Home charger advice please

[sm2021]

Hi folks, I’ve just joined as picked up my ZS Trophy Long Range a few days ago. Already loving the car and was looking for a bit of advice regarding home charging. The Octopus EV rate is great for a few hours overnight but the rest of the day rate increases my current one by over 10p a kWh, so I’m keeping my current tariff meaning I can charge anytime night or day. I have the opportunity to get a charger from Bumblebee for £595 fitted but wasn’t sure if I’d be as well just using a normal 3 pin plug. Any thoughts would be appreciated, thank you.

 

[MG Clive]

Welcome to MGEVs @sm2021, some members on here only use the 3-pin 'Granny Charger' without any problem, and if you don't need to charge up two or three times a week, that will probably be OK, but if you need to charge up often and quickly, you really need a home charger. £595 supplied and fitted sounds very good value.

 

[sm2021]

Thanks, I’m not sure yet how often I’ll need to charge but wouldn’t think more than a couple of times per week. From what I’ve since read, there seems to be some potential safety issues with the granny plug and as you say, £595 is a reasonable price by all accounts.

 

[MG Clive]

I only need to charge a couple of times a month, and I have a standard 7kW home charger, it's quicker and more convenient.

 

[Giller]

Thanks, I’m not sure yet how often I’ll need to charge but wouldn’t think more than a couple of times per week. From what I’ve since read, there seems to be some potential safety issues with the granny plug and as you say, £595 is a reasonable price by all accounts.

Granny charger has serious limitations and at £595 fitted for a conventional non smart charger I'd get it in an instant, who knows what the future holds with electricity prices and the last thing you'd want is to be charging or topping up at commercial charge points.

 

[Black estate]

I would get a 7 kW charger as if you decide later to upgrade your EV you've got the charger already.
I've got a Wallbox pulsar plus which is 4 years old and still works great.
One tip: get it with either a very long lead, or a socket and use a stand alone lead.

 

[BOB353]

I use a three pin 10A charger on my ZS LR and normally recharge once it gets under 40% and find it takes about 20hr+ to charge it back to 80%. Easy for us as we are retire so don't use it every day and in 16 months have only done about 9,000km so have plenty of time to charge it at the slower rate.

What you need to work out is how far you will be travelling each day. This will tell you how often you need to recharge and if you can manage to only charge to 80% or if you need to use 100%, 80% charge is recommended for battery longevity.

Perhaps feed us back with your usage figure, i.e. how far you travel per day and time it can be charged over night.

 

[fred12345]

Hi folks, I’ve just joined as picked up my ZS Trophy Long Range a few days ago. Already loving the car and was looking for a bit of advice regarding home charging. The Octopus EV rate is great for a few hours overnight but the rest of the day rate increases my current one by over 10p a kWh, so I’m keeping my current tariff meaning I can charge anytime night or day. I have the opportunity to get a charger from Bumblebee for £595 fitted but wasn’t sure if I’d be as well just using a normal 3 pin plug. Any thoughts would be appreciated, thank you.

If you can get a charger and installation for £600, go for it. My quotes are all for around £1,000.

I used a 3-pin charger for 2 years for some 10,000 miles per year, so you can definitely do it. BUT - I changed the socket twice as I was enthusiastic and charged at 3kW for longer then necessary. I now charge at around 2.4kW overnight on off-peak tariff, 8p per kWh. It works perfectly fine.

So, if I were you, I would get that £600 deal and switch to EV tariff to charge overnight. Either way, even if you use a 3-pin, switch to EV tariff as for your needs, overnight top-up will be more than enough. If you have long range model, charge to 80% and if it's regular range car, charge to 100% if you want, as needed. Do not obsess with battery health, keep it between 40% and 80% most of the time and enjoy! Congratulations on your new car.

 

[Catsailor]

One year in with a ZS LR. We have covered 7000 miles. The car is kept in a garage and charged using a 3 pin socket. We have used about £160 worth of electricity (Octopus Go) plus 2 sessions on commercial fast chargers £50. We have shifted our dishwasher and washing machine use on to the overnight tariff, included in the £160. The numbers for installing an £900 - £1000 charger (we need a trench) don't justify a charger install. There have been a couple of occasions when we have charged for longer than the Octopus Go night rate after arriving home from a longish drive with heater and lights. So there might be a convenience benefit but that's all.

 

[poldark]

I bought one of these and paid a local electrician to install the relevant socket on a dedicated 32A circuit - total cost under £350.

 

[Black estate]

I bought one of these and paid a local electrician to install the relevant socket on a dedicated 32A circuit - total cost under £350.

That would be good for a camping site charging with the blue plug on

 

[poldark]

I did consider the added practicality of being portable, but so far only ever used it at home. I guess it's also beneficial if you plan to move home and just need to get another socket installed.

Also mine is tucked safely away in the garage, the 6 metres is plenty to reach under the closed garage door to the ZS.

 

[Data]

Hi folks, I’ve just joined as picked up my ZS Trophy Long Range a few days ago. Already loving the car and was looking for a bit of advice regarding home charging. The Octopus EV rate is great for a few hours overnight but the rest of the day rate increases my current one by over 10p a kWh, so I’m keeping my current tariff meaning I can charge anytime night or day. I have the opportunity to get a charger from Bumblebee for £595 fitted but wasn’t sure if I’d be as well just using a normal 3 pin plug. Any thoughts would be appreciated, thank you.

