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Choosing a home fast charger

Choosing a home fast charger

First and foremost:

Any home charger will give the car a basic charge.

However, all chargers are not equal. The charger needs to fit your needs. Things to consider:

Do I need a home fast charger?

13amp granny charger
In the UK, the MG ZS EV and MG 5 EV both come with a 13-amp 3-pin plug-in charger (often referred to as a granny charger). Outside the UK, they may come with a 10-amp, 13-amp or 16-amp plug-in charger, depending on local markets. Officially, this is used only for emergencies. However, if your mileage needs are small, such that you can completely replenish the energy you use daily in an overnight charge, you may be happy to use this as your long-term charging solution.

Advantages of just using the plug-in charger:
  • No further outlay to install a fast charger
  • Suitable for properties with limited power
Disadvantages of just using the plug-in charger:
  • Very slow rate of charge, approximately 2.2 to 2.4 kW – on the MG 5, this is approximately 4 to 5% of battery capacity per hour
  • A full charge, from empty, will take about a day
  • Another way of looking at this – your charging rate is approximately 8 mph
  • A 13-amp socket is not designed for continuous high loads – most do just fine, some may get hot, particularly if home wiring is not up to modern standards, or there are loose wires causing arcing
  • Same goes for extension leads – any reels should be unwound fully to prevent over-heating
  • If there is no outdoor socket, the extension lead needs to go under the garage door or through an open window.
Nevertheless, if your daily mileage is typically small, and you can replenish your energy needs overnight, or even better, within any off-peak tariff window you may have, the 13-amp charger may be sufficient to your needs. Many EV owners do this quite successfully, using public rapid charging points to top-up where needed.

Home charger power output

Most home fast chargers* work on a standard residential household supply (single-phase 230 volts AC) and deliver up to approximately 7kW** of power, at 32 amps. Once the battery reaches fully charged, the charger will ramp down to a relatively low power and the battery will go into a “balancing” phase, equalising the voltages of individual cells, preserving battery health. An MG 5 EV charges in approximately 8 hours, with a charging rate of approximately 25 mph.

MG charge port

Connector types
When choosing a home charger, choose one with a type 2 connector
. MG EVs use a type 2 connector for AC charging. On the vehicle itself, the top portion of the charge port is the type 2 connector and the entire top and bottom of the plug are used together for DC rapid charging (called CCS), away from home.

Tethered or untethered
Chargers can either be installed as a tethered or an untethered charger. Tethered means the charging cable is permanently attached to the charger.

Thethered and untethered home chargers

Tethered advantages – no need to store a cable, it is always there and ready

Untethered advantages – neater installation on the wall, no unsightly cable hanging on the wall or needing to be coiled up on or in the charger.

If you have a tethered charger, you don’t need to buy a separate type 2 cable, unless you need one for destination charging, in which case, you do need the separate cable.

If you have an untethered charger, you need a separate type 2 cable, which you either store in the car, or store somewhere else, or leave it plugged in to the charger.

There is no right or wrong answer for tethered versus untethered chargers. It is personal preference.

A 5 minute timelapse of the installation of a 7kw tethered Podpoint home charger back in 2017.


Smart or dumb charging

A standard, non-smart (or dumb) charger is one that you can simply just plug into your car, and the car will charge. All chargers will do this.

In addition to this, a smart charger has the ability to schedule an overnight charge, either by:
  • User selectable times
  • Matching times to your off-peak tariff
  • Matching times for a flexible tariff which can change every half-hour (such as Octopus Agile)
  • Using a smart algorithm to determine what time your car needs to be ready by, and choosing relevant times to benefit either your tariff, or grid supply and demand, or CO2 produced by the grid, or a mixture of all of the above
Different charger manufacturers use different methods to implement smart charging. Sometimes this is done on the charger’s front panel and sometimes this is done on a phone app.

You cannot schedule a timed charge from within the car. MG don’t include that capability. To schedule an timed charge, you must choose a smart charger or use another means.

Smart charging compatibility and owner-compiled compatibility list
Most brands of charger are fully compatible
with, and have no issues in smart charging, any MG EV.

Some brands of charger that successfully smart charge most other EVs, cannot reliably wake up an MG vehicle to charge it to a schedule. The reason for this is technical and involves the way a control pilot signal is used to tell the car to wake up. These brands of charger are not-fully-compatible without a workaround, but will still work fine as a dumb charger.

