I am getting a charger installed but not sure which one to get
My two-penny-worth - would be good to hear other views
Zappi is good if you have Solar and House Battery and want to divert excess Solar PV to Car (e.g. once battery is full). Zappi "stable" has other integrated-gadget-options (such as turning on your immersion if you have excess Solar PV)
If you don't need that option then I'm not sure that Zappi has benefits over any other brand
Tesla charger is "dumb", so no APP / won't do anything clever. Personally I like that - its always-live, so plug in and car will charge without having to "start" anything in an APP. So if a mate rocks up they can just pug in a start charging. Everything is then done only from the Tesla APP
Let's assume you want to charge overnight (on a cheap rate). You can schedule the (Tesla) car to charge at, say, Midnight. Car will remember the location for that schedule (so if you plug in somewhere else it won't wait for midnight
). If you come home late and plug in it will still charge (not sure how much slack there is, but pretty sure its a good couple of hours).
However, Tesla will not STOP the charge at the end of your Cheap Rate. if you have 4 hours Off peak overnight tariff that's about 100 - 110 miles. So if you have been on a trip, and come home needing more than that you have two options:
1. You are going somewhere tomorrow and need the car filling up. You are going to have to pay for some peak charging
2. you aren't going anywhere tomorrow and you would like the car to fill up over 2+ nights
3. Get a wall charger that does have start/stop time (but that may be inconvenient during the day if you want to charge, or pre-condition, the car)
4. Get some 3rd party API software, such as TeslaFi, that will STOP the charge at the end of Off Peak (and if it suits you such APPs will schedule turning on climate just before you head off to work, and again (if you plug in at work) before you leave to come home)
For #2 (other than having a charger that will stop at the end of off peak, or using an API APP) some people set the Tesla Charge Limit to, say, 10% above "current" - where 10% represents the amount of charging that will happen within a 4 hours window. Then you have to increase the limit (tomorrow) by another 10% (someone else can tell you what percentage can actually be done in 4 hours on a 7kW home charger)
If you have a charger which will stop at the end of Off Peak then (as I understand it) you will have to fiddle with its APP if you want to charge at any other time - to charge during the day, or to pre-condition the car for departure - turn on the Climate, or heat the battery (in winter) -so you have to use Charger APP to override it and also use Tesla APP to start Climate etc.
The Tesla charger also has a button, on the wand, to stop the charge and unlock the charger. When you go out to the car in the morning that can be convenient - rather than having to do some other action - there are a number but for example you could open the APP and "Unlock" the charger
Installation requirements vary - and that will impact the cost of install. I'm no electrician, but its things like whether you need an earthing rod and some other "safety" features. Some incorporate those "in the box", others require Sparky to fit them separately. If the charger is outside that might increase what is needed compared to if the charger is in the garage (AND not situated such that the cable could be used to charge the car
outside)
Whilst installing your car charger you might want to consider:
A second car charger - for the future. Or run a cable for it "ready". I have 2x chargers at a reasonable distance apart - where we park the two cars. But I wish I had put both of them in the middle, between the parking spaces, so that either-cable would reach either-car.
A commando socket? Useful as a backup for the wall charger (its 7kW (27 MPH) same as the wall charger, whereas a 13AMP socket is only 2.4 kW (8 MPH) in practice). You'd need to get a Commando adapter for the UMC. It would give you the ability to charge the car if your wall charger broke. (And ability to charge a 2nd car if that would be infrequent such that Commado was "good enough")
A 13 AMP external socket - for a pressure washer / whatever - if you don't have one on your driveway at all.
Consider where you park and where will be convenient for the charger. Tesla charge port is rear-left-corner - which way do you come in to your drive? Is it an in-and-out such that you could choose to come in the "other way" and thus have passenger side closest to the house (or make sure the brand you choose has cable long enough to reach round, but there is some risk of the sticking-out-plug getting knocked by e.g. White Can Man in a hurry - or just looking a bit unsightly)
