Electric car query - Do we need an ultra-fast home charger?

[Pipsquiggle]

My DH needs a new car, his current one is knackered.
We are considering going electric.
His car is mainly for his hour commute each way to work - circa 90 miles each day. Or local journeys.
We had an electrician out who informed us that the electricity supply to the garage can't support an ultra fast charger.
My DH is saying he now doesn't want an electric because we HAVE to have an ultra fast charger.
My question is do we really need an ultra fast electric charger at our home? - any examples of why an ultra fast charger is or isn't necessary would be great.
TIA

No you don’t have to have an ultra fast charger a 7Kwh is perfectly fine. The faster ones on the motorway are supposed to reduce battery life if used consistently.

Surely your home charger is fine to be slow since you can plug it in e.g. overnight? And the faster ones are more for when you need to charge quickly like on a long distance drive.

(Not an electric car owner)

No. You do need something more than a 3 pin socket, but unless you have a need to charge the car fully in less than an hour you don't need an ultra fast charger. My milage is less but I've never had a problem with just charging mine for a few hours overnight.

What do you mean by ‘ultra fast’? Most people have 7KwH home chargers, those are the standard. Ultra fast chargers are what you have at motorway service stations etc. but there’s not really any need to have those at home as you charge your car overnight on a cheap rate so it doesn’t matter if it takes 30 mins or four hours.

Or are you meaning a car charger v granny charging on the 3-pin? The latter can work if you do very low mileage but it’s not very convenient.

A 7 kWh charger will give you roughly 7 kw to your car per hour (this is sort of obvious but it does drop a bit I find). Is the 90 miles on motorway?

My EV is 82 kw and on mainly motorway driving would do about 280 miles for that so a third of the battery or roughly 27 kw shall we say … which equates to about 4 hrs charging each night if he does 90 miles a day. But if the car had a bigger battery id charge up once a week and top up when needed

In other words it should be fine

We have a Hypervolt charger which is 7kW and charge overnight. I think 7kW is standard for a home charger and only the public ones are ultra fast. We would need to charge every 2-3 days for a daily 90 mile journey depending on the weather.

AFAIK 7kW is the fastest you can have at home unless you have 3 phase power, which is very unlikely (in which case it would be 22kW). Most people who have chargers have the 7kW option. Some power supplies can only support 3kW, which is possibly what your electrician is talking about. That would still be faster than a 3 pin plug option.

Some people have a dedicated 3 pin plug option fitted, rather than a proper charging point, which would give you about 2.3kW. Depending on the size of your car's battery, that would be an awful lot of charging time - could be like 20 to 30 hours per charge

Usually what people mean when they say an "Ultra fast charger" is the type publicly available e.g. at motorway services. That's not possible at home.

For 90 miles a day I'd definitely recommend a home charger of some type. Maybe look at having the garage's electricity supply upgraded if that's possible or find another location for the charger?

I may go electric soon and I think the electric I have running to my garage won't be sufficient for the charger so I will need new cable running which is a bit of a pain. Is that your situation?

We have ours charging when we have the lowest tarrif. It’s not super fast but it’s frequently charging overnight. You don’t need it super fast - you need it when it’s cheaper! Don’t fully charge either. Around 80% prolongs battery life.

Bog standard 7kW charger is fine. Get on a cheap overnight rate (Octopus is 8p/kWh between 12.30 and 5.30) and make sure you plug in when you get home and have a charging schedule set. The car will start charging when the cheap rate starts. Easy peasy.

They always run a new cable directly from the meter when they install a charger, regardless of where the charger is.

I'm going electric and realised too late that installing the charger to my very distant garage will be ridiculously complicated. It's miles from my meter and crosses other people's property.

Are there any options?

A standards 7kw one will charge most cars from 20 to 80% ( ideal operating range ) overnight. That’s a couple of hundred miles.

Don’t know anyone with ultrafast which I would take to be 22kw or more

if you don’t drive long distances daily , you could get away with a half rate charger ( that would be about 80 to 100 miles worth of charge overnight - probably not right for you )

The charter is fitted from the meter - the location of your garage is irrelevant

edit what does matter is where you park in relation to the meter

I'm not really sure what that means. We have a normal podpoint but we charge overnight to get cheaper electricity.

Our Octopus installer told us his electric van is a PITA to charge because his house is not suitable for a charging point at all. I wondered if maybe work wouldn't pay for it but didn't like to ask. He has to run a cable out through a window, which doesn't fit well with overnight charging.

We have a BYD hybrid that charges on an external regular 3-pin socket next to our driveway. We have a similar use (60 mile round trip commute, all on electric,) and it easily charges overnight.

It's a specific charger that was unofficially recommended by the dealer rather than an emergency charger some cars come with. He did try to sell us their installed charger, but agreed in our circumstances (hybrid, low use, nearby external plug socket) that it wasn't necessary. We have solar panels but don't have a smart meter, so don't use an EV tariff.

Hi thanks for all the answers so far. Lots of knowledge gained.

The meter is in the house.
We park the car by the garage which is about 15m away.

If we parked near the meter none of this would be an issue as we would have a 7KW charger at the side of the house

If we did this properly we would need to dig up the paving at front of the house and also the front garden to lay down an electricity line to the garage.

If we use the current electricity set up in the garage it would be a 3 pin plug set up - which from what I have read, would not be sufficient.

people who make a standard plug work will not drive so far so often and probably have it on charge from getting home till leaving an so you will be on a higher rate ( 4 or 5 times the costs of an overnight charge )

you might just about manage but it’s not great - if you wanted to use the EV to pop to the shops after work , or at the weekend , it would interfere with charging time

@Twasasurprise - we have an external regular 3-pin socket on our garage as well.

My DH & the electrician bloke were both saying we need a 7KW one

My charger is a lot further away from the meter than that - they simply ran the cable round the outside of the house. It was very straightforward. If they have to dig a trench the installers will do so, they are very used to having to lay cables in all sorts of awkward places.

Like everyone else, my charger is a 7kwh. It charges my 82kwh car overnight with no issues at all. We park by the garage, our meter is at the front of the house they just ran the cable down the side of the house.

If you can go electric, I’d highly recommend it. It’s so cheap. My tariff, with Octopus, atm is 7p per kWh overnight but on April 1st it’s going down to 3.49p per kWh.

We also have a 7kwh charger, it had to go on its own circuit hence why the cable has to go from the meter/consumer unit. We also had to have the main fuse upgraded, from 60amp to 100Amp. Only UK Power Networks can do this but it took 40 minutes max (it was more of a faff proving the consumer unit and meter tails were suitable for a 100Amp main fuse).

Yoh don’t need an ultra fast charger at home. You can charge overnight on a slower charge and actually get some quite good energy deals - EDF do one where you get cheaper power between midnight and 5am

No, the home chargers are not ultra fast.

Your DH is right.

Also 7kw is just a regular home charger, not an ultrafast one!