Electric Vehicle Chargers in Apartments – Practical Guidance

Here were the agenda points for the meeting that took place via Zoom on Tuesday 21st March 2023.

Mr. Gerry Cash of EasyGo, an SEAI authorised EV charging point operator, presented the issues, cost models, and other information you needed to know.  Gerry presented insightful guidance to the Network in person in 2019.

At this online meeting, we learned about the practicalities and costs of installing EV charging infrastructure in your estate.

1- Gerry Cash’s presentation

Everywhere there is a car park space, they can install a charger point/station. Download the app to get the charger points/stations throughout the country, as seen in the below screenshot.

The support funding options are as follows:

• 60 % through your management company
• 70 % through your Owner’s Management Company (OMC)
• 80 % through a government scheme (whether local or national organisation).

You’ll have to take the payments for the electricity to fill the car. You must monetise this, especially if you let other electric car users use your charging point.

The running costs include call centres, and SIM cards. There are costs associated with running and maintaining the unit to work safely.

For new properties, there is no support whatsoever from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).

EasyGo is looking into getting a long-term agreement of 15–20 years, making chargers available and selling electricity throughout the country. The cost of electricity in apartment development car park spaces will be lower than the ones at public charging points. The ultimate goal is to get as many charging points as possible.

2- Answers to questions raised by participants and Multi-Unit Developments (MUD)

How to operate in allocated car park spaces?

There will be a 25 % extra charge of the actual price to maintain the equipment. People will have to show interest to get a station installed. SEAI will work as a central load point in unit developments.

There can be different loading points at different times of the day. Typically, a charge of an electric car must be done once or twice a week. Once the car is fully charged, you’ll get a notification to plug it out. If you don’t plug out, you’ll be charged extra for overuse of the facility.

Some properties may need to be upgraded if the air grid is stressed. But an air grid can be activated on demand.

How will the cost be allocated to the user?

Every individual user will have to register as a user with the EasyGo app and pay the meter directly to EasyGo. The OMC will be taken out of the equation altogether. Everything will go through the app, the payments, and so on. The one app will allow you to charge in your development block or on the go to wherever you are going. It’s a one-stop shop. You will be charged for what you used. There are two different payment options: pay as you go per charge, or pre-pay and have an amount of credit on the account.

Who owns the charger, and what is the maximum grant available?

It’s EasyGo. EasyGo will apply in the OMC’s name. In order to get the grant, the OMC will have to show proof they paid for it. Then, SEAI will refund a percentage back, and the same for EasyGo.

The grant scheme will depend on the number of apartments, the limit is set to 100 000 Euros.

Common meters are classed as commercial meters. Can this be reassigned to residential meters? What rate would apply?

SEAI will support commercial meters and commercial rates will apply, there is no other way how to go about it. EasyGo needs to go with what SEAI provides them with. Nonetheless, it costs a certain percentage lower than a public meter.

Furthermore, there must be an operator to manage an EV Charger powered to a single apartment. You could charge people for using it through an operator. However, note that an apartment is not designed to plug two loading points.

If the OMC gives authorisation to users/apartment owners for individual charging point installation and usage, what are the consequences in case of accident/injury to an owner?

You are not going to get a charger per space. To run a cable to a fuse box in the apartment is not going to work, it would be impractical and won’t be supported by SEAI. Cables are at high risk of injury, especially if you are a little far away from a loading point. OMC should notify the insurance that such and such apartment has that connection. The insurance company will assess the risks before allocating any individual chargers for apartment.

OMC will be reliable to repair damaged common areas. If it’s only the car, it won’t be the management agency/OMC’s responsibility, but the car owner’s.

Are there any contractual obligations such as exit costs?

With EasyGo, there is an exit/break cost if cut before the 3 years of a contract. If the OMC decides to not renew after 5 years, they will have to pay termination fees as the contract hasn’t ended. After 15 years of the contract, it will be owned by the OMC, and they will be able to choose another provider.

What is the process of changing suppliers?

You’ll need to meet with the city council. However, the EasyGo team is open to talking with people. You can go to your local authority if the developer no longer exists.

