Electric vehicles are undoubtedly the future. With the ICE ban coming into effect in the future all over the world, the number of people driving electric cars will increase dramatically.
One of the problems facing people who may want to make the switch to an electric car is where to charge it. There are dedicated EV charging stations in car parks and petrol stations, but home charging is essential for electric car owners. Here’s a rundown of how to charge your electric car at home and what you will need.
Install a charging point
The first thing you need to do to charge your electric car at home is to install a charging point where the car will be parked. The charging point needs to be on an exterior wall or the garage and be safely connected to the mains supply. These charging points are small, wall-mounted units that either have a connected cable or a socket for portable EV cables.
The government OLED grant should help you with the cost of this; the grant offers drivers 75% of the cost of purchasing and installing a home charging point (up to a maximum of £500). These charging points must be installed by an approved professional.
Socket
The next step to be able to charge your electric car at home is to install the correct socket on your charging point. Standard charge point sockets will use a type 2 AC connector which will fit all EV charging cables. These home charge points use single-phase 7kW charging, which is the same as most public charging points, though three-phase charging is available at some large commercial sites.
It is possible to charge an electric car via a standard UK 3-pin plug socket and the correct cable, but dedicated home charging points will charge the car much faster. Charging an EV via a 3-pin plug will give you on average 8 miles driving per hour charged, whereas a standard single-phase 7kW charging point gives 25 miles on average per hour charged.
Cables
To get the correct cables to charge your electric car at home, you need to have an understanding of your EV connection type. The cables you will need vary by the model of car. All these cables will have a type 2 connection on one end to fit your home charging point socket but, for AC cables, the other end can be either type 1 or 2. Type 1 is only capable of single-phase charging and most new EVs use a Type 2 connector.
If you want to work out your cable type, you can use our handy EV connection type calculator.
It is important to have your cables in the car, ready to take with you if you’re driving a long way so that you can top up your car’s power at a dedicated charging point.
While rapid DC charging is available for electric vehicles, this uses a lot of power from the grid, and these are only found in dedicated rapid charging stations, for charging en route when the home charge is not sufficient for completing the journey. These charging stations usually have cables attached with both a CHAdeMO and CCS connector, again, with the type of connection required unique to the car model.
That’s all you need to set up your home to charge your electric car. Just make sure the installation of a charging point is carried out by a professional, and take advantage of the government OLED grant to keep down the costs.
If you need to buy EV charging cables, EV sockets or cable holsters, you can view our range.
