How negotiate charging in NYC garage

NYC Realtor | August 26, 2013

I have been trying to charge my MS at home in the Garage in Manhattan UES. I had a nice relationship with the guys when I parked my ICE.

Have had MS (That means Model S, i guess,,,Dave)  for 6 weeks now. After a LOT of tipping (hundreds of $) they plugged it in every night for a week, but then said that the manager at the main office had called and ordered them to stop and they claimed that they read on the Tesla website that each charge costed $17, which is obviously BS.

Since I drive about 30 miles a day I know the actual charging cost is around $1. But even if I offer them their claimed $17 I am not allowed to plug in.

Head office doesn't return phone calls for a month. I brought up the benefits of the MS with the local manager in the garage. I mentioned that there is no exhaust fumes so their employees all stay healthier and that the car generates less heat so that the garage could save on A/C. A lot of the ICE cars sit idling at the garage to keep them cool for their owners, creating a tremendous amount of heat and exhaust fumes in the garage. They seemed really low brow and couldn't connect the dots about any benefits with an EV.

So now I charge during the day at work instead which feels really backwards since there is more surplus power at night. Daytime charging obviously defeats some of the car's purpose of the of saving the environment and puts strain on the NYC grid which is already on the brink of collapse on hot days.

There are 3 Charge Point stations around my block where you can charge overnight, if you can find an open spot (often occupied), but then you need to move the car when done in order to let other EVs charge. So that actually creates more work than going to a gas station and so defeats the purpose of the car.

I have essentially given up on my garage at my building (apart from refusing to plug it in, they also damaged it by driving crazy fast in the garage and bumping in to things) and am now shopping around for a garage where I can plug in at 110V right at my spot without moving around (110V is sufficient because I drive fairly little). There are plenty of garages with 110V outlets, problem is how do you get the garage to agree with your usage? They don't seem to care about the exhaust and heat arguments.

Anybody who has managed to secure a deal with a garage with charging in NYC I'd love to hear about it and what arguments you used to negotiate it!