EV Charging FAQs

At-home EV charging is an excellent option. It will allow you to start your day with a ‘full tank’. Dedicated EV home chargers will deliver your car with around 7kW of power. To fully charge an electric car at home will cost around £6.

In fact, this is less than a public rapid charger, which will cost between £7 and £10 to change an EV to 80%.

After all, this will depend on the location of the charger, the tariff, energy cost, the capacity of your battery, charging speed and the original charge level.

However, charging an EV will far undercut the price of a full charge for petrol and diesel cars.

You will need to turn your EV off to start charging. Yet, once the vehicle’s plugged in, you’ll be able to power the radio and heating.

For safety reasons, the power steering and any ability to move the vehicle will be disabled whilst you are charging.

A full charge for an EV will take around 8 hours. However, you’ll often find that this is rarely needed.

Of course, charging your electric vehicle works differently from refuelling a petrol or diesel vehicle. Instead of stopping to fill the car up completely, most electric vehicle owners choose to top up their charge whenever the car is stationary.

You could be at home, in the shops, or charging during a quick 10-minute stop-off en route.

With an at-home EV charger, you’ll remove the worry of finding a charger out and about, and you could even charge your battery fully overnight. Typically, on an at-home EV 7kW charger, it will take around 4 to 8 hours to charge your car to full.

Most EVs in the UK will be compatible with most chargers. Often, if you are looking to charge your car at a non-rapid charging point, you will have to supply your cable, but this will likely come with your vehicle.

When non-rapid charging an EV, your vehicle will have either a Type 1 inlet socket or a Type 2 inlet socket.

Luckily, as your car comes with a cable, you’ll have the plug that your car needs and the charger end will be compatible with all chargers.

The UK government does offer grants to support the use of electric vehicles.

The Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme (EVHS) will enable buyers of electric vehicles to receive a grant of up to 75% (max. £350) of the total purchase and installation costs of one EV charger for their home.

This scheme will likely expand further to cover those in flats, leasehold property and rental homes.

Grants are also available for the installation of an EV charger at work. This scheme provides the upfront costs for purchasing and installing a charger in vouchers.

A typical at-home EV charger installation takes around 2 – 3 hours. Of course, the exact time will come down to the charging unit type, where you place the unit in relation to the power supply and whether any additional work is needed to complete the installation.

It is estimated by the Energy Saving Trust that 80% of electric car charging takes place at home. In fact, they recommend that EV drivers install a dedicated charge point, simply because it makes charging your EV much quicker and more convenient compared to using a three-pin socket.

As mentioned above, a home storage battery will likely come with a manufacturer warranty of 10 years. Therefore you will be covered if you have problems within the first ten years of ownership. More often than not, a home battery will keep working for 15 years or more.