Which home charger are you using?

[Russinating]

With my Model 3 sat on the Glovis Cosmos (hopefully) I need to sort out my home charging.

I'm not elligible for the OLEV grant due to not having an off-street parking space and I've already had a local electrician come around (commercial guy that I've used before at work) to have a look and spec up and he's quoted £400 for labour and materials to install a Tesla Wall Charger. Probably less than I was expecting in reality.

However I probably need a 7-10m cable and the way tethered cables wrap around is pretty untidy given mine's going to be right next to my front door so I prefer the neatness/discreetness of untethered/universal chargers.

At the moment it's like getting blood out of a stone to find out if I can even buy chargers without installation. I've had 6 emails back and forth with EO just repeating myself and I still don't know if they sell their charges and how much it would be without installation.

Same for Podpoint; their website is pretty straightforward if you want installation, but no idea if they sell them without.

What charger (preferably untethered) is everyone else using? Did you buy it standalone or did it have to be installed by the company?

 

[freekie]

Tesla installed by Tesla recommended installer. Cables are not as noticeable as I thought they would be (I had considered getting untethered version for aesthetics and thankfully was persuaded by this forum to make practicality priority). My charger and cables are on side of house. If it was the front I would have taken a different approach.

 

[RichieC]

I have an EO Mini Pro (untethered) chargepoint that was installed by their installers. I did qualify for the goverment grant so got it a little cheaper, but im sure you can buy the unit without installation from their website?

Also, i am on the Octopus Go for my electricity supply and they do a deal where you get £100 off the EO Pro when you order it through them - not sure if you are with Octopus, but might make it a little cheaper if you are...

 

[ajcarpenter]

I have an EO Mini Pro (untethered) chargepoint that was installed by their installers. I did qualify for the goverment grant so got it a little cheaper, but im sure you can buy the unit without installation from their website?

Also, i am on the Octopus Go for my electricity supply and they do a deal where you get £100 off the EO Pro when you order it through them - not sure if you are with Octopus, but might make it a little cheaper if you are...

Octopus are now also offering the EO Mini Pro Smart Home, which has solar integration for £369. I emailed them, and it sounds like the EO Mini Pro is still an option with the discount. https://www.octopusev.com/eo

 

[Russinating]

I have an EO Mini Pro (untethered) chargepoint that was installed by their installers. I did qualify for the goverment grant so got it a little cheaper, but im sure you can buy the unit without installation from their website?

Also, i am on the Octopus Go for my electricity supply and they do a deal where you get £100 off the EO Pro when you order it through them - not sure if you are with Octopus, but might make it a little cheaper if you are...

Yeah I'm with Octopus Go, that's how I discovered the EO range. Like I said they've been useless via email and I can't see any prices/ability to purchase on their website without installation.

 

[Roy W.]

With my Model 3 sat on the Glovis Cosmos (hopefully) I need to sort out my home charging.

I'm not elligible for the OLEV grant due to not having an off-street parking space and I've already had a local electrician come around (commercial guy that I've used before at work) to have a look and spec up and he's quoted £400 for labour and materials to install a Tesla Wall Charger. Probably less than I was expecting in reality.

However I probably need a 7-10m cable and the way tethered cables wrap around is pretty untidy given mine's going to be right next to my front door so I prefer the neatness/discreetness of untethered/universal chargers.

At the moment it's like getting blood out of a stone to find out if I can even buy chargers without installation. I've had 6 emails back and forth with EO just repeating myself and I still don't know if they sell their charges and how much it would be without installation.

Same for Podpoint; their website is pretty straightforward if you want installation, but no idea if they sell them without.

What charger (preferably untethered) is everyone else using? Did you buy it standalone or did it have to be installed by the company?

Pod-Point and others are available for sale only from Amazon.

 

[Jason71]

Pod-Point and others are available for sale only from Amazon.

Yeah Rolec are pretty easy to find as well:
Rolec 32A 7.2kW WallPod:EV Home Smart Socket Charging Unit - Type 2 - White/Green | ElectricalDirect

I have one of these BTW and its fine. does what it says on the box so far.

Even if you cant get the grant does not mean the registered installers who have accounts with the makers cannot install for you. get the olev installer list and try a few small local electricians off the list:
Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme authorised installers

 

[Glan gluaisne]

Cheapest non-tethered charge point I know of is this one: QUBEV - EV Charging Unit | Type 2 Socket | 32 Amp/7.2 kW | IP65 |

~£300, and can be bought online, plus it has variable charge rates via the switch on the side, which can be handy in some circumstances.

 

[Russinating]

Really useful guys, thank you.

And I'm correct in thinking you can schedule charging via the Tesla/Tesla app yes? So I don't need to have that functionality in the charger itself to benefit from the overnight rates.

 

[booyaka76]

Rolec via OLEV grant but you can buy them yourself direct from various places.

It's a "smart" charger but I just use it as a dumb one - never used the smart functions at all

OcUK's Russinating i presume?!?

