The ultimate Guide to Charging Electric Cars
The simplest and cheapest way of charging an Electric Car (EV) is to plug it in at home. Here is everything you need to know about charging your electric car;
How Do I Charge my electric car At Home?
The simplest and most reliable solution is to have a charge point installed. These boxes are basically high-power extensions to your electricity supply which run from your mains to a standardised, weatherproof plug socket that sits on the wall of your house. These boxes run at a higher wattage than plugs in your home and can fill an EV overnight.
How do I get one?
When you order your EV your dealership should ask you if you have one. If you don’t, the dealership can either arrange the installation themselves or signpost you to an installer. Either way, there are grants available for installing a Charge Point and, in most cases, the total cost to you will be free.
Sounds like a faff…
Dealerships will do as much of the legwork for you as they can. There might be a couple of forms to fill and a phone call or two to make but sorting a charge point should be fairly easy.
How Long Does it Take to Install?
Charge points are self-contained units with their own fuses and electronics so installing them is pretty simple. Installation should only take a couple of hours.
What about when I’m out and about?
You can find public chargers using an app like ZapMap or Plugshare. These apps display maps of the country with an overlay of potential chargers. They give you information on what type of charger you’re looking at, how powerful they are, whether they’re in working order, how much they cost and whether they’re currently in use.
You can also search by network and payment options.
I heard it’s complicated,…
For lower powered chargers – the type you’ll leave your car at for a few hours while shopping – it can still be a mess of opening phone apps and joining charging schemes.
For high power “Rapid Chargers”, however – the type you’ll stop at quickly on a long road trip – payment is increasingly based on contactless debit or credit card payments, just as it is with fuel pumps.
Just like home charging, these Rapid Chargers have standardised plugs so it’s just a matter of swiping, plugging in and taking a short break while your car juices up.
How Long does a Rapid Charge take?
Many of the Rapid Chargers you’ll find around the country deliver a 50KW charge, capable of adding around 75 miles in half an hour but these older stations are quickly being replaced by chargers that are much faster.
Major charging networks like Gridserve, Instavolt, Osprey and Shell Recharge are now building stations that can deliver over 300KW of charge, capable of filling some EVs from 10% – 80% full in as little as 18 minutes. That could mean 175 miles added in the time it takes to buy and eat a snack.
How fast your EV charges depends on the electronics inside, however. Most of the new generation of cars will charge at over 100KW, meaning you’ll hit 80% full in half an hour. Older generation cars, like the Nissan Leaf, Kia Soul EV and Renault Zoe can only Rapid Charge at 50KW. It’s worth checking before you buy.
I’m thinking of buying a Tesla: do they charge differently?
When charging on your driveway, a Tesla will charge exactly the same as any EV. The only real difference when you’re out and about is that Tesla built its own network of “Superchargers”. This is the simplest and most reliable rapid charge network around, with the stations recognising your car automatically and billing your Tesla account without having to swipe a debit card.
Currently Superchargers only work with Teslas but there are plans to open the network to all EVs in the near future.
Teslas can also use any other Rapid Charger from any other network. The Tesla Model 3 and Model Y use the standard CCS plug, just like most EVs. Older Model S and Model Xs, however, require the purchase of an adapter plug for non-Tesla rapid charging stations. If you’re buying on the used market there’s a good chance the seller already bought one. Best to ask.
Rapid Chargers are more expensive, with prices varying from under 8p a mile to over 13p a mile. Note that this is still cheaper than petrol.
Watch out for prices listed per KWh. A KWh is the new “gallon” and is a measure of capacity. Your EV should be able to tell you how far it will travel per KWh, based on your recent driving, with most EVs averaging about 3.5 miles per KWh. So if a rapid charger costs 30p per KWh it will cost 30p for you to travel 3.5 miles.
If you’re charging mainly at home then the answer is yes. Many electricity suppliers now have EV specific tariffs that drop the price of electricity considerably after midnight, when it makes the most sense for your car to be charging. All EVs have timers you can use to schedule when your car charges at home.
Use one of these tariffs and you could be driving for as little as 1p a mile vs. the 15p a mile that petrol costs.
When you’re out and about, these charging costs can vary wildly. Some councils and supermarkets allow you to charge for free, others charge a nominal fee. You can search for the free ones on ZapMap.
If you have a place on the street near your house where you regularly park, have a word with your local council. Councils have been given money from the government to install street side charging solutions for EVs. This could be a box that attaches to a lamp post, for example.
If you’ve a regular job with an employee car park, talk to your employer about installing a charger at work. There are grants available from OZEV for this too.
Most EVs will only need to charge once a week so these points can be used by multiple employees.
Yes you can but it takes much, much longer to fill your car and it can put strain on the wiring of your mains, especially if that wiring is a bit long in the tooth. Most EVs will come equipped with a three pin charging cable (or a “Granny Cable”) for emergency use but it’s not recommended that you use this regularly.