Is this plug taken? EV charging etiquette comes to “Modern Manners” book.
Enlarge / Don't be a bad charging neighbor. (credit: Graham Hughes/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Modern life can be fraught with confusion. Should I answer my cellphone in a crowded place? (No.) Where do I stand on an escalator? (On the right-let people walk on the left.) And what are the social rules when it comes to recharging my electric vehicle? Thankfully, that last question has now been addressed by Debrett's, a British publisher with a name now synonymous with etiquette, in the recently published 2024 edition of "A-Z of Modern Manners."
Debrett's has been publishing guides on manners and etiquette since the last time electric vehicles were a thing, but it first put together a list of dos and do-nots for EV drivers last year as a standalone guide with British car brand Vauxhall. Now, it has added the advice to this year's edition of the general etiquette guide.
Although Debrett's is writing for a UK audience, with its ingrained ideas about class structure, the advice also applies to this side of the Atlantic, and it's probably timely now that Tesla is opening up its Supercharger network to non-Tesla EVs. Here is some of the advice.