Home charging

[Lordlee]

What’s the best home charging for an MGEV which you can schedule charging

 

[Deleted member 2439]

Depends how you define best. Cheapest is the supplied granny charger plus the alarm function on your phone! Seriously, it’s free! A Zappi will give you all sorts of features and functions for its pretty price tag, which could be over £1,000 even with the subsidy. I have a Zappi, but honestly on reflection I think that the free option has a long way to go to be beaten & the payback will be a considerable time as well.

This is a simple enough question, with no easy answer……

Good luck

 

[JCFlippen]

I went with Hypervolt at £670 all in after grant for unit and installation.
Had been using granny charger till yesterday. 7kw charger gives mental freedom that ZS EV can be fully charged overnight if need be.

 

[Tim Green]

I have had the ZS for 18 months and have never had a problem charging with the granny. OK, so I rarely have to leave home at 6am or whatever, but most times I use say 100 miles of charge which takes about 10 hours to get to full, so as long as I get it on charge by 6pm all is ok.

 

[RichardC]

I was using a granny charger up until last week when I had a Hypervolt installed. As I have only used it once I am questioning whether it was worth the outlay. I do not do a lot of miles each week and I do not work so I have time to make sure that the car is fully charged. Time will tell.

 

[jamesie]

What price convenience?

Plug in, a few hours later....fully charged.

Worth it in my view.

 

[LeoRBK]

Granny charger does a very good job of charging your car. You can look at the charging times in this link to choose the kind of charger,

Pod Point | MG ZS EV (2022) Charging Guide

The complete guide to charging your MG ZS EV (2022), covering electric range, how long it takes to charge, how much it costs, and much more.

pod-point.com

Granny puts in approx 8 miles per hour in your battery.
You should avoid using granny for daily charge as it is expensive to replace. You might consider it when you need to charge once every few days.

Smart wallbox chargers are useful for scheduled charging especially to take advantage of off peak fares when applicable. Unlike other EVs, MG cars do not support car initiated schedules and need smart wallbox chargers to setup schedule.
There is a thread on the forum which discusses all of this in a bit more detail. I will try to find it in case you have not come across it already.

 

[LeoRBK]

Visit this link where you can read about charging and more,

Resources

Links to useful resources, announcements and feedback about this forum

www.mgevs.com

 

[Marc Nagtegaal]

its of the same make as the granny charger
itsgot an app very easy to install. You can schedule you charge and tell how much you want to charge. Bought it from Ali for 400€

 

[bloggsy]

For me, I love my Pod Point Solo. It's untethered so I can use it for the wife's ZE EV as well as my Mitsubishi Outlander (this uses a Type 1 connector). With the National and the Scottish Grants, it cost me £200 and I use the Pod Point app to schedule charging to link in my 'off peak' rate from Octopus Go Faster, so the cost of charging is about a third of what it is, at other times!

I know I can only get 4 hours 'off peak' which is about 70% (28 Kwh) of the battery capacity and suits my family's needs 99% of the time. I've only had 1 hiccup when the car didn't charge according to the schedule and I had to call Pod Point who did an 'over the air' correction and I was back up and running within 5 minutes - no need for an engineer to visit!

Cheers

Bloggsy

 

[Lovemyev]

I charged my previous PHEV for about 6 months by using the provided “Granny” unit.
But decided to have a wall box installed as a better long term and quicker charging option.
As stated above, the supplied “Granny” units can be very expensive to replace.
Moving to a 7.0 kw wall box, gave me the opportunity to retire the provided “Granny” unit and use the dedicated wall box !.

 

[JodyS21]

As others have said, it totally depends on your usage/needs - and electricity tariff.

If you want to do all of your charging at a really good low rate, then generally most tariffs will restrict you to only having a few hours in which to do the charge. If this is the case, then dependant on the mileage you do, the granny charger may not be quick enough to allow you to only charge at the super low rate.

We managed with the granny charger for a few months and regularly did 100miles a day. It was just plugged in as soon as got home, 12 hours charging got us by (@2.4kW gave 28.8kWh). But it was costing us about 15p per kWh instead of 5p on the EV cheap rate.


The cheapest 7kW charger I'm sure is getting an Ohme via the Octopus Energy offer at half price - £200. Personally I don't think it works great with the MG, I have to bodge into get it to do my charging at the cheaper rate etc, no real data produced to see what's happened etc.

I've just been talking about something else on here and the Zappi would seem to be very well designed - it seems to have all the functionality you could wish for.

The Pod Point I think it is, seems to have a few issues - can have issues if it drops it's server connection etc.

Depending on your install, you may want one with a PEN (is that the name?) device built in (for earthing).

Main thing, make sure whatever one you get, the app for it will allow you to schedule charges etc how you will want them.

