Metal Man

It uses about 1 KWH per charge, for me at home that's about $.10.
I appreciate all the suggestions, some may help and some may not. Unfortunately the ones that sound like they would work in a normal situation will not work in this case, at least not on the local level.
While you would think they would see the positives in this (employee morale, fitness, green image, lower health insurance cost) and maybe use to their advantage, they are TOTALLY blind to all of that.
As 350htrr posted above it will probably only be solved if their hand if forced somehow.
We do have a few things in the works that I don't want to disclose publicly at this point.

This is charging my E+ with two batteries. First pic is KWH second is total time on charger like this hours:minutes.

Metal Man

It looks like we have made some progress with this. I will update soon.

profstack

Pete at Electric Bike Report has an article today which addresses charging costs.

+1 to using a KillaWatt. They are cheap (like $25 or less) and helpful.

https://electricbikereport.com/how-mu...ike/#more-4301

Metal Man

As far back as April we provided links to many articles showing that it is only pennies a charge.
I can only guess how much state time has been spent on this so far.
I did some quick math guessing at what it cost (salary and benefits again only guessing) the state to employ the one making this decision and I come up with about $.80 per minute. So if he spent more than 25 minutes on this that would have charged the bike every working day in a year.
I know for a fact the meeting they had with the "CEO", the budget guy and a supervisor was almost an hour long.

knurly

I suppose it wouldn't look good to all the gas guzzlers, salivating wantonly. If I were you, i'd give it up, get in line and get a car before the pigs demand some road tax off of you too. Your independence remains the stuff dreams are made of, not reality.

powell

Metal Man,
I admire your determination and encourage you to fight on.
Do not give up!
Did you contact any press or TV station?
It could be quite a story for them.

Metal Man

Knurly, it's not that we don't have a car, we have three right now. We ride
bike by choice.
We have an electric car which we have no need or desire to
charge at her place of work, but I'm sure that fact has played at least a small
part in this. I suspect the thought has crossed their mind that what if she
wants to charge that too.
She rode to work tonight and there are four more
nights she works this week. I can't wait to get the bill for $.50 for August
from them.
We have held off on making a public spectacle of their
shortsightedness, it's not out the question, but she does have to work
there.

Metal Man

I guess I was being overly optimistic in thinking they were actually using some common sense. They have now told her they will be charging $.70 a night for a charge. It used .59 kWh last night, that's about $.06.

350htrr

While it's a rip off, you should also consider the moneys you are saving, no gas, no insurance, no parking fees, no second vehicle... If she also has a safe place to park the bike it's still a great deal... JMO

EBikeFL 

So they're stealing $0.64 from you every workday. Why would they stop at $0.70 a night...why not charge you $1.00 a night or $5.00 a night. If you don't do anything or say anything this is exactly what you're letting them do...charge you any price they want. What was the big deal then of getting an electric meter in the first place? I think they're walking all over you, Metal Man.

PLAN

What's the voltage and capacity of the battery for your electric Big Dummy ? It's 13 hilly miles each way, maybe you can consider to change a largerer capacity battery for it. If the capacity is enough for a round-way ,so there is no need to charge in the hospital where your wife work .

Metal Man

She doesn't ride the bike to necessarily save money. While that's nice, for her it's more about the enjoyment and the exercise. She has lost a lot of weight since she got serious about riding bike. As I've said we currently have three cars so any savings are mostly on the fuel end and compared to the electric car that would be just about nothing. At $.10 a kWh the car would cost about $.60 to run to work and back. So for what the want to charge her for electricity it would cost more to ride the bike than drive the car, great deal.

Yes, She could make the round trip under ideal conditions at a slow speed. The idea of an electric bike is to level out some of the hills and keep a slightly faster pace.

The main issues with this are that, especially at a state facility, this should be encouraged for health and environmental reasons.
She has been hassled for 5 months now about this mostly from the person who is in charge of the expenses of the hospital. Almost all of my wife's time spent on this has been her personal time. There has been HOURS of state time spent hassling her about this.