 

[Glan gluaisne]

Really useful guys, thank you.

And I'm correct in thinking you can schedule charging via the Tesla/Tesla app yes? So I don't need to have that functionality in the charger itself to benefit from the overnight rates.

Yes, to some degree.

You can set EITHER a charge start time, OR a charge completion time, but not both. This is generally OK, for example I like to always charge during the E7 off-peak period, but yesterday I drove a fair bit further than normal, so although I started the charge at 00:15 (off-peak starts at a nominal 00:00, but the clock in the meter can be out a bit) it didn't finish charging until just before 08:00, so I had nearly an hour of peak rate charging this morning.

 

[cezdoc]

I have a new version untethered Zappi. It's not the cheapest but they have a good reputation. There is something about wiring regulations needing a separate earth rod for some chargers which the Zappi avoids - I don't know the details though. It has a lot of features that I don't currently use (designed for use with solar PV and home batteries).

If you want to be super-cheap you could install a 32A shuttered commando socket and use the UMC. When I got my car the wall charger wasn't available so this was effectively Tesla's home charging solution. Some folk warn that the UMC isn't designed for heavy usage but I didn't have any issue (I did buy a waterproof box to give it some extra protection from the elements though). I believe these days you might not get the blue 32A adapter included so that would have to be ordered from Tesla.

 

[Russinating]

Rolec via OLEV grant but you can buy them yourself direct from various places.

It's a "smart" charger but I just use it as a dumb one - never used the smart functions at all

OcUK's Russinating i presume?!?

Haha yeah. *waves*

 

[cezdoc]

Yes, to some degree.

You can set EITHER a charge start time, OR a charge completion time, but not both. This is generally OK, for example I like to always charge during the E7 off-peak period, but yesterday I drove a fair bit further than normal, so although I started the charge at 00:15 (off-peak starts at a nominal 00:00, but the clock in the meter can be out a bit) it didn't finish charging until just before 08:00, so I had nearly an hour of peak rate charging this morning.

One workaround is to set the charge time and then set the max charge limit slider to control the finish time. For my ~70 kWh battery on a 7kW charger it adds almost exactly 10% per hour, so if I'm starting at, say, 30% and want the charge to stop after 5 hours I set the max charge limit to 80%.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

One workaround is to set the charge time and then set the max charge limit slider to control the finish time. For my ~70 kWh battery on a 7kW charger it adds almost exactly 10% per hour, so if I'm starting at, say, 30% and want the charge to stop after 5 hours I set the max charge limit to 80%.

Yes, this works OK if you need less than ~50 kWh of charge, as that's about the maximum you can get during the 7 hours of the E7 off-peak period. Last night I needed around 56 kWh of charge, as I arrived home with not a lot remaining...

 

[Adopado]

. I believe these days you might not get the blue 32A adapter included so that would have to be ordered from Tesla.

The 32 A was never included ... it was the 16 A that was included and you could buy the 32 A as an extra ... £32 picked up with the car or £40 delivered.

 

[Generator]

Tesla wall charger, the 2.5m was to short, so I bought a 7m one with the intention of shortening the lead (I’ve yet to get around to it mind).
I use an untethered one at work, but it’s a royal pain in comparison to the tethered Tesla unit. Opening the boot, uncoiling the lead plugging in both ends, farting about trying to unlock the charge port from my phone, coiling up an invariably wet lead and putting it back in the boot... the Tesla one is a 3 second single handed effort that’s a lot easier.

 

[Gatsojon]

I've gone for a tethered Zappi 2. I was attracted by its solar integration, information display and the company backstory. There does seem to be an overwhelming choice available.

 

[nightowl]

I've gone for a tethered Zappi 2. I was attracted by its solar integration, information display and the company backstory. There does seem to be an overwhelming choice available.

I went for a Zappi 2 as well for similar reasons, but the untethered version. Opted also to get an Eddi to heat my immersion tank so the two products can work together to make the most of the solar power (eventually! Not much sun at the moment.) I had a Solar iBoost previously for that but its small fan was annoyingly noisy (mounted on wall in airing cupboard right next to bedroom.)

If you have the hub, the app is useful for seeing overall household energy usage as well as controlling schedules and manually boosts.

My only gripe is the Tesla Model 3 not waking up when charge is available. I'm hoping that'll be fixed (Tesla issue) but for now I just set a scheduled charge within the car as well. During summer months it'll probably be more annoying as it seems the car will need to be woken up to take the extra available solar power from the Zappi. Again, that's a Tesla issue with the car not waking up when charge is offered, so hopefully they'll address that in a software update.

(Edited to add) I picked a local company that installs the Zappi/Eddi based on the companies listed on the Myenergi website (the company that make these products.)

 

[Markp541]

EO Chargers available from this website, have not used them as got a local company to install mine

eo BASIC Home Charger 16Amp Socket - Powerpac

Change the drop downs to get the price for the mini pro etc.