To complicate this fact, earlier MG ZS EVs needed a fix in their BMS software, as they didn’t wake up at all. This was an entirely separate issue, which was fixed with an early BMS update. This was never an issue with the MG 5 EV.

With a not-fully-compatible charger:
  • All MG ZS EVs that have had their BMS fixed, and
  • All MG5 EVs
will successfully wake up, under the following circumstances:
  • For the initial charge only, as long as this is:
  • Within the first 10 hours after the car has been powered down
Once that initial charge has finished, the car will go back to sleep. Subsequently:
  • Any smart charge scheduled for later on in the night, will not wake up the car for a second time
  • This will result in a not-fully-charged car in the morning
This is not an issue with the car. It is an issue with the charger.

A not-fully-compatible charger will sometimes exacerbate this problem, by initially connecting to the car with a boost charge, then shut down shortly after, for the scheduled charge later on in the night. Again, once the car shuts down, a not-fully-compatible charger will be unable to wake the car up again, as it does not send the car a compatible wake up signal. This is the case, even on an MG 5 EV or with an MG ZS EV with a fixed BMS. Again, this is not an issue with the car. It is an issue with the charger.

Most charger manufacturers have fixed this issue by changing the method to signal the car to wake up to be compatible with MG. These brands are fully compatible.

However, at the time of writing, at least two brands of charger have not yet been able to implement this fix, so you need to request them to implement a workaround – instead of postponing the charge until the scheduled time, they keep the car awake with a 6-amp (approx. 1.5kW) charge, until the scheduled time.

This needs to be considered when choosing a smart charger – if this fits your needs, perhaps because you don’t have an off-peak tariff, do all of your charging during the day, or are happy to have a 6-amp keep-awake charge between schedules, then you won’t notice any issues. Otherwise, other brands of charger may suit your needs better.

If any of the above is wrong or out of date, or if you are a charger manufacturer and wish to update information, please contribute to this article with an update.

Compatibility list:

Fully compatible with MG:

Others – please contribute!

Not-fully-compatible with MG, requiring a 6-amp charge work-around to reliably smart charge, but compatible as a dumb charger:
Others – please contribute!

Choosing an installer

There are two main routes to installing:
  • contact the charger manufacturer and they will put you in touch with their preferred installer
  • go for a local independent electrician
Compare quotes. Manufacturers quote for standard installs. Check the criteria. Long cable runs, outbuildings, working at height or awkwardly situated consumer units could add hundreds to the bill!

Is your independent installer able to claim back the OZEV grant? Some can, some can’t.

There is no one right option for everyone. Except if you have solar PV and want to use excess electricity to charge your car, in which case the one right option is the Zappi.

Power supply to the home

Your installer will check that your home’s power supply is sufficient for a home charger. They will do this by determining (or asking you to provide photos of) the incoming supply fuse rating (typically 60 to 100 amps), other high power loads you may have, such as electric showers, and whether you share your supply with another house (known as a looped supply). They may ask you to contact your supply company (known as a DNO) or they may advise you to choose a brand of charger that has the technology to restrict charging output based on sensing the current entering the building. Most power issues can be overcome either by liaising with your supplier or by carefully selecting a suitable brand of charger.

Grant or no grant

England

This information applies to England, as that’s where I live. If you live in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or are outside the UK and you have a local grant arrangement, please contribute to this article.

In England, the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV, formerly OLEV) will pay towards the cost of either the charger, or installation, or both. At the current time of writing, the grant covers £350 towards the cost of the charger and/or installation.

There are a few pre-requisites to qualify for a grant, this includes:
  • You own or lease an electric vehicle (EV), or you have one on order
  • That particular vehicle cannot have already been used to obtain a grant.
  • You need to have off-street parking
  • That vehicle must be on the approved list for the grant
An approved installer will know about this and will complete the necessary paperwork.