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How to make concessions in negotiation during a sales process

How to make concessions in negotiation is a presentation given by Michel Rozenberg, Executive & Strategic Consultant at Progress Consulting Belgium in Brussels.

To handle successfully commercial negotiations, he recommends you to follow from the discovery stage to the sale closure ‘the PCCC Process‘, which stands for:

• Prepare,
• Consult,
• Confront,
• Concretise.

Let me go through each stage for you.

1. Prepare

You need to prepare your negotiation on 3 levels: technically (product features, the anticipation of questions), mentally (stress, tactics…), and understand the context (what is it about? What are the meeting objectives?).

2. Consult

This is the stage, where you meet people, establish a rapport, and discover facts.

We call it the ‘sales discovery stage’. It is a time when you must arouse interest in teasing your conversation partner.

However, you shouldn’t develop too much. At this point, you need to capture your interlocutor’s attention by asking strategic questions to discover your potential client’s needs. You become a customer advisor during this discovery/commercial diagnostic phase.

You need to ask open questions such as: Why? Where? How? When? How much/many?

You must stick to relevant questions about:

• Your prospect context
• The streamlined decision-making processes
• How are decisions taken
• Why you are meeting the prospect
• Why they need to alter their situation
• What they have tried before that didn’t work out for them
• How do they see things in the future
• What they would like to get.

3. Confront

You need to start:

• Making and exchanging opening offers
• Making concessions and offer compensations.

This is the ‘trailer’ effect, where you sell the benefits/the final result, by excessively simplifying your products and services. It is a specialised reasoning.

4. Concretise

You make additional offers and concessions until you and your potential client reach an objective. Basically, you sell to your conversation partner the final benefit by going from the generic to the specific. You explain to the conversation partner how your solution in their context compared to the situation you mention, will help them reach their objectives.

Then you either:

• Find an agreement. This decision-making process will be speeded up according to the behavioural customer profiling (Salesforce and communication team). At this stage, you must secure a commitment and a reminder date.
• Find an agreement about a disagreement.

At each of these stages, you should make to engage your client, validate each point, build rapport, and sum up their needs. This is a sales collaboration.

Then, he recommends you to follow a process, i.e. concession patterns as shown below, which I’m going to detail further for you.

Pattern 1: Define your concessions and foresee room for maneuver

Pattern 2: Make them late, then later and later

You need to know your mandate in the selling process as well as show that you don’t give easily cheap deals, by taking your time to make negotiations, once one has been given. Get people to wait.

Pattern 3: Make them smaller and smaller, increase precision

That means give smaller and smaller concessions. You can do comma figures (e.g 1.5 instead of a round figure).

Pattern 4: If possible, make them on cheap topics

They could be concessions that cost less at the start of the negotiating process. For example, it could be a concession on payment terms, not on the product/service price.

Hint: make a list before the meeting, a list of topics.

Pattern 5: Don’t give more than necessary

For example, you could give a specific discount, not more.

Question of threshold:

• At the consultation/confrontation stages: identify this threshold by asking questions in order to get the relevant information.
• Minimum threshold versus maximum threshold. In your career, you may be happy to get a     10 % salary increase but won’t necessarily be happier if you get 20-25 % than if you only got a 10 % threshold.

Pattern 6: Almost always ask for  compensation

• Make concessions deserved
• If you are hard to give concessions, they will not try as much to get further concessions.

Pattern 7: Make them conditional and temporary

They shouldn’t be part of your Terms and Conditions. You could strengthen the urgency or scarcity notion, which should be adapted to the client and product. This will motivate the client to conclude the purchase more quickly and require more effort from them.

Pattern 8: Foresee a small last one at the end

This concession should be given very late in the process.

You could grant a very small one (cheap deal) but it will give a big impact. You should only give it if necessary if it will help close the deal/get the signature or find an agreement.

Pattern 9: Don’t disclose your deadlines

If you do disclose them, it will give your potential client power over you that could be used as manipulation.  This will give the conversation partner a competitive advantage and give them excuses to put pressure on you to close the deal. Do as if the end of the quarter isn’t important to you.

Finally, when possible, try to split concessions into several pieces. That will give them the impression they will gain something several times. It will have a bigger impact, even if the end value is the same. Remember, people are still hunters.