Home charging your new MG4

[ukflyer]

Like many others, my MG4 will be my first ev, so I do have a lot of questions about charging, both home and on public chargers.

For home, do you recommend tethered or untethered? Tethered would be more convenient, but as I have an ungated driveway, onto the main road, I run the risk of getting it stolen, although I do have security cameras on the area. I wish there was a frunk for cable storage. I wonder if someone will design an aftermarket one such as was done for the Kona? What chargers do you recommend that can accommodate solar, in the future? Is it worth paying £100 more for one that does not require a ground rod, when a rod costs less than a tenner and needs five minutes of pounding with a hammer?

 

[Jomarkh]

Hi and congrats on your order.
If you are thinking of solar and a battery then get a Zappi.
Mine is tethered and in the garage with the lead under the door so not much on show.

 

[ukflyer]

Oh yes. Should your main fuse be 100 amps for a single phase home charger? If less
I may not need to get the tails changed?? My cousin is an electrician, so will do the charger install for me.

 

[ukflyer]

Hi and congrats on your order.
If you are thinking of solar and a battery then get a Zappi.
Mine is tethered and in the garage with the lead under the door so not much on show.

I wish I could, but not practical for my situation. My charger will be on an outside wall about 4 metres from the pavement.

 

[D1no]

EV Man did a video on YouTube a couple of months ago regarding tethered or untethered charger. Think he convinced me to go tethered, but watch that as explains the options and issues well

 

[Alb]

I'd not consider anything other than tethered. I think the theft risk is overblown but you have mitigation anyway. One of my security cameras is permanently trained on the car and charger too so this gives peace of mind, even when it's dark:

 

[Lguk]

Are you talking theft of the untethered cable, seems to be a rather overblown thing by the media, I've not managed to find much in the way of credible reports of thefts on EV forums. If it was a serious issue there would be a lot more owners making a noise.

I went untethered as I would need a 7.5-10m cable and that would not only look unsightly hanging on the front of the house, but also risk the ire of the conservation zone enforcement.

100 amp fuse isn't 'required'.. You can still run on an 80 or even a 60 with a CT clamp that throttled the charger back if the household draw was high. I pushed through for the 100a fuse as I plan on load shifting for octopus Go and don't want to risk throttling back overnight and not having enough charge in the morning.

If you charge during the 4 hour cheap window only, you're only going to put 40% back in the car at the full 7kw and that does need to be taken into account.

The Zappi gets good feedback on here for those with solar. The EO unit can also support solar but the app is horrendously poor (I have an EO)

 

[benfello]

Oh yes. Should your main fuse be 100 amps for a single phase home charger? If less
I may not need to get the tails changed?? My cousin is an electrician, so will do the charger install for me.

Any chance he fancies being my cousin as well?

 

[HarryTheGreyhound]

The tethered vs untethered thing will be entirely your choice, and there are advantages and disadvantages for both. I went for tethered simply because I’m lazy and didn’t want to faff around digging a type 2 cable out of my boot before plugging in. But it is a bit unsightly, and my neighbour’s untethered charger looks much nicer.

 

[biffo]

Oh yes. Should your main fuse be 100 amps for a single phase home charger? If less
I may not need to get the tails changed?? My cousin is an electrician, so will do the charger install for me.

I’ve got an 80A fuse but Hypervolt will throttle if needs to. From last night, charging with dishwasher and washing machine running along with the 150W base load of house - smart meter showed 9kWh usage - so 39 amps (assuming 230V for purposes of calculations).

I’ve seen more before I removed the electric shower (test charge to see what happened!) - but even running a 3kW immersion at same time and tumble drier, you’d need to pull another 9kW in addition to charger/washing machine/dishwasher to come close to 80A - and even this isn’t not going to blow at this limit.

So - unless you run all white goods and have a very long 10kW shower during off peak with only a 60A fuse - throttling shouldn’t be an issue.

 

[kin]

Same as you, for security reasons, I had an untethered Unit fitted to my previous house, it looked neat and almost invisible as it was installed on the side of the garage, but after a while, it became a pain just to get the heavy 7 metre cable out to plug and unplug both ends.
Since then, I’ve moved house and this time a tethered unit was installed. Made a huge difference!