They pay for electricity for coffee pots, microwaves, and many other things that are not work related.
She will gladly pay for the electricity she uses and has offered to pay twice the cost.
They first asked her to pay $200 for a meter to do this.
They then said they would accept documentation on what it uses to establish what she pays. We have provided that documentation and yet here we are still spending state time, and ours, trying to come to an agreement on something that is so trivial that not more than a few minutes should have been spent to come to an agreement.

MK313

Overcharging by $0.64/day, it seems like the $200 outlay for the electrciciy meter might be the better way to go over the long haul. You'd be ahead after 313 rides by my rough math.

Overall, i wish you luck in resolving this, but it seems like you've made great strides already. Going from not being able to charge at all, to being able to charge for pennies (OK, dimes) a day is definitely progress.

contango 

When you're dealing with mindless bureaucracy just play them at their own game. If they are accepting your documentation point out that it costs 10c for a full charge rather than the 70c they have asked for and maybe suggest paying them 70c per week. Then ask for a weekly bill, and make sure you pay by check rather than cash. If they really get silly you can always ask for an itemised breakdown of your bill and a receipt every time you make a payment.

Then after a few weeks ask just how much of the taxpayer's money has been spent on something so utterly trivial, and maybe use all the documentation as evidence of flagrant waste of taxes if you approach the media.

350htrr

I would actually suggest to the boss that I would pay $1 a day and at the end of the year whatever the company collected would be donated to a worthy cause by the company, a good all-round solution that makes everyone feel good... JMO That would also cover anyone else that wants to do the same thing too, and a good precedent would start...

jbooker82

I guess that at least seems fair. Yea you will have to put up the up front cost of the meter, but at least she can still ride. Just make sure the company understands that it is your meter and if for some reason she get a job some where else it goes with you. That way it could be used at the next place. They could always install a lock box around the the meter and you could put your own lock on it.

contango 

From what the OP has said so far this sounds far too simple for it to be accepted, even if it does mean effectively donating $20/month or so to a charity for the privilege of riding a bike.

Metal Man

I've been holding off on posting on this for a bit. We seem to have now agreed on $.20 a night and she has been riding to work and signing in every night that she rides. The "CEO" has requested another meeting with her about this so we'll see what that's all about in a few days.

MK313

Congrats on getting them down to a more reasonable number. Still high, but at this point, it's probably not enogh to quibble about. Please keep us posted, it will be interesting to see what the meeting with the CEO is all about. Hopefully it's a good meeting.

Metal Man

When “management” requested the meeting with my wife the secretary said it was a "follow up to the bike issue". I told my wife she's either going to apologize to you or you may need a lawyer. She took a union rep in just in case.
They mostly discussed employee morale issues, which the whole bike thing is just a very good example of how not instill a good feeling in your employees.

While the “management” didn't come out and apologize she did seem to imply that, with the state, for things to happen they sometimes have to run their course until some outside pressure is applied. We are assuming that maybe some kind of outside force got to the one
making the decision here and helped to end some of the nonsense.

She has been riding in a few nights a week, supposedly at the rate of $.20 a night

Rootman

Yeah, sometimes "big" businesses make no sense at all and can come up with stupid stuff like this all the time.

Maybe, just maybe a box of donuts or bagels once a week or so would quell the concerns of the naysayer coworkers?

Metal Man

My wife got her first bill for her electricity usage with the electric bike. She had surgery and hasn't been able to ride since November. The total bill for August to the end of the year was... $3. That's right after many meetings and emails and agreeing to pay $.20 a night she rides, the bill for 1/3 of a year is $3. Now keep in mind at $.20 a night she is paying 2 to 3 times the actual cost of the electricity.

cerewa

At market rates for work hours.... several thousands of dollars worth of person-hours have probably gone in to this disagreement over a dollar worth of electricity.

Metal Man

I insisted that my wife ride at least once in the first quarter of the year so that they could at least bill her $.20 for the quarter. They never gave her a bill.

EBikeFL 

Metal Man and his wife wins!!! I guess you could rub it in their faces and insist they give you the $.20 bill...for tax purposes.