United Kingdom

It’s not theft unless the owner specified in the conditions of the rental that car’s couldn’t be charged at the property. (Even then “Theft” is a strong word!)

That being said - there is obviously a big difference in charging your phone and charging a car and really we are at a point where this should be clear in all holiday rental agreements one way or another.

I don’t think the owner would be happy if someone just turned on all the taps in the house and left them running for the entirety of their stay. There is a sort of “fair use” which is assumed (if not actually in writing)

Question comes if car charging should always be assumed “fair use” or is that above and beyond? Or is it a gray area that just “depends”.. Much better for everyone if all this is made as clear as possible in the agreement right at the beginning.

I've not read the article because I refuse to give the Express any attention. They're only very slightly better than the Daily Mail, and that's only because their reach isn't as great. This article will almost certainly be coming from the perspective of "new things bad, old things good, so we'll sow a feeling of distrust in our aging readers", and I have no time for that shit.

But to answer the question; no, of course it isn't, unless, as /u/Hogger85 has said, the AirBnB owner has specifically banned EV charging. If they haven't, then it should be considered part of the cost of doing business and accounted for the same way they would any other energy usage.

I get the safety concerns but does she say "no charging cars" in the terms and conditions. I am not sure this is theft any more than charging mobile phones and tablets would be. If she is worried about how much electricity then take meter readings and make it accepted terms that all electricity is to be paid for. What if one guest choses to use the oven for a five course meal. Is that theft of electricry

It seems like the obvious thing to do would be to get a metred EV charging point and bill the tenant separately. There are even grant schemes to help pay for the cost.

It's not like EVs are going away. Every house with a driveway is likely to have one eventually. She might as well get ahead of the curve.

We once stayed at an Airbnb in Florida. The property owners were not local. They had an employee come give us an orientation to the house upon check in. During the check-in he had us read the electric meter. When we left we had to read the meter again. The electric rate was in the rental contract so it became part of our final bill. It was a little strange but it made sense that we would pay for what we used.

I think it's about the scale of things. I have actually seen properties that ask electric car owners notify them, and charge if they use an excessive amount.

Charging your phone, you'd probably struggle to use more than 10p of electricity over a week's stay.

If I have a 30KWh battery in my car, and charge half of it a night for 6 nights, that's £30 in electric.
It's possibly not theft, more akin to leaving the oven on constantly, but it's cheeky as fuck to do it without checking first.

Additionally, a property that hasn't ever considered electric car charging may not have electrics that stand up to hours of 3KW+ draw on top of the base load.

Then she should get a proper charging point put in she can monitor and bill, it's not like the shift to electric cars had snuck up on people.

I’m not sure it is theft. But I’d certainly ask the owner before doing it as an act of politeness

Charging an electric car via the mains rather than an official charging station takes much longer and can cost homeowners hundreds of pounds.

It doesn't typically cost any more to charge slowly than it does to charge fast. Unless you're on like an economy 7 plan with cheaper rates overnight, but even then charging at the same time would incur the same cost per kWhr. If anything it's far cheaper than any paid charging station.

Technically, no, as in the UK, you can't steal electricity... you can only abstract electricity, which is an offence in its own right. (IANAL)

I'll get my coat.

Why in the world are people still staying at an Airbnb?