 

[BugEyed]

Is it worth paying £100 more for one that does not require a ground rod, when a rod costs less than a tenner and needs five minutes of pounding with a hammer?

The answer is that it depends.

A TT earth is potentially safer for an EV charging outdoors. But it requires that you don't have other PME earth connections nearby as well as other services that could be damaged by the rod, and that the local geology means that you will achieve a low enough resistance to avoid needing more expensive solutions such as a Condudisc

 

[BugEyed]

Should your main fuse be 100 amps for a single phase home charger? If less
I may not need to get the tails changed??

As above, not if you are willing to accept potential throttling. Don't forget that you may also just be deferring the inevitable - now with 2 EVs, battery storage and a small ASHP we sometimes hit the 100 Amp limit of the main fuse on our property. It's worth asking your DNO about a main fuse upgrade as they'll often replace the tails for free to the main switch at the same time, leaving you to only pay for the tails on to the CU.

 

[Archev]

I’ve got an 80A fuse but Hypervolt will throttle if needs to. From last night, charging with dishwasher and washing machine running along with the 150W base load of house - smart meter showed 9kWh usage - so 39 amps (assuming 230V for purposes of calculations).

I’ve seen more before I removed the electric shower (test charge to see what happened!) - but even running a 3kW immersion at same time and tumble drier, you’d need to pull another 9kW in addition to charger/washing machine/dishwasher to come close to 80A - and even this isn’t not going to blow at this limit.

So - unless you run all white goods and have a very long 10kW shower during off peak with only a 60A fuse - throttling shouldn’t be an issue.

For many years we had electric showers (I was a service agent for some manufacturers and checked out any new units )
We got our 9 kw electric CH boiler after the old gas one gave up and we got rid of the gas supply. We installed a new electric cooker around then. All was well on a 60 amp supply fuse with our overhead supply cable.
So just as we considered getting the MG ZS nearly three years ago, that overhead cable decided to fall in a storm one night.
Scottish Power took whole lot out and installed a complete new underground supply from across the main road complete with a new smart meter, new tails and 100 amp fuse, the works.
The ZS came with a Rolec charger and Scottish government grant which rendered the whole bill to zero. We were a bit pleased.
Initially we ordered the untethered charger but at the eleventh hour changed to a tethered unit - much easier to use.

 

[BugEyed]

came with a Rolec charger

It was all going so well until then.

 

[Archev]

It was all going so well until then.

Not a fan then ??

 

[Alb]

I went for tethered simply because I’m lazy and didn’t want to faff around digging a type 2 cable out of my boot before plugging in. But it is a bit unsightly, and my neighbour’s untethered charger looks much nicer.

Tethered isn't unsightly if you choose the right charge unit.

 

[BugEyed]

Or if money's no object, an Anderson A2

 

[OhmMy]

Like many others, my MG4 will be my first ev, so I do have a lot of questions about charging, both home and on public chargers.

For home, do you recommend tethered or untethered? Tethered would be more convenient, but as I have an ungated driveway, onto the main road, I run the risk of getting it stolen, although I do have security cameras on the area. I wish there was a frunk for cable storage. I wonder if someone will design an aftermarket one such as was done for the Kona? What chargers do you recommend that can accommodate solar, in the future? Is it worth paying £100 more for one that does not require a ground rod, when a rod costs less than a tenner and needs five minutes of pounding with a hammer?

I also know next to nothing about this subject, but a friend works for my distribution network operator and tells me that at some time in 2022/23 the government will be starting to fund any upgrades which will significantly expand the capacity for download/upload of current. This would enable greater earnings/faster payback from your solar investment and higher capacity charging, at zero cost, whereas you would currently be billed for it by your DNO.
Hopefully someone can explain this better and technically.

 

[sinhaEVnoob]

The answer is that it depends.

A TT earth is potentially safer for an EV charging outdoors. But it requires that you don't have other PME earth connections nearby as well as other services that could be damaged by the rod, and that the local geology means that you will achieve a low enough resistance to avoid needing more expensive solutions such as a Condudisc

Could you expand a bit more on the impact of the earth? I had an install on Thursday and they said my earth rod was a bit marginal. Now the app is showing an error and i wonder if this is connected. I have a TT earth and the installer advised that I ask western power for a PME.

I have got a Wallbox pulsar plus.