FleetCarma and SmartCharge Nashville have partnered to offer program participants the opportunity to earn up to $20 per month to avoid charging their EV’s during peak periods. That may not sound like a lot of money, but for most EV owners $20 per month in electricity is enough to make their electric motoring totally free for the entire month. $20 will buy approximately 200 kWh. A typical modern EV can travel 4 miles per kWh, so that’s up to 1,000 miles of free driving!!

SmartCharge Nashville works with Nashville Electric Service (NES) and Middle Tennessee Electric (MTE) and they offer to pay EV owners enrolled in the program to NOT charge their EV’s during specific periods when the utilities anticipate high electricity demand. This pilot program is in effect from May 1st 2020 to September 3oth 2020.

Click image to read the recent email

Today I got my first request to NOT charge my car on May 7th 2020 from 5-8 pm. If I comply I will be paid $5 which will be paid to me via Paypal at the end of the pilot. How do FleetCarma know if I charged my car or not? As a program participant I agreed to install a device plugged into the OBDII port of our LEAF. This device sends data back via cell signal to FleetCarma who operate commercial fleet tracking for their customers. There is no report or information to submit manually, the data is collected automatically making it very easy for the program participant. This gives FleetCarma and SmartCharge Nashville a lot of data about driving and charging habits. So far we have been paid $100 for this data. The data collection program is over, so a new pilot program has begun to see if it is possible to influence electric car owners charging habits with a simple incentive. To read more about SmartCharge Nashville visit their website.

In all of April the LEAF consumed just 50 kWh of energy due to Shelter in Place, so mileage was below average last month. This $5 payment tomorrow will pay for all of Aprils’ electricity used by our LEAF. As you can see from the screen shot to the right, FleetCarma give us a lot of data in return for being program participants. We also get battery health and other information about the car.

Full details of the latest SmartCharge Nashville pilot program