home charger - yay or nay?

tmg

Hey

so I've recently acquired a new (to me) i3 94ah rex.

i have access to charging in work (11kw on the right cable) and have a 3 pin charger too.

I'm trying to decide if I should look for a home charger or not, and if I do, what to go for.

i do have solar, but the car will never be there during the day, so dont need solar charging i'd reckon, and while we have one EV at the moment, we may have two in the near future, so something that handles load balancing might be useful.

its easy enough to run a 32a circuit to the place we want the charger as its close enough to the house fuse panel, but honestly dont know if i have a valid use case for a home charger other than just wanting one

Mickeroo

I would get one if I was you, the convenience of home charging is the best thing about having an EV imo. you'll be glad of it if the work one breaks down or if you need to charge up for whatever reason when you're not at work.

Since you have solar I would get a zappi but if you're sure that would be a waste then get a rolec or similar for a good bit less than a zappi costs.

krissovo

ABC......Always be charging, I think you will find home charging is the most convent charging available even with the REX. I charge at work but in the last 2 months we have gone from 6 chargers and 5 EV’s to at least 15 EV’s and PHEV’s all looking for juice so its hit and miss.

I am getting a reliable 160 / 180kms with my 94ah BEV so i can go 2 days but we just plug in at home now and always start with 100% as you never know what may come up. The I3 battery is solid so no point trying to manually manage it like i do with my leaf.

I use Wallbox+ From easgo, actually i now have 2 so we can plug in both our EV’s. They have load sensing and i can use a app to balance each output to have both charging or boost one of them to max.

slave1

...and you qualify for the €600 grant so factor that in

KCross

Get a home charger. You need to think of the future. What happens if the work charger is busy or broken and what happens when you are on holidays for a few weeks or you change job etc etc.

The €600 grant for it might also not be there when you decide in a few years to get one. Not many reasons really to not do it. It gives you more flexibility. Get it.

If you want cheap and cheerful Rolec.
If you want something better you have loads to pick from... Garo, EO etc. At the end of the day they all do much the same.... charge the car each day!

Note: If you dont have electric showers, you dont really need a load sensing charge point. When you have two EV's you can get a load sensing charge point for the second one and that will do. i.e. Both dont need to load sense so cheap and cheerful will do you for now, particularly since you dont plan to use it much.

adunis

This is such a non question,don't be a tight wad get a charger FFS.

Shefwedfan

tmg wrote: »

Hey

so I've recently acquired a new (to me) i3 94ah rex.

i have access to charging in work (11kw on the right cable) and have a 3 pin charger too.

I'm trying to decide if I should look for a home charger or not, and if I do, what to go for.

i do have solar, but the car will never be there during the day, so dont need solar charging i'd reckon, and while we have one EV at the moment, we may have two in the near future, so something that handles load balancing might be useful.

its easy enough to run a 32a circuit to the place we want the charger as its close enough to the house fuse panel, but honestly dont know if i have a valid use case for a home charger other than just wanting one

As of today I have two charge points installed....


Why spend tens of thousands on a car and then not bother spending a few hundred quid to get a charge point?

tmg

a quick check shows "adunis has not made any friends yet"

cant imagine why

adunis wrote: »

This is such a non question,don't be a tight wad get a charger FFS.

tmg

ordered up a garo one this afternoon after the good advice on here. thanks folks

Shefwedfan

tmg wrote: »

ordered up a garo one this afternoon after the good advice on here. thanks folks

It’s worth considering if you need two charger in future will the Garo auto sense down?

adunis

Tmg this is Billy no mates here just be aware that the WiFi element if the garo is crap,it's basically a raspberry pi strapped on ,not worth the extra money if you went for that one can be daisy chained and demand controlled and all that good stuff haven't heard a single bad thing about em,mines untethered just neater imo

KCross

adunis wrote: »

... mines untethered just neater imo

The hassle of taking a cable in/out everyday would be too much for me to just have it neater. It needs to be functional and easy to use too. Each to their own I suppose.

listermint

tmg wrote: »

ordered up a garo one this afternoon after the good advice on here. thanks folks

Ah to be fair.

It's a fiercely odd question


Buys electric car questions whether he should have the ability to power it from home......


What if you lost the job.

road_high

Defeats the purpose of having one really as the real beauty is the ability to charge at home and overnight when the cars stationary

Zenith74

tmg wrote: »

ordered up a garo one this afternoon after the good advice on here. thanks folks

You got your grant letter yet? You can only get the €600 for money spent after the letter arrives. If not, cancel the charger, get the letter, re-order the charger.

tmg

Zenith74 wrote: »

You got your grant letter yet? You can only get the €600 for money spent after the letter arrives. If not, cancel the charger, get the letter, re-order the charger.

yep - letter arrived earlier this week, so all good!

Tmg this is Billy no mates here just be aware that the WiFi element if the garo is crap,it's basically a raspberry pi strapped on ,not worth the extra money if you went for that one can be daisy chained and demand controlled and all that good stuff haven't heard a single bad thing about em,mines untethered just neater imo

i hadnt intended to get any of the "internet enabled" stuff as I have no idea what thats for - i have a meter that logs power on a minute by minute basis for the whole house and I have the app for the car, so can see if its charging or not, so was not super convinced, and with what you said above, i definitely wont be going for the wifi enabled one - thanks!