 

[JodyS21]

I charged my previous PHEV for about 6 months by using the provided “Granny” unit.
But decided to have a wall box installed as a better long term and quicker charging option.
As stated above, the supplied “Granny” units can be very expensive to replace.
Moving to a 7.0 kw wall box, gave me the opportunity to retire the provided “Granny” unit and use the dedicated wall box !.

A few people have said the granny units are expensive to replace.
Are we talking about a genuine MG replacement unit that is expensive?
As surely a basic generic granny charger cannot be very expensive can it??

 

[mystreet]

For my 2 pence worth, EO Mini Pro, small enough not to notice it, but big enough to supply the 7Kw and an app to go with it to schedule charging. And comes in a few colours

 

[Popsie5859]

I am trying to make a suitable decision on home charging, use the granny charger or have a charge point fitted. However I read a very good article from an electrician which pointed out the following, if you are not intending to change to a two tier electric rate ie peak/off peak and you are likely to only be charging your car a couple of times a month the take a different route. That route is a new 32amp supply out to a commanding socket and use a lead of your desired length with a commando plug to type two plug. This setup will give you 7kw charging without all the expense of a charging point also the cost of installation will be considerably cheaper as the charger boxes are quite expensive.

 

[Deleted member 2439]

I am trying to make a suitable decision on home charging, use the granny charger or have a charge point fitted. However I read a very good article from an electrician which pointed out the following, if you are not intending to change to a two tier electric rate ie peak/off peak and you are likely to only be charging your car a couple of times a month the take a different route. That route is a new 32amp supply out to a commanding socket and use a lead of your desired length with a commando plug to type two plug. This setup will give you 7kw charging without all the expense of a charging point also the cost of installation will be considerably cheaper as the charger boxes are quite expensive.

That seems a good idea, however is flawed insomuch that the car is unable to set the charge rate - which it will do when balancing. It’s what the little box in the granny cable does. One side talks to the car, the other basically switches the supply on and off to give the correct average rate required by the car. In tech terms it controls the mark/space ratio (on to off) to get the required average. The granny cable is approved/certified, as are the type 2 chargers - the same isn’t the case with a home made cable. All IMO of course, but worthy of consideration nonetheless.

Rob

 

[JodyS21]

I am trying to make a suitable decision on home charging, use the granny charger or have a charge point fitted. However I read a very good article from an electrician which pointed out the following, if you are not intending to change to a two tier electric rate ie peak/off peak and you are likely to only be charging your car a couple of times a month the take a different route. That route is a new 32amp supply out to a commanding socket and use a lead of your desired length with a commando plug to type two plug. This setup will give you 7kw charging without all the expense of a charging point also the cost of installation will be considerably cheaper as the charger boxes are quite expensive.

That is taking the Ohme route, it's what I've got.
I effectively have a dedicated circuit with a 32amp commando socket, I use the commando plug version of the Ohme in it.

Technically this setup isn't compliant/supposed to be used for a permanent EV charging solution, as it doesn't have the necessary earthing requirements.....

If you're not on a two tier electric rate, then I can't see the point in a 7kW charging solution, the granny charger can add about 22kWh in 10 hours.
Unless you're doing over 100 miles on consecutive days, there's enough time to get you recharged with the granny.

 

[LeoRBK]

A few people have said the granny units are expensive to replace.
Are we talking about a genuine MG replacement unit that is expensive?
As surely a basic generic granny charger cannot be very expensive can it??

I think either will cost you few hundred quids. If charging every day we might be better off using a wallbox which comes with a warranty.

 

[Lovemyev]

A few people have said the granny units are expensive to replace.
Are we talking about a genuine MG replacement unit that is expensive?
As surely a basic generic granny charger cannot be very expensive can it??

Yes - The genuine replacement “Granny” units tend to be very expensive, for what they are.
A genuine replacement unit for my previous VW PHEV - was around £450.00 if I remember correctly.
There had been reported cases of failure and a battle to get them replaced under the three year warranty.
This was one of the reasons why I deceived to install a wall box, and then early retire my “Granny” before it failed.
You can purchase a after market cheaper “Granny” but you have to be careful regarding warranty claims.
The dealer will expect customers to charge there cars with the official MG unit.
I know an after market unit is the same thing, but you know what they are like.
Any reason to reject a claim !.

 

[Kithmo]

My situation is, I only do 40-50 miles a week, one or two visits to the local free Tesco chargers a week and a balance charge once a month.
An ideal situation for not needing a 7kW home charger and to use the granny only.
With my usage, I would not have bothered with a home charger had it not been included in the MG "Peace of mind" deal last July.
I wouldn't go to the expense of having any other type of charging system installed, just use the granny.