Taking into account everything that's been said above in other posts, if you do get a dedicated wallbox charge point, look carefully at which one you get. I don't know anything about the Bumblebee but when I was choosing my wallbox I discovered that most of them are throwaway jobs if they go wrong & you'll need to buy another one if out of warranty. So I chose the MyEnergy Zappi wallbox. They are smart, reliable, practical & quite aesthetic to look at. It has a modular design so if something goes wrong you (or your electrician) can unplug the faulty part & plug in a new bit in most cases. If someone were to steal your charge cable by cutting it, it can be easily replaced. That's not always the case with some other units.

The other main advantage of having a wallbox is that you can have a 'smart' very cheap EV package as opposed to just a standard EV package. I currently pay just 5p per kWh on my Octopus Intelligent go package. With a smart package your whole house can benefit from this cheap rate not only at night but during the day if you are plugged in & Octopus decide to charge you. You don't get that rate during the day if YOU decide to boost charge though. It has to be an Octopus decision to charge you.

The other main consideration is safety. Many charge using a standard socket without an issue. But some do get overheating issues, some get fires. My very good friend had a fire in his brand new house when charging his EV using granny. Standard sockets were never designed to charge EV cars for hour after hour at pretty much the maximum load capacity. So you could be pushing your luck. Our local fire service recommends a proper wallbox or 32amp socket is used. They have had to deal with fires caused by granny charging. Anyway, congrats on getting your EV. They are great cars. You won't be sorry.

EDIT: Case in point...at 4.05pm I just plugged the car in for a 30% top up ready for tomorrow. Octopus immediately started charging my car at 5p per kWh. I've got 3hrs cheap rate (5p per kWh) for the whole house!

 

[Data]

Here's a shot of my Zappi wallbox.

 

[Giller]

Here's a shot of my Zappi wallbox.

View attachment 44995

I switched from my conventional charger after 4 years use to a Zappi last September as I’d installed solar in May, if you can see a solar install in your future might want to factor that into the equation…..

 

[Gadget Geek]

Hello, and welcome to the forum.

Although I have a 7kW EVSE, which was free with my first car, I mostly use the portable EVSE (granny) on a dedicated EV socket from Screwfix. Gives me enough charge overnight (around 15%) and draws off the solar panels when it's sunny.

 

[sm2021]

Thanks everyone, a lot of useful advice and plenty to think over. I bought the car from Arnold Clark and the £595 is an offer through their own company, Bumblebee. I have a call with them to discuss things next week and will see what they say then. I think the charger will be their Point one but assume they will give me the ‘opportunity ‘ to upgrade to a more expensive charger. The next 2 up are their Edge and then the MyEnergy Zappi glo. Thanks again.

 

[sm2021]

Taking into account everything that's been said above in other posts, if you do get a dedicated wallbox charge point, look carefully at which one you get. I don't know anything about the Bumblebee but when I was choosing my wallbox I discovered that most of them are throwaway jobs if they go wrong & you'll need to buy another one if out of warranty. So I chose the MyEnergy Zappi wallbox. They are smart, reliable, practical & quite aesthetic to look at. It has a modular design so if something goes wrong you (or your electrician) can unplug the faulty part & plug in a new bit in most cases. If someone were to steal your charge cable by cutting it, it can be easily replaced. That's not always the case with some other units.

The other main advantage of having a wallbox is that you can have a 'smart' very cheap EV package as opposed to just a standard EV package. I currently pay just 5p per kWh on my Octopus Intelligent go package. With a smart package your whole house can benefit from this cheap rate not only at night but during the day if you are plugged in & Octopus decide to charge you. You don't get that rate during the day if YOU decide to boost charge though. It has to be an Octopus decision to charge you.

The other main consideration is safety. Many charge using a standard socket without an issue. But some do get overheating issues, some get fires. My very good friend had a fire in his brand new house when charging his EV using granny. Standard sockets were never designed to charge EV cars for hour after hour at pretty much the maximum load capacity. So you could be pushing your luck. Our local fire service recommends a proper wallbox or 32amp socket is used. They have had to deal with fires caused by granny charging. Anyway, congrats on getting your EV. They are great cars. You won't be sorry.

EDIT: Case in point...at 4.05pm I just plugged the car in for a 30% top up ready for tomorrow. Octopus immediately started charging my car at 5p per kWh. I've got 3hrs cheap rate (5p per kWh) for the whole house!

Thanks, I see your Zappi on Bumblebee’s list and assume I would get the opportunity to upgrade. It’s £150 more than the standard one (point) I assume will be the offer charger. Interesting what you say about Octopus. Best deal I can get on Intelligent is 8p overnight and 33p all other times. I’m currently on 23p fixed rate and given I think (guessing really I’ll only charge the car a couple of times a week (hoping less!), I’m not sure going on the EV tariff would be cost effective. I normally do around 30 or so miles a day, maybe 200 in the week

 

[sm2021]

I use a three pin 10A charger on my ZS LR and normally recharge once it gets under 40% and find it takes about 20hr+ to charge it back to 80%. Easy for us as we are retire so don't use it every day and in 16 months have only done about 9,000km so have plenty of time to charge it at the slower rate.

What you need to work out is how far you will be travelling each day. This will tell you how often you need to recharge and if you can manage to only charge to 80% or if you need to use 100%, 80% charge is recommended for battery longevity.

Perhaps feed us back with your usage figure, i.e. how far you travel per day and time it can be charged over night.

Thanks, I normally do around 30 or so miles a day, maybe 200 in the week and can charge it at home after 5pm weekdays and anytime at the weekend