Reasons why you may want to not apply for the grant include:
  • Non-eligibility
  • Choosing a non-permanently installed charger, such as one that plugs into a 32-amp Commando socket (Ohme is one brand of charger that offers this) and, depending on your installation requirements, this may, or may not, work out cheaper than getting the grant
  • Choosing a dumb charger (the grant is only for smart charge enabled units)
  • DIY install (subject to building regs approval, etc.)
In summary
  • Do you need a fast charger, or will the granny charger that came with the car meet your needs?
  • Anything that you buy, any brand, as long as it's 32 amp / 7ish kW, will do a basic charge of the car
  • Choose a type 2 unit, tethered or untethered, by personal preference
  • Any charger manufacturer’s installation offer usually applies to a standard installation. Long cable runs, awkwardly situated consumer units, working at heights and/or outbuildings could add significantly to this. Compare like with like when shopping around
  • MG doesn't have a scheduler in its onboard software – you will need fully compatible smart-charger capability or a manual timer arrangement if you want this
  • Consider if aesthetics are important to you, particularly on a front-facing wall. Andersen are one example of a premium product that is aesthetically pleasing
  • PodPoint and Rolec are good entry-point contenders, but:
  • Do check the compatibility list if smart charging is important to you
  • Ohme is a good option also, appears to have good app support for scheduling and integrating with electricity supplier tariffs
  • Zappi has integration options with solar panels
  • Consider a 32-amp commando socket installation and a suitable 32-amp plug-in charger – it will not be grant eligible, but may, or may not, work out cheaper, depending on installation costs

Please update this article and the compatibility list, to keep it current!

Footnotes:

*The MG ZS EV and MG 5 EV actually accept up to a nominal 6.6kW, this can sometimes be higher, as UK mains voltage can vary and can be as high as 250ish volts at times, yielding slightly higher figures, hence the 7kW approximate charger rating.

**There are AC chargers on the market that can make use of 3-phase electricity and these chargers can charge at up to 22kW. However, the MG ZS EV and the MG 5 EV cannot make use of this charging rate when AC charging, as its on-board charge controller can only deal with single-phase electricity. Only consider this type of charger if you have other vehicles that can make use of this technology (one such example is the Renault Zoe – please check with your vehicle manufacturer). Your home will also need a 3-phase supply for this type of charger, and most homes in the UK do not have this as standard (look for a 3-phase meter and 3 incoming fuses from the street). Purchasing a 3-phase charger solely for use of the MG is a needless expense, unless you are thinking of future-proofing and you believe the majority of future EVs will incorporate 3-phase technology (not currently the case).
 
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I’m just starting to think about charging points. Any particular reason for choosing the Podpoint?
I am with EDF and they partner with Pod Point. I signed up for the charger via the EDF website. Whole process was very straightforward and took four weeks from start to finish at a cost of £520.
 
Hi All
I am waiting for a Zappi charge point to be installed.
I went for this as I have solar pv and a tesla powerwall 2 .
as far as i can tell zappi is the only unit that will not take stored energy in the storage battery
 
Thank you for taking the time to write and post this. It is an excellent article and very informative.
 
Are you saying that your Hypervolt is compatible with scheduled charging? Hypervolt technician doesn't seem to think so. Please confirm
Are you specifically talking about an MG model?

The charger itself definitely does, lots of info here and on YouTube.
 
Are you specifically talking about an MG model?

The charger itself definitely does, lots of info here and on YouTube.
Sorry, Yes I was told specifically that Hypervolt is not compatible with the MG ZS EV with regard to scheduled charging as it cannot wake the car's system up (yet, they are apparently waiting for input from MG)). Works fine as a dumb charger however.
 
Sorry, Yes I was told specifically that Hypervolt is not compatible with the MG ZS EV with regard to scheduled charging as it cannot wake the car's system up (yet, they are apparently waiting for input from MG)). Works fine as a dumb charger however.
I schedule charge my Zs EV twice a week with my Hypervolt charger and Octopus Go - no probs.
 
Had a wallbox pulsar plus installed three weeks ago to charge my MG5 - so far it has consistently failed - it did manage to charge for one minute on one occasion. The installer and the manufacturer are blaming each other and I cannot get the issue resolved - very frustrating. The car charges fine using the 'granny' charger. Has anyone had similar problems with the wallbox pulsar plus charger?
 
My ohme reports EV failed when its not charging. It works fine though when the schedule starts the charging maybe related? Suspect the EV isn't fully following the charging protocol.
 
Had a wallbox pulsar plus installed three weeks ago to charge my MG5 - so far it has consistently failed - it did manage to charge for one minute on one occasion. The installer and the manufacturer are blaming each other and I cannot get the issue resolved - very frustrating. The car charges fine using the 'granny' charger. Has anyone had similar problems with the wallbox pulsar plus charger?
I've been charging my MG5 with my Wallbox Pulsar Plus without issue since March. I did have to apply a couple of updates initially, and have applied several since using the app. I don't use any timers, but I do keep it locked, and have auto lock set to on after 4 minutes. I just plug my MG5 in, unlock the Wallbox, and it charges.
 
That's encouraging news - thank you. Apparently a technician is going to arrive sometime next week to try and resolve the issue.
 
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