blake at Knight Frank, and even landlords that make tenants pay for charging aren’t turning a profit, though that may change as EV adoption picks up.
For employees, completely free charging was more common a few years ago, before rising electricity costs prompted more companies to at least cover their costs.
But paying to plug in at work can still be a perk: Employers can often offer a cheaper electricity rate than the market cost because they buy in bulk and in advance.
For those employers that do offer workplace charging, some adjustment may be required.
The French utility company EDF, which has Pod Point stations at its UK offices, circulated an etiquette guide for workers to iron out faux pas such as charger-hogging.
EV drivers were encouraged to buddy up for lunchtime switchovers, and those driving gasoline-powered cars were reminded not to park in the charger spots.
“It’s just general bits of advice, really: Be aware of your surroundings, be cooperative, and if someone challenges you for blocking the bay for the day, don’t respond angrily, accept the challenge and see if you can amend your behaviour,” says Paul Limbrick, the UK fleet transport manager for EDF, which acquired a majority stake in Pod Point in 2020.
Today, workplace charging is part perk, part future-proofing.
Companies are already facing increasingly stringent environmental reporting requirements.
Many large corporations must now account for “Scope 1” emissions, which include those from company-owned vehicles.
Employee commuting falls under “Scope 3” — emissions from assets that aren’t owned by the business but part of its wider footprint.
While these emissions are currently not required to be reported, proposals from regulators such as the US Securities and Exchange Commission would change that. If enacted, companies may have to think harder about how their workers get to the office.
And beyond regulation, there are reputational concerns. At the Exeter headquarters of Britain’s Met Office, a government agency focused on weather, the staff of climate scientists and meteorologists have high expectations for their employer’s attention to clean energy.
Six years ago the office installed its first electric car charging station. Today, it has 22 of them.
“We’re one of the major contributors to climate change research,” says Paul Chavasse, who leads internal net zero policies for the Met Office.
“It’s very difficult to go out there and say, ‘The climate is changing, we need to reduce CO2 emissions,’ and not do anything on it ourselves.”
