We stayed a few nights in the Dandenong Ranges, at Mural House Olinda.

It’s a B&B run by our friends Suzanne and Ron. Beautiful place, with birds visiting at the large lounge room window while I worked on my laptop.

When I looked on PlugShare, there aren’t any EV chargers listed in Mount Dandenong area, other than at Proserpina Bakehouse, and King Henry Cafe, only for customers.

I asked our hosts (MHO) about providing EV charging for guests.

TT: Is it okay for guests to plug in our EV while we’re here?

MHO: Yes. There’s a power point near the car port.

TT: Thanks. It was an about 2m too far for our mobile charging cable, so we added our extension cord.

MHO: We will make an extension cord available for others who might need one.

TT: What do you pay for electricity?

MHO: 20c/kWh of peak and 40c/kWh peak. We also have a 5kW solar system, for which we get 10c/kWh for any exported.

TT: So, if someone charges their EV here at 2kW for 10 hours overnight, that would cost you about 2 x 10 x 0.20 = $4. Or if charging during the day from solar, you would lose export credit of about 2 x 10 x $0.10 = $2. Will you pass that on as an extra cost to your guests?

MHO: No.

TT: Why not?

MHO: The cost is less important than promoting the use of electric vehicles. Because it makes sense. As a society we want to head that way. We already have six air conditioners and two dryers, so who cares?

TT: Do you have an EV yourselves?

MHO: Not yet. Any moment now.

TT: I notice that many listings on AirBnB don’t seem to tick the “EV charging” checkbox, but when we ask the hosts if we can charge, like you, they say “yeah, sure, here’s a power point”. Why haven’t you ticked the EV checkbox in your AirBnB listing?

MHO: We thought we needed to have a dedicated EV charger.

TT: I think you should just tick the checkbox and in the description mention that it’s a power point that might require a 2m extension cord.

TT: On PlugShare, in this area, there don’t seem to be any accommodation places. Would you like to be listed on PlugShare, if it specified that the charging is only for guests?

MHO: Yes