Hi,
I live in the UK, have a Tesla Model Y (plus a second non-Tesla EV and have had an Easee One installed since November. Personally, I would go for the Easee One.
I've set out what I think are the pros and cons of the Easee One below. If you have any specific questions, I'm happy to answer them. I should say I've never owned a Tesla Home Charger but I've used one, and they also work pretty similarly to the Supercharger network.
Pros of Easee One
- I think the app functionality is better (this may be particularly so if you have multiple EVs and one is not a Tesla). If you have cheap night rates, you can set those very specific times for it to charge and stop. The Tesla app by comparison only allows you to schedule a departure, or separately set a start time. It's just less intuitive. Allows you to see more detailed breakdowns of each charge, energy usage, cost etc. Also think about if you ever change your Tesla for a different car or have someone to stay. I know you can charge a non-Tesla with a Tesla home charger but I would assume you can't use the Tesla app to schedule that charging as it interacts with the car itself;
- Better customisation. Tesla faceplates are £95 each. Easee One covers are £30 and I think looks nicer;
- Tethered or untethered through the app. With the Easee you plug in a Type 2 cable and you can hit a button on the app, which locks the cable in place so that it can't be removed by anyone. It makes it tethered, so you can just wind the cable up and leave it as a permanent installation. If you're going on a long journey and think you'll need the cable because you won't be using rapid chargers, like staying at a hotel or campsite, you can just hit the button on the app to release the cable and take it with you. With the Tesla charger, it's permanently tethered so you would need a second cable to take with you;
- daisy chaining. This is unique to Easee One and pretty niche but if you ever get a second EV it might be relevant. Easee Ones can be daisy chained by an electrician, joining the power from one to the next on the same circuit. This allows you to charge two EVs from both chargers at the same time, at half the charge rate. It means you don't have to have a whole new circuit installed for a second charger, don't have to notify building control (as no new circuit), no new circuit breaker etc. The two chargers manage the load between them dynamically, so if one car reaches its charge limit it will then increase the charge rate of the other car up to the 7kw limit;
- one process for purchase and installation. If you use a company like SmartHomeCharge (which I used and would recommend), you choose your charger, send them the photos they ask for of the proposed location, the fuseboard etc, they send you a personalised quote and if you agree then they do everything for you. They'll do the legal bits of notifying the electricity network, send the charger to your door and send someone to install it. They still offer Tesla wall chargers but because Tesla only sell direct to consumer, you have to go and order the charger yourself, tell the company when it's arrived so they can then make the arrangements etc. Not major, but a bit more faff.
Cons of Easee One
- No release button. The Tesla home charger, like the Superchargers, have a little button at the top of the cable plug that you press and the car releases the cable for removal. You can't get that on any non-Tesla charger so when you've finished charging you either need to open the app, wait for it to connect and then press the "unlock charge port" button or open your Tesla and press the button on the touch screen. Adds about 15 seconds to the cable removal process;
- multiple apps. It means you'll have more apps cluttering up your phone, rather than just the Tesla one. Really depends on how much that kind of thing bothers you;
- Easee One removed from market in Sweden. The Swedish authorities say the Easee One doesn't meet electrical safety rules and have banned it, pending an appeal by Easee. In all honesty, it's impossible for a non-expert to take a view on it. I did a lot of research and it seems that Easee say it implements the necessary safety feature, just via a different route than Sweden would expect. Sweden seem to say that they either do it the way they expect, or not at all. My personal view is that they sell in all EU countries, only one apparently has any issue with it and if there was a genuine issue you'd expect the other regulators to be investigating and nobody else is interested. So it's assessed as compliant for the UK and every other EU country, so it's probably a quirk of Swedish regulation (and is being appealed anyway). That's good enough for me (it all came about after mine was installed and I did quite a lot of research as I didn't want anything to risk my extremely adventurous 2 year old).
I've attached a few photos of the app functionality below. Hope that helps.
easee.com
