Person tripped over my outside cable cover whilst charging car...

DullGreyGuy

matt_drummer said:

Hoenir said:

vacheron said:

If the government really thinks that electric vehicles are the future they really need to consider the millions of people who would work and live in home similar to those of this manager and the OP.  

Alternatively decline the company car if it's an inconvenience. 

Presumably, being a company car, the company pays for the electricity so it doesn't matter what it costs.

It would be silly not to as there is no fuel benefit with electric vehicles.

I charge my company car at work foc and claim back anything I pay on public chargers.

I never charge it at home.

Not all employers will give free fuel as an employee perk, particularly if the "company car" is just an employee perk and not actually used for work at all. Know a few guys with electric company cars who do 0 business miles a year. 

Exodi

Grumpy_chap said:

I suspect the cost of public EV charging is not set from a bottom-up pricing generating a target profit percentage but is set to market-price as high as can be tolerated by the consumer and by reference to a competitive product.

I have, over the past few years, worked out energy cost per mile for public EV charging and, whenever I have done this, the cost has come out in the similar range to the cost of fuelling an ICE at the local petrol station.

My napkin maths do not align with this.

As a crude average, I might get ~200 miles from my 61kWh battery, and the car is only about a year old. When it's hot outside I'll get more than that, but when it's cold I'll get less, so it roughly in the right ballpark (though I see people in the EV forum suggest absolutely insane mile per kWh figures).

Charging at a services/petrol station/rapid charger/etc costs 79p/kWh meaning a total cost of £48.19 for ~200 miles. In my experience this is loosely about double the cost per mile of an ICE vehicle.

Whenever I look at Zapmap, it is quite hard to find anywhere nearby that charges significantly less than that, all are around 60/70/80p - the cheapest is Tesco but that's obviously limited by how long you can spend in the car park.

If you could reliably charge off a public charger that costs ~40p/kWh then I'd agree with you, the cost would be similar to the cost of fuelling an ICE, but I don't know of any public chargers near me that charge anywhere near that. Of course it may just be Kent!

DullGreyGuy said:

matt_drummer said:

Hoenir said:

vacheron said:

If the government really thinks that electric vehicles are the future they really need to consider the millions of people who would work and live in home similar to those of this manager and the OP.  

Alternatively decline the company car if it's an inconvenience. 

Presumably, being a company car, the company pays for the electricity so it doesn't matter what it costs.

It would be silly not to as there is no fuel benefit with electric vehicles.

I charge my company car at work foc and claim back anything I pay on public chargers.

I never charge it at home.

Not all employers will give free fuel as an employee perk, particularly if the "company car" is just an employee perk and not actually used for work at all. Know a few guys with electric company cars who do 0 business miles a year. 

I'm one of them - I do less than a 1000 business miles a year compared to maybe 7000 personal miles and I charge at home. Due to an EV tariff it works out extremely cheap per mile and even disregarding that - the difference in tax due to the dramatically reduced BIK saves me about £200 per month in my pay packet when compared to my previous ICE company car.

vacheron

matt_drummer said:

Hoenir said:

vacheron said:

If the government really thinks that electric vehicles are the future they really need to consider the millions of people who would work and live in home similar to those of this manager and the OP.  

Alternatively decline the company car if it's an inconvenience. 

Presumably, being a company car, the company pays for the electricity so it doesn't matter what it costs.

It would be silly not to as there is no fuel benefit with electric vehicles.

I charge my company car at work foc and claim back anything I pay on public chargers.

I never charge it at home.

It was more a matter of inconvenience in her case. There were no on street chargers where she lived, and no facilities to charge electric vehicles at our office location. 

joeythepoey

HillStreetBlues said:

They can claim against you. Bottom line is if it happened their injuries are down to you wanting to save money.

It's not quite as straightforward as that - the street has two chargers; one at the end of the road, but the bay isn't marked as EV only and more often than not regular cars park in there, and another that is but that still doesn't appear to deter many people from parking there, and it's in front of an EV owner's house who parks his car there.

Since the council chargers nearly tripled in price last year, we simply can't afford to charge in them most of the time.

joeythepoey

facade said:

A quick google and this isn't as simple as it appears.

You would have thought that it would be simple- if you are negligent in leaving a charging cable across a pavement at night and someone is injured by it then you would be liable, and your insurance should cover you.

You obviously foresaw a risk of injury to others from the trip hazard and took steps to mitigate it with a cable cover, (and lights that you knew wouldn't be working- I wouldn't mention them)

It should be your car insurance, as the injury to a third party arose as a result of the use of your car on the public highway (pavement is part of the highway).

Your house insurance should also have personal liability cover for incidents arising from your use of the property. 

(No doubt both insurers would insist that it is covered by the other)

Even assuming that you are found to be negligent (which is not clear cut apparently- another surprise!) there is the principle of "Culpable Responsibility". If the third party was playing on their 'phone whilst walking, then it is partially their own fault that they didn't see it and they might be deemed 25% responsible- so you would only be liable for 75% of their claim. (They would need to admit that, or your side has to prove it)

It is probably time to be ringing your insurer (I'd start with the car insurer) for advice from their legal team.

Thanks for your help, that's useful to know.

joeythepoey

elsien said:

OP hasn’t said how they know that people tripping over the cable are “locked onto” their phones so it may well be just a presumption. And potentially an inaccurate one.

An unexpected cable cover across the pavement with no street lighting doesn’t need someone to be looking at their phone to be tripped over

I've seen it happen from my front room window at several occasions during the day - and people were always on their phone. 

I appreciate it's harder to see at night, hence putting in the lights. It's pretty impossible to miss during the day.

There are 3 other people charging their cars in my street in the same way (I actually got the link off one of them for the cable covers) - that doesn't mean I feel justified or anything, but it seems rising electricity costs are part of the problem. 

MeteredOut

joeythepoey said:

elsien said:

OP hasn’t said how they know that people tripping over the cable are “locked onto” their phones so it may well be just a presumption. And potentially an inaccurate one.

An unexpected cable cover across the pavement with no street lighting doesn’t need someone to be looking at their phone to be tripped over

I've seen it happen from my front room window at several occasions during the day - and people were always on their phone. 

I appreciate it's harder to see at night, hence putting in the lights. It's pretty impossible to miss during the day.

There are 3 other people charging their cars in my street in the same way (I actually got the link off one of them for the cable covers) - that doesn't mean I feel justified or anything, but it seems rising electricity costs are part of the problem. 

I can't see how a bay being marked as EV or not has any bearing on things.

 Did the victim offer any proof that it was your cable cover that caused his injuries? What did he actually want when he came to your door?

born_again

Exodi said:

Grumpy_chap said:

I suspect the cost of public EV charging is not set from a bottom-up pricing generating a target profit percentage but is set to market-price as high as can be tolerated by the consumer and by reference to a competitive product.

I have, over the past few years, worked out energy cost per mile for public EV charging and, whenever I have done this, the cost has come out in the similar range to the cost of fuelling an ICE at the local petrol station.

My napkin maths do not align with this.

As a crude average, I might get ~200 miles from my 61kWh battery, and the car is only about a year old. When it's hot outside I'll get more than that, but when it's cold I'll get less, so it roughly in the right ballpark (though I see people in the EV forum suggest absolutely insane mile per kWh figures).

Charging at a services/petrol station/rapid charger/etc costs 79p/kWh meaning a total cost of £48.19 for ~200 miles. In my experience this is loosely about double the cost per mile of an ICE vehicle.

Whenever I look at Zapmap, it is quite hard to find anywhere nearby that charges significantly less than that, all are around 60/70/80p - the cheapest is Tesco but that's obviously limited by how long you can spend in the car park.

All I can say is last year I did 800 miles in a E-Niro. previous year I did 800 miles (same area) in a Niro HEV.
Cost was only a couple of £ more in the EV & that was my fault for charging too much on the way home.

I could have brought charge costs down by 20p kWh if I hade used Tesla chargers. But their location had nothing round it, so could not get a coffee or food, but as on holiday. I did not just want to sit in car charging. Prefer to spend a bit more & use facilities at the same time.
Had I used them, it would have been cheaper in EV.

Tesla was 51p
Average of others used was 72p

sheslookinhot

I noticed today that cables ( the type that counts traffic) were located across a main road in Glasgow. They were secured to lamp standards and the cables were covered with the rubber protectors across the width of the pavement on either side of the road.

Baldytyke88

eskbanker said:

Baldytyke88 said:
It is an offence to obstruct public roads, footpaths and pavements, but that doesn't stop cars from parking on it. Their defence is(outside London) that they only obstruct part of it, so the police don't enforce it.

Not just London, it's also illegal to park on the pavement in Scotland, for example:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2019/17/part/6/crossheading/pavement-parking-prohibition/enacted

My point was that it's illegal to obstruct the pavement, which this cable would do, but it's up to the authorities to decide how to interpret